Ride With The Governor....Well, Not Really!

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and a few of his friends (over 500 motorcyclist) rode north from Indianapolis to Brookston, Indiana where they stopped for lunch.  The group later rode to Plymouth, Indiana. 

Above:  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels rides his Harley Davidson Fat Boy into the parking lot of Pioneer Middle School parking lot at Brookston, Indiana.

Above: The Governor (green hat, blue shirt) getting his picture taken (with the lady in the white top and black vest).

Above: The parking lot at Pioneer Middle School in Brookston, Indiana was overflowing with over 500 motorcycles.

John Nave, Billy Niverson, and myself, Larry Davis, joined the group of riders at Brookston where I shot this video.  The three of us rode on to Fowler and  Kentland, Indiana, before returning home.












(This video was taken with a HD camcorder so you can watch in HD by clicking on 720p or 1080p once the video starts.  Click on the "up arrow" below the "YOU" in You Tube.)


Footnote: I say in the video that "about one forth of the riders are women".  Actually, it's about one in ten.

The riders continued coming in, but I quit taping after six minutes as I was tired of holding the camera.  I should have bought a tripod with me.

The ride was a little "spur of the moment" so I wasn't fully prepared.  I should have invited more of our riders, and done so sooner, but I wasn't sure if I was going to ride over there.  I apologize to those I forgot to ask or asked too late.

Here's the route we rode. It's a good one to see all the wind turbines.  West on IN 18 to Brookston (where the wind turbines start) to Fowler, then up to Kentland.  Back east on US 24 to Wolcott and then south on US 231 back to IN 18. 


(Click on the picture below to see a larger picture of the route)

We use to ride all the way to Fowler to see the wind turbines/windmills.  Then, as they built more of them, we rode to I-65 and saw them.  Now, you can see them before you get to Brookston.  Nearly 900 are planned.  That would make it one of the largest wind farms in the world.

August 13th, 2010.  (Friday the 13th) Temperature was 96 degrees.  I rode 226 miles on this ride.

Ride to Clear Lake

I saw Clear Lake on a map and decided to set up a ride to include a visit.  Clear Lake is in the extreme NE section of Indiana and I had never been up there.  We rode to The Outpost Restaurant near Fairmount for breakfast.  After breakfast, six of us headed north.  We rode up IN 3 to I-469 around Ft. Wayne and exited on IN 37 north to Harlan, Indiana.  Not knowing that Harlan was having a parade, Saturday, we rode right into another parade.  I say "another" as this was our third parade we "involuntarily" rode in.  Actually, the parade had not started yet, but it felt like a parade as traffic was moving slowly and hundreds of people were lining the streets as we crept though town.  The horses and buggies had already ridden through so there were many "deposits" to dodge as we made our way through town.  For such a small town, they had many more people lining the streets than I would have thought possible.  Larry Miller had told me he was going to just ride a few hours with us and when he saw the "parade", he turned and headed home.  We rode on over into Ohio to Hicksville for a coffee break:

Hicksville McDonald's

Hicksville was preparing for a parade but it had not started yet:

Main Street Hicksville, Ohio

I'd planned on going due north into Michigan but a couple of riders didn't have their helmets with them so I decided to head for Angola for "gas and gas".  Lunch and fuel.  We rode to Angola, Indiana to McDonald's, of course.  After buying fuel I decided to head west, but then changed my mind, and decided to ride northeast to Clear Lake.  Clear Lake is a very pretty lake with many sailboats and water skiers:

Close up:

The guys parked while I took pictures:

After we rode half way around Clear Lake, we headed west.  We rode on some very nice roads all the way to Orland, Indiana.  We stopped in Orland and I programmed my GPS for the quickest was to Columbia City as I wanted to head south and go home.  For some reason, my GPS took us south and then east to I-69 and south on I-69.  We got off I-69 at the US 6 exit (they were doing rode construction on I-69) and rode to Garrett for ice cream.  We then rode south to Columbia City, Huntington, and home.  I think the reason my GPS took us off secondary roads (the ones we like to ride) and onto the Interstate was the mode was set on "Motorcycle" and not "Scooter" where I usually have it set.  In "Scooter" mode it won't take you on Interstate Highways.

We had a nice time and ride.  I rode 291 miles

Riders today were: Larry Burke, Larry Miller, John Nave, Billy Niverson, Art Adrianson, and myself.

Close up map:

 

Overall map:

Short Ride In The Rain

We started out on our ride with great trepidation as we all thought it would rain.  We stopped after a short ride out of the Mall parking lot and put on our rain gear.  All but John, who didn't have his gear with him.  Off to Ugalde's Family Restaurant at Warren for breakfast we rode.  I wanted to go someplace different, for breakfast, and the place at Warren sounded like it would fill the bill.  We had a nice breakfast and it started to sprinkle just as we left the building.

I planned on riding along the river from Andrews west to Wabash and if it didn't rain, I thought we could ride the Wabash river to Peru.  I thought perhaps riding slow along the river, in the rain, would be better than out on the highway, especially under the trees.  As we rode along west on IN 124 it started raining harder and harder.  As we went North on IN 9 toward Huntington, it got even worse.  I asked John how he was doing when we stopped at the stoplight at Huntington and he said he was ready to go home.

Unknown to me, Billy had "abandon ship" when we got to IN 9 and went home.  I can't imagine riding in the T-Rex in a heavy rain is much fun.  It's pretty open and the rain would come right into the cockpit.  John and Art Adrianson turned and went home while Art Heer, Larry Miller, and I contiuned on down US 24 to turn off at Andrews.  The three of us "rode the river" until the rain became so heavy I couldn't see anymore (my glasses were wet on the back and front plus fogging up) and I decided to call it a day.  I followed my new GPS (Gamin Zumo 660) trough the countryside back to IN 105, and then south to IN 9, and on home.  Thanks to the GPS I never get lost and can see which roads to follow to get back home, even in heavy rain.

The sad part of the story was that I was only home for about and hour, the skies cleared, and we had clear skies the rest of the day.  I had looked forward to a full day of riding, as I'm sure some of the other guys had, also.  Oh well, there's always next time.

Riding today were Art Adrianson, Art Heer, Larry Miller, John Nave, Billy Niverson, and myself.

P.S.  Thanks for the breakfast, John!

I only rode 76 miles and it was miserable.

Adam's Mill Revisted

We rode over to Burlington to "The Dinner Bell" for lunch.  There were six of us including Art Heer:

Art is on the left and Charley Thomas on the right.

It springled rain a little while we were eating, not much, just enough to "spot" the bikes.  We rode over to Adam's Mill after eating.  We were surprised to see the dam had washed away sometime over the winter or spring.

It looked like they had poured concrete over earth to form the dam and the earth had washed away under the concrete.  Without support from the earth, the concrete collapsed and washed away.

Billy Niverson walked out on the dam and "inspected" it:

 
Art Heer gave it a look, also:

We rode through the covered bridge, that is there, and then on home.  It was very hot--the thermometer at The Via Credit Union said 95 degrees so it was just as well we made a short ride.

Riding today: John Nave, Billy Niverson, Art Heer, Charley Thomas, Larry Burke, and myself.

I rode 135 miles and had a nice time.

P.S. The food at the Dinner Bell sure was good, especially since Larry Burke paid for my meal! :)

Ride to Roanoke

Seven of us rode to Roanoke to eat:

and rode up to my son's house, in Ft.Wayne, to surprise him with a picture of us sitting in front of his house:

My son, my daughter-in-law, and my granddaughter are vacationing at their place at Long Lake so I thought I'd surprise them.  After finding our way out of their subdivision, we rode home.

Riding today were John Nave, Jerry, Cole, Larry Burke, Charley Thomas, Larry Miller, Billy Niverson, and myself.

Hagerstown

Larry Burke led six of us down to The Sunshine Cafe, in Muncie, Indiana.

After a great breakfast, we rode down south to Prairie Creek Reservoir and rode about 2/3rds the way around the reservoir.  I led the group down south to Hagerstown (Dave Payne "peeled off" after about an hour to go home).  I knew there was to be an "Off To Oshkosh Fly-In" at Hagerstown next Tuesday, July 20, 2010, and thought there might already be some airplanes at the Hagerstown Airport.  There was one.  An N3 Pup with a VW four cylinder engine.  A very nice, light, aircraft.

  He took-off while we were there:

After we left the airport we went south to Interstate 70 and stopped at McDonald's for a senior coffee and an apple pie.

We then rode back up north to Farmland and Redkey on Indiana 1 to Indiana 26 where we turned west to Hartford City and on west to Upland.  We stopped at Ivanhoe's at Upland for ice cream.

It was near 90 degrees and all of us drank several glasses of ice water besides the ice cream.  We split-up at Ivanhoe's and rode home.

Riding today were:  Billy Niverson, Larry Miller, Larry Burke, David Payne, John Nave, and Larry Davis.

We rode about 177 miles and it was very nice.

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.