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.

A Little Nippy!

I woke up this morning to 31 degrees and wondered if it would be too cold to ride today.  Luckily, it warmed up nicely by 10:00AM and so off I rode to the Outpost Restaurant.  After we ate lunch at The Outpost, seven of us rode off west and north to Converse where Charley split off and went home.  Six of us rode over west to U.S. 31 where two more split off and rode home (had a meeting to attend) .  We are down to four riders, but we rode on anyway! :)

Merle took us over to Monticello, Indiana and we rode north past Indiana Beach:

 Not very busy this time of year. It opens the first day in May, this Saturday.  Here's a link:

http://www.indianabeach.com/


Looking at Lake Shafer from the bridge that crosses it up north

We left Lake Shafer and rode up north to Buffalo, Indiana.  East on Ind. 16 back to U.S. 31 and south to home.

I saw this field of Canola just west of Converse and we stopped to take a picture.  It sure is a pretty sight:

A link to Canola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola

A track of our ride:

(Click map to make larger)

I got home about 5:00 PM and rode 187 miles.  Nice day and it warmed up to 63 degrees for most of the ride.

A special thanks to Merle for leading us.

Dinner Bell

We rode over to Burlington, Indiana for lunch this Wednesday.  Nine of us rode over and eight of us rode on down toward Indianapolis.  The "famous" Dinner Bell Restaurant at Burlington:

Old men getting off our motorcycles:

 

Inside The Dinner Bell:

 

We rode south on Indiana 29 until it turned into US 421 and then on south to 71st Street in Indianapolis.

By this time, traffic was getting heavy, so our intrepid leader, Merle, turned west to get us out of the traffic.  I breathed a sigh of relief as the traffic in Indianapolis is hard to deal with when you try to get eight motorcycles together through all the stop lights.  We were separated a few times and had to wait until all the bikes were back together.

We turned north off of 71st St. onto Lafayette Road up to 116th St. and then east to U.S. 421 and then back north to 176th street, back east to U.S. 31, and north to home.

 

Very nice ride with perfect weather.  I rode 193 miles and didn't get tired at all.  In fact, I mowed our yard when I got home.  I hope we have many more days like today!

Warm Weather is Back!

We got very warm riding yesterday.  Eighty two degrees was the maximum temperature.

Ten of us rode down to Richards Restaurant at Elwood for lunch, yesterday.   After lunch, we rode over to Attica, Indiana and ate ice cream at The McDonald's there.  After ice cream we rode along the Wabash River back to West Lafayette.  We rode through the Purdue Campus and over into Lafayette.  After a quick stop for gas it was on home.

 

Stopping for gas in Frankfort, Indiana on the way over to Attica, Indiana.

Max Pitts

Three rode Saturday.  We ate lunch at The Outpost and then rode over to Max Pitts near Peru, In.  Not much at the store anymore.  Just a few used bikes and scooters.  We then rode along the Wabash River from Peru to Wabash and then home.  I was tired from the Friday ride so a short ride, Saturday, was all I wanted.

Boggstown, Indiana

Six of us rode down to Bikes-N-Trikes, Friday,  just northeast of Boggstown, Indiana to see if they could repair Merle's trike reverse problem.

Website is here: http://www.bikes-n-trikes.com/Scripts/default.asp

See Store Here: http://www.tinyurl.com/y37h8wb


We rode over to Interstate 65, where there was a Pilot truck stop/McDonald restaurant, for lunch, while they worked on the trike.  After we got back, and several hours later, they got reverse working.  Since some of the guys needed to be home by six o'clock, three riders went back home and two riders stayed with Merle.  After they got the trike back together, Bill, Merle, and I rode on back home.

I got home at 7:45 PM and rode 211 miles.

Nice ride and I got to see places I'd never been before.  We rode through a wooded place near Boggstown that was like a primeval forest.  I'd never seen anything like that before.

Three houses east of Bikes-N-Trikes is the house Marjorie Main (real name Mary Tomlinson) was born in.
Marjorie played Ma Kettle in the movies.  See Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_and_Pa_Kettle


Nice day and nice weather.  Good to be alive!

Eleven Ate, Five Rode

We had eleven show up for lunch at The Outpost, today, and five of us took a short ride before the rain got too heavy.  We just got sprinkled on.  A few of us are going to ride down to Boggstown, Indiana, Friday, with Merle to get his trike reverse gear situation resolved.  I'll report on that afterward.  Ride safe!

Rain, rain, go away!

I rode to the Saturday meeting in the rain,  The only one to ride, of course.  I don't mind riding in the rain and with the new Dunlop Elite 3 tires I had put on, feel safe.  I had to stop fast, once, and the ABS kicked in on the rear tire and kept me from skiding.  I don't think I'd buy a new bike without ABS--it's that good.

Eight of us showed up for lunch as Charlie Thomas is back from wintering in Florida and was there.  David Payne made an appearance for the first time this year.

An elderly looking gentleman walked over to our table and started talking to Phil Smith.  Turns out his name is George Segal, (same as the movie actor), and had ridden with our group back before I started riding with the group.  Mr. Segal is ninety years old and rode a Honda 150 scooter until he was eighty five.  It's like they say, "You don't stop riding because you get old, you get old because you stop riding."

Return of Warm Weather

Ten of us ate at Chism's Corner (corner of US 35 and IN 13) after meeting at The Outpost.  Nine of us then "rode the reservoirs" including The Mississinewa Reservoir and The Salomone Reservoir.  We stopped for coffee in Huntington at The Country Post Inn.  I rode back to John Nave's house, in Fairmount, so he could help me increase the bend in my riders's backrest post.  My back rest kept pushing me forward.  Mission accomplished!


Today's ride:

(Click to make larger)

I rode 149 miles today.

Pin Striping

I rode up to Bluffton, Tuesday, and had Steve Baller pinstripe my bike.  I rode through dense fog and chilly temperatures (37 degrees F) to get there.  It took him about three hours to do the job:

It turned out nice.

Pullman Bay

After eating lunch at The Outpost Restaurant, six of us rode over to Celina, Ohio.  We had coffee and pie at The Pullman Bay Restaurant

on beautiful St. Mary's Lake.

We then rode back to Bluffton, Indiana to visit with Steve Baller.

http://www.ballerpinstriping.com/

Steve does pin stripping and was doing a Suzuki/Lehman trike while we were there.  We rode home and got back at about 5:00 PM.  I rode 180 enjoyable miles, today.

Ride To Barney's

Six of us ate lunch at The Outpost and then rode down to Barney Winningham's house to see his Harley collection.  He has done several "frame-up" restorations of older Harleys.  Here are a few:

 
1969 FLH

                                       1953 FLE  Was a black police bike now red.

                                                                     1971 FLH

                                                                                         2001 Roadking


We then rode over to The Dutch Kitchen by Grissom Reserve Base, on US 31, for coffee and pie.  The sugar cream pie was very tasty.  Thanks for buying, Merle.  Larry Burke then led us along the Wabash river from Peru to Wabash and then home.


Beautiful day for a ride.

Ride to Pennville

Six of us rode to The Mill Street Restaurant, in Gaston, for lunch, Saturday.  Then we rode to Pennville, by way of Albany, for coffee, then home.  Nice ride.

Wednesday's Ride

Nine riders showed up today for our Wednesday ride.  We ate lunch at The Outpost and then rode over to Burlington, Indiana for coffee.  They had the best apple dumplings today! Yum, yum!  We then rode over to Tipton and back home.

Some of the riders were:

Phil Smith on his Harley Heritage Classic

Jerry Cole on his Harley Fat Boy

Art Adrianson on his Harley Ultra

I went 157 miles on the ride.

Wednesday's Ride

We met at The Outpost Restaurant today, as usual. There were five of us riding--seven showed up. Temperatures in the 60s. No reason not to ride. We had to go get Billy before we left Marion for Winchester, Indiana. Mrs. Wicks has a pie factory in Winchester and they have a restaurant out front of the factory so you can sample their wares. What great pies! I had Apple Crumb with a dip of ice cream on top--warmed of course! Thanks for buying, John.

Here's John Nave's beautiful Harley Davidson Rocker C:



Larry Miller rode today on his 2009 Harley Davidson Road King:



Our trail rider is usually Larry Burke. Larry made a trike using the front end of a Honda motorcycle powered by a four cylinder Volkswagen engine and transmission. Larry laid up the body with fiberglass. He's taken it up to Alaska and back so it's a job well done:

I rode 185 miles today.

New T-Rex and new Harley Trike!

Eight of us showed up at The Outpost Restaurant for lunch. Six rode. Billy was there with his new T-Rex:




(Click on picture for larger view)

Billy rode/drove it up from Dallas, Texas (about 1000 miles) Thursday and Friday of last week. It has a 1200cc Kawasaki engine. Goes fast!

Merle brought his new trike out for the first time:




(Click on picture for larger view)

She's a beauty! The bike started out as a 2007 Road King and then Merle added the front fairing, lowers, and then a trike conversion.

Only Two Rode!

Two of us rode to The Outpost Restaurant (one mile west of Fairmount, Indiana at the junction of Indiana 9 and 26.) for lunch today. Larry Burke and I rode. Not cold at all--in the middle 30s F. I'm sure more will ride Saturday when it's suppose to be in the 50s F. We meet at The Outpost at 11:30 AM Wednesdays and 11:30 AM Saturdays until the weather turns nice and then we'll meet at 8:00AM on Saturdays with Wednesdays meeting time unchanged, 11:30 AM.

Billy Niverson is riding his T-Rex from Texas today and tomorrow. We hope to see him in it at lunch, Saturday.