Ride to Warsaw - By Way Of Rochester

I arrived at the mall parking lot early (forgot we left at 11:30AM, not 11:00AM) so I sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes waiting for someone to show up.  Memory is going, going, gone!  I wasn't as bad as a couple guys, who shall remain nameless, that came to the 11:30AM ride at 8:00AM, thinking it was Saturday, not Wednesday!  After saddling-up, we rode down south on the by-pass to meet Charlie, but for some reason, never got together.  Five of us rode north to lunch at Wabash Gardens in Wabash, Indiana:

We rode up to North Manchester from Wabash and turned west on Indiana 114 to ride up to Rochester.  We turned north in Rochester, on Indiana 25, and went north to Warsaw.  On the way to Warsaw we went through Mentone, Indiana.  "The Egg Breadbasket of the Midwest".  They have a large egg downtown to prove it:

Merle was back riding with us.  He can only see out of one eye and he thought I stopped to take a picture of the Dollar General Store, not seeing the egg:

We rode over to Warsaw and around the south edge of town, as I didn't want to try to ride through all the stoplights.  We rode east over to Indiana 13 and then south to North Manchester.  At North Manchester we stopped at "our home away from home", McDonald's, for ice cream:

After ice cream, it was on home.

Riding today were:  John Nave, Larry Miller, Merle Combs, Billy Niverson, and myself.

I rode 152 miles.  The temperature was in the high 80s and humid.

Ride to Bridgeton, Indiana

Six of us rode down to Richard's restaurant, at Elwood, Indiana, this morning.  We ate breakfast before starting out on our ride to Bridgeton, Indiana.  Larry Miller had places to go so he went home from Richard's.

At Richard's in Elwood, Indiana.

 David Payne joined us today on his Honda Shadow


The five of us headed south to Bridgeton.

When we started riding I noticed that my GPS wasn't on and it is suppose to boot-up when the bike starts.  I had to do a reset as we rode along (push the "Plus" button and the "Power" button at the same time).  After the unit reset, all seemed well until we got to Lebanon where the "lady in the GPS" told me "when possible, make a U turn".  That's always a bad sign and it means "she's" lost.  I got it straightened out, but not before losing Billy and David.  I rode back and found them in the middle of Lebanon and we resumed our ride.

All was well until we got down near Raccoon Lake State Recreational Area.  When my GPS unit reset, it went to "factory settings", which is "Shortest Distance" on calculations.  We needed "Fastest Time", on calculations.  So, the next thing I knew, we were on gravel roads!  It may have been shortest distance, but in southern Indiana, that means going down roads that humans haven't traveled in a long time.  In all, we rode about 12 miles on loose gravel, but we eventually made it to Bridgeton.

I heard about the gravel roads, as I knew I would!  My theory is, motorcycles are meant to be ridden almost anywhere, gravel roads included.  In the early days all roads were dirt and gravel.  So there! :)

We ate lunch at The General Store before walking over to the covered bridge.

 We walked through the bridge and it's a beauty.

Here's the dam and water flowing below the bridge.

Here's a link to the Bridgeton website:

http://www.bridgetonindiana.com/

Be sure to click on "History" at the top of the web page.

Here's from the Wikipedia article on Bridgeton:
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The first Bridgeton Covered Bridge was a 245-foot (75 m) long double span Burr Arch bridge built in 1868 by a crew led by J.J. Daniels. The bridge was closed to traffic in 1968. The first Bridgeton Covered Bridge was burned by an arsonist on April 28, 2005.

The second Bridgeton Covered Bridge was built in 2006 by local citizens and the state of Indiana.
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We left Bridgeton and rode to Rockville where we bought gas.  Then on to Frankfort for ice cream, and home.

Before we left Bridgetown I gave my "we have to stay close together to get through all the stoplights" speech.  I was so happy, and gave a fist pump, when we rode all the way through Crawfordsville, with all of us making it through town, without losing anyone.  Crawfordsville is a hard town to ride through, together, as there's so many stoplights and turns.  We always get separated there, but not today!  To be honest, there were only five of us and with any more riders, it would have probably been a different story.

Rode today:

Billy Niverson
Larry Miller
John Nave
Art Adrianson
David Payne
Larry Davis

I rode 292 miles and had a nice time.  It was a little warm, 84 degrees, but nice weather.

Gravel roads ridden.

Total trip ridden.

Greenville, Ohio

Five of us rode over to Greenville, Ohio, today.  We ate lunch at The Mill Street Restaurant, in Gaston, and then I led the group east, out of Gaston.  We rode over to US 35 and IN 28 and went east to Albany, Ridgeville, and Union City, Indiana.  We picked up Ohio 571 at Union City, Ohio and went east to Greenville, Ohio.

Half of Union City is in Indiana and half is in Ohio.  Just before we arrived in Union City, I stopped and took this picture of a wind turbine:

I had never seen a two-bladed wind turbine before, only three-bladed.  It looked odd to me, like a big airplane propeller.


I read here: http://www.winchesternewsgazette.com/articles/2010/02/13/news/doc4b7576cf3ede8484137533.txt that there will be two of them.

Jerry Cole bought gas in Union City, Ohio and a man at the station said the wind turbines have not worked, so far.

When we arrived at Greenville, Ohio we were greeted with a "round-about" in the center of the city.  I wasn't sure how they worked but caught on quickly that everyone yields to go in, and then you get out where you want.  I've read that "round-abouts" are very common in Europe, especially England, but I've not ran into very many here in the U.S.  The "Circle", in Indianapolis, is one of the few I've seen.  Of course, we all got separated going through the "round-about", but we got back together at the stop lights.

Greenville is another pretty Ohio town.  Ohio seems blessed with pretty towns.

We then headed north on US 127 to Celina, where we stopped at our favorite restaurant for pie and coffee.  They are still working on Ohio 29/IN67 so we detoured down south on Ohio 49 to Fort Recovery, Ohio and then went west on Ohio 119 to IN 26 back to Portland, and then on home.  I got home around six PM.  A very nice ride and a beautiful day to ride.  I told one of the guys that today is a "blessing".  Temperatures in the high 70s, clear skies,  and little wind.

Rode today: Larry Miller, John Nave, Jerry Cole, Bill Niverson, and myself.

202 miles rode in about seven hours.

Short Ride Today

With rain threating, seven of us rode north to Huntington, Indiana today for lunch.  We ate at:

Jerry Cole and Larry Burk are checking out Bill Niverson's T-Rex's new bumper (I should have taken a picture) at The Country Post Restaurant's parking lot.

After lunch we rode east and south to Bluffton.  The sky was dark and cloudy toward the north, but no rain yet.  When we were east of Bluffton, the pain in my elbow and shoulder started to "flair up" (I always have problems with my joints when the pressure changes) so I told Merle I thought I would go home .  Since it looked like we were going to get rained on, and the temperature and humidity were very high,  everyone else decided it was time to cut our trip short.  John Nave rode with me as we rode west out of Bluffton toward Marion.  The wind was gusting fierce as we rode west on IN. 124.  I saw a pick-up truck get blown off the side of the road.  He pulled it back on pretty quickly.  No rain until we got close to the intersection of IN 9 and IN 128 (Garden of Memories) and then it started to sprinkle.  John rode on south on IN 9, into the rain, and I rode west on IN 128, toward La Fontaine.  I hoped to get in behind the rain, which I did.  The road was wet, but no more rain.  What was funny was, as soon as we got into the sprinkles the temperature must have dropped ten degrees, or more, and my arm almost quit hurting.  Must have been the pressure change!  When I got within two miles of my house the roads turned dry.  No rain at all at my house.  It must be Indiana!  Pouring rain one place and dry two miles away.

Rode today:  Bill Niverson, John Nave, Jerry Cole, Merle Combs, Larry Miller, Larry Burk, and myself.

As always, it was nice to see the guys but it was a miserable day to ride.

I rode for about an hour before our ride so I had additional miles on my track above.  Total for the day was 124 miles.

Roann and Beyond

So,  Jerry Cole wanted to ride to Roann and since no one knew how to get there, I plugged it into my GPS at Wabash Gardens, where the seven of us ate lunch, and off we went.  Up Indiana State Hi-way 15 we went north.  Over hill and dale and country roads.  It was a beautiful day with the temperatures in the high 70s, low 80s.  We cruised along and looked at the sites.  Finally we came into Roann from the south, a new way for us.  We rode through the covered bridge:

Stopped at the boat access point on the Eel River to look at the ducks, geese, and maybe a swan.

We went down to the dam and checked out the mill along side the river.

We rode over to South Whitney. I started to turn south, toward home, but John Nave rode up beside me and told me we had to go to McDonald's.  I entered "Food", "Fast Food", and McDonald's popped up and it was only 10.4 miles away in Columbia City.  I entered "GO" and away we went.  We ran into a road block where county hi-way workers was spreading tar and then putting rocks over the tar.  We finally got through and rode about three miles on loose rocks.  Not much fun as the rocks had not worked their way into the tar yet and it was very loose.  We continued on to Columbia City McDonald's and we ate our treat (mine being a chocolate sundae with nuts.)  After our treat, we headed home down IN St Rd 9 through Huntington.  What a great ride.

I shot this picture of the Wabash County Court House while we were waiting on a train to clear the crossing in Wabash:

I couldn't get over how much this court house looks like the one in Columbia City.  In fact, many of the Indiana court houses look like this.  It's a beauty!

128 wonderful miles today.

New Times

After some deliberation, we've decided to revert back to our old meeting times of 11:30 AM on Wednesdays, and 8:00AM on Saturdays.  Still at Gabriel's Restaurant on the south end of the Marion Mall parking lot (the old Olive Garden building).

Medora Covered Bridge

We took a "special" ride today down to Medora covered bridge.  It was special in that we rode on Friday.  Merle decided it was going to rain Saturday so we should take advantage of the clear weather on Friday.  Merle took us down the east side of Indiana to Seymour.

Following Merle:

We then headed west to Medora.  Medora is just a small town in southern Indiana but it has a world famous bridge near there.  In fact, it's the longest covered bridge in the U.S.--460 feet long!  It's a triple span bridge spanning the east fork of the White River.

 

Link to the bridge: Medora Covered Bridge

Here's a look at the inside of the bridge (it's no longer open to traffic and is being rebuilt):

A sign posted on the end of the bridge:

After the bridge visit we rode up to Brown County along the east side of Brown County State Park.  Beautiful ride along there.  We then traveled the scenic, curving, roads back up north from Nashville, Indiana to Martinsville, Indiana.  From Martinsville, we rode back home on the west side of Indianapolis.  On the way home we rode over the bridge at Morse Lake at Cicero, Indiana:

Cicero link:  Morse Lake

We arrived home after a twelve hour ride (with many stops) and traveled 343 miles by my odometer.  It was a nice ride but hot-94 degrees.

Spencerville Ride

We rode to Spencerville, Ohio, today for lunch.

From Wikipedia:

"Spencerville was built on the new Miami and Erie Canal ca. 1840. The canal made the area quite prosperous through the 1850s, when railroads began supplanting the slower canal system."

We rode along the canal for a while and then rode over to Mendon, Ohio to "Jim's Harley Davidson" to see the museum Jim has at his dealership.  We rode through Wapakoneta, Ohio  (hard to get the complete name on the water tower) to get to Jim's place:

Wapakoneta, Ohio is the boyhood home of Neal Armstrong.  There's a museum there honoring Neal but we did not go there as I didn't know about it until I got home.  Here's a link to the museum:

Neil Armstrong Museum

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Jim's Harley Davidson museum is really nice and he has an extensive collection of Harley Davidson memorabilia.  We visited Jim's place once before and the pictures are here:

Medon, Ohio HD 

After Mendon, we rode down to The Pullman Restaurant at Celina, Ohio, for pie and ice cream, and then rode on home.

220 miles and near ninety degrees.

Culver Military Academy

We rode up to Culver Military Academy today.  We (twelve of us) stopped at the restaurant across from Grissom Reserve Air Force Base, near Peru,  for a quick breakfast and a cup of coffee before starting our ride up north:

We rode through areas that had standing water from all the rain they received up north of us.  A couple places the water ran over the road surface causing us to slow down to a crawl.  This has been one of the wettest months of May in Indiana history.

After arriving in Culver, we rode around Lake Maxinkuckee that sets beside Culver, Indiana.  Culver is the home of The Culver Military Academy.

A link to Culver Military Academy: Click here to go to Culver Website


Lake "Max":

Some of the buildings at Culver Military Academy:

Culver Academy is known for it's soccer, rowing, and equestrian teams.

They had a lot of standing water at the Academy soccer fields--the tents are a nice touch.

After a "riding tour" of The Academy, we stopped  at The Dairy Queen for ice cream, and then rode home.

I rode 187 miles today.  Beautiful weather.

Our Ride To Moscow

Moscow, Indiana, that is.  In June 3, 2008 a tornado tore through Moscow, Indiana and caused terrible destruction and the lost of one life.  The lady killed by the tornado was 66 year old Diane Hester.  Also destroyed was the Moscow Covered Bridge.  The bridge was built in 1886 and was 346 feet long.  It spanned the Big Flatrock river.  Here's what it looked like before it was tossed into the river by the F3-F5 tornado:

And here's links to some more information about the bridge and tornado:

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/indiana_covered_bridge_14_70_07.htm

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/16488072/detail.html#

Larry Burk mentioned to me that we ought to ride down there and see the work being done to restore the covered bridge.  I love seeing old covered bridges, so I set up a ride down to Moscow.

Seven set off on the ride, but soon one of us had to go home.  I'll not say why, but duty called.  Six of us carried on.  The weather forecast was for 68 degrees, later in the day, but as we rode south the temperature started dropping and eventually got down to 49 degrees.  As some of us had summer clothes on, it got down right chilly.  We stopped on the south side of Anderson at a McDonald's to warm up with a cup of hot coffee.  Continuing on south, after the break, we made it all the way to Rushville before stopping again at McDonald's.  That's about our ride time, one hour before stopping.  Then on down to the Moscow Covered bridge.  At the bridge, we met Mr. Arthur Gatewood Jr. who is a professional photographer from Fortville, Indiana.  He was there taking pictures of the bridge and shared with us information about the bridge and what happened during the tornado.  Here's a picture of the new span that's in place:

And a picture of the second, longer, span still on the ground:

Here's the Flatrock river:

Here's a movie I took of the bridge (click on thumbnail to play movie):




After looking at the work in progress we headed back east to eat lunch at The Dutch Mill Buffet near Milroy, Indiana.  Here we are enjoying the buffet:

Here's a link to a pdf of the restaurant (you'll need Adobe Acrobat to view it-get that here):

http://get.adobe.com/reader/)

http://www.dutchmillbuffet.com/july%207%2009%20Menu%20Draft.pdf

All in all, a nice ride.  182 miles and chilly.

Hicksville..

Well, I always thought that most places I've been in my life was "hicksville", but yesterday really was!

Nine of us took off for parts unknown, yesterday morning, from our new meeting place at Gabriel's Pancake House in Marion, Indiana.  I led the ride as our usual leader, Merle, was "under the weather".  I had no idea where we were going except north.  First stop was McDonald's at North Manchester for coffee.  Then we headed north for "The Lakes".  I had some idea about touring Lake Wawasee or Lake Tippecanoe but when I got up to U.S. 6,  I decided to go east.  No reason, just "wandering.  That's what I like to do on my motorcycle, wander.  We stopped at Kendalville for lunch and then continued east to St. Rd. 49 in Ohio.  We turned south on St. Rd. 49 and traveled south through Ohio.  My "goal in life" is to lead us to roads we have never traveled.  I'd say yesterday, I completed my goal.  We were all over the Ohio country side on back roads.  That's how we came to be in The Village of Hicksville, Ohio.

http://www.villageofhicksville.com/around-the-village.php

I must say, The Village of Hicksville was one of the prettiest towns I've ever been in.  It has a great downtown with many blocks of small stores.  The entire town is as clean and neat as you could want.  I don't know why some small towns are so nice while others are rundown and dirty.  Hicksville has a new elementary school (being a retired teacher I always notice the schools) that is really magnificent looking.  All brick and very big.

After we left Hicksville we went south down to Payne, Ohio.  I rode past the Wildcat Creek Popcorn Farm before I knew it or I would have pulled in and bought some popcorn.  They sell the greatest popcorn in the world---white chocolate covered almond popcorn!  You have to taste it to know how good popcorn can be!  Here's their website:

http://www.wildcatcreekpopcorn.com/

Anyway, we wound our way down country roads until we picked up U.S. 224 and then headed west to Decatur, where we stopped for gas.  It was a fast run (the sky looked like rain and we did get sprinkled on) back to Bluffton and home.  I didn't realize it at the time but we made a round-robin trip around Fort Wayne.

227 miles in total and I was tired.  Very nice ride and a good day.

Not A Nice Day For Riding..

It was raining when I was ready to leave the house for the Outpost, so I went by car.  Eight of us showed up.  We were waited on by our wait-persons,

Joni:

And Cori:

It was decided, by mutual consent, that we would move the meeting place for the rides to Gabriels Pancake House on the Marion By-Pass (where Ugalde's restaurant used to be, by the Mall) and move the times to 9:00 AM for both Wednesday and Saturday rides.  If the weather is bad we can meet and go into Gabriels Pancake House to eat.  I think, if the weather is bad, I'll just skip breakfast at home and eat breakfast when I get to the meeting.  We will have to iron out the details as we see what happens at the first meetings.  Any suggestions are welcome in the comments.

A Trip To Southside Harley Davidson

We rode down to Harley Southside today.  Eight of us rode down to Rachel's Hi Way Restaurant on the south side of Alexandria for lunch.  Nice place and pretty good food.  Not as good as The Outpost, but O.K.  We went past Anderson on IN. 9 by-pass.  What an awful by-pass.  The traffic is bad and there are stoplights every block, it seems.  We ran into a lot of road construction down around the south side of Indy.  It seems like road construction starts earlier each year.  We had three riders drop off as we got farther down south.  Five of us visited Southside HD:

There were a few extra customer bikes (plus ours) shown here at Southside HD.

Here's the four guys riding with me:

Jerry Cole, John Nave, Billy Niverson, and Merle Combs at the front of the store:

Of course, while there, I HAD to buy a new T-shirt:

Front, and here's the back:

I don't really need any more T-shirts but the art work was so beautiful I HAD to buy it.  My wife says it's a little "racy" but when you're my age a little racy is O.K. :)  It's like a dog chasing a car;  if I caught it I wouldn't know what to do with it! :)

We went to a McDonald's (of course) right beside Southside HD for hot fudge sundaes and then took off for home.

We came back home on I-465 around Indy.  As John says after we got off I-465, "That was fun!".  I think he was being sarcastic, but maybe not.  I finally saw the light bar on top of the Indiana State Police car that was  following me as I was going to pass a semi-truck and I pulled back in.  He didn't seem to mind everyone going 70 MPH in a 55 MPH zone.  If you don't go 70 MPH the other cars will run over you!  You sure are "exposed" sitting on a motorcycle going that fast with cars all around you.  I wondered how many "drivers" were texting on their cell phones.  We rode back home on IN 37 and that was a nice ride.  I sure like the two lane rodes better than the Interstate highways.  The Interstate highways are fine when you're out in rural areas, but around cities, they are too much for me on a motorcycle.

163 miles total on the trip.  Beautiful 82 degrees for a high temperature.