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.