On the morning of day 60, I got to see the segment about my trip that had aired on the local Fort Wayne news the night before. The text of the segment can be found here:
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/home/97272464.html
I had spent about 8 minutes talking into the camera and a few more just talking to the reporter. It was pared down to a minute and the one quotation they used is not the one I would have ran with. But, I'm pleased whenever cycling makes the evening news and if it happens to be about me that's fine too.
I hung out with Ben, his stepson and infant daughter and their nanny long enough to get Chik-Fil-A with them. In retrospect, I probably should have gotten Jimmy Johns instead. Oh well. I ended up getting starting a little later than planned, but still early enough to get some serious miles in.
Ben lives just down the street from a golf course that Fort Wayne's River Greenway runs along. Apparently, they had just finished connecting the two long segments of it, and I was impressed. It was smooth and even, connected several parks and was being used. Cyclists, pedestrians with and without strollers and even a couple rollerbladers. I rode it all the way to the end, wishing it continued further. Monroesville? Decatur? You should consider it. Heck, you could follow the river all the way down to St. Marys, OH.
I swung north a few blocks then turned east again on Paulding St. Paulding is a big, important street for it's run through Fort Wayne. But then it crosses over US496 and it becomes less significant. Unpaved for a couple stretches even. I did hit my high speed of 27.1 coming down the 496 overpass. But the road is at least flat and straight without much traffic and I was enjoying a solid tailwind, so I kept up a constant speed around 19 mph on the paved portions. The wheat and corn fields suddenly gave way to a vast private collection of half buried pipes behind a barbed wire fence.
Curving a bit through this complex, I came suddenly to State Line Road. I pulled out my camera for the shot of the Welcome to Ohio sign. As I was lining it up, two cyclists came around the line of trees along the angle of Ohio 500 heading northeast towards Payne. The bikes were loaded, large panniers on front and back wheel under neon yellow rain covers and handlebar bags perched on the front. I held my ground in the entrance of the intersection (though out of the way of the couple cars that came along) and let them come to me. I found out that these were the lead cyclists from a group of 15 going from Maryland to Seattle. They were raising money for the UNC Lineburger Cancer Center and much of the group was 16 year old boys looking to become Eagle Scouts. Their website is www.Cycle20Ten.com and I suggest you check them out and support them if you can.
They were telling me that they were all riding the same model bike and everyone carrying different parts, so that if anything were to go awry on the road, they have the means to fix it. Other than the frame, they could basically assemble a full bike, which is kinda cool. But they confessed that maybe they should have chosen a better model as already they had had some mechanical issues. I bragged about how beastly Penny is. For a steel frame bike that was designed before I was born, she was comfortable and gives me very little trouble.
As I was talking with the front two, three more came around the corner. We talked for some time about the road ahead of them. I was impressed that they were going in such a large group, they were impressed that I was flying solo. Since they were only a couple weeks into it and I was a couple from the end, I told them what to expect from the states I had passed through as far as I could. As I write this from New York, they are just entering Minnesota. Good luck guys!
Standing there talking, the sun seemed to get hotter. They told me that I'd probably run into more of them as I got into Payne, and sure enough as I was coming out of a gas station with my 2 quarts of gatorade, four more of the group pulled up. We talked a few minutes and they complained about their headwind. Their headwind was my tailwind, and I wanted to get back into it before it decided to calm down.
I cruised along this land of straight lines and flat planes. Unlike the vast spaces between places in the west, the towns here are two to six miles apart, though really that's not a quite accurate picture. The towns were where the houses clumped closer together and there was a hardware shop/liquor store. But houses lined much of the road between the towns, and for a long while I felt like I was riding through the remaining farmland outside suburban Chicago. I had to remind myself that Bolingbrook was a couple hundred miles behind me, not three miles ahead.
I took a break at a closed down restaurant/ice cream parlor in Melrose. It at least offered me a bench out of the sun. I took the time to call my parents and tell them about my appearance on tv the night before. Getting up, I rode onward until Leipsic, where it was time for dinner. I came to the three block strip of downtown Leipsic and stopped to ask a larger, older man where in town to eat. 'Nowhere', he replied then pointed to the pizza place in front of us. 'But I'm going in here, it's the best of the lot'.
The pizza place was also a drive through liquor store. After I ordered I found my way to the bar in the back. The bartender had Pawn Stars on the tv and, after serving me, grabbed her dinner that had just come out of the oven and sat by me at the bar to eat. I told her about my trip and she talked about having owned her own pizza place for 12 years before walking away from it. Round turned into round, my pizza having appeared and disappeared, and soon the boys were coming in to watch wrestling on the big screen in the back. The bartender gave me advice on which road to pull down to camp, as that was my plan for the night. County road 5 was full of trucks, even throughout the night, but the next one down, county road 4 had only a few people living on it. Good to know.
The sun was starting to set, so I got back out onto highway 613. I stopped at the gas station at county road 5 to grab more water and gatorade for the morning. The cashier saw my helmet and asked how far I was going. Upon hearing about my trek, he asked if I was hungry and offered to make me a free sandwich. Sure, I'll take a free sandwich. Thanking him, I rode on to the next intersection, county road 4, and turned north along it. I went in maybe 2/3rds of a mile, passing two houses, but not yet coming to the next and I found the perfect spot.
There was a space where clearly two different fields lined up next to each other, though both were planted with corn. Across the street along the same line, a wheat and corn field met up. There was an unplanted gap that extended maybe 80 feet back into the rows of corn and was about 10 feet wide. The corn was tall enough to come over the top of the tent, so when it was pitched and the sun had set, there was no way that the few cars going along would see me. Even as I ate my free sandwich in the brightness of the full moon, I was hidden from the road.
Day 60, Fort Wayne, IN - Cornfield camp east of Leipsic, OH
72.3 miles in 4:21:18 for a total of 3693.0 in 282:45:31 and a top speed of 27.1 mph
Showing posts with label indiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indiana. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Mile 3620.7 - Cycling in the news, part 2
Day 59 started as a cloudy day in my tent. I was camped in the Bethel Bible Church's yard in rural Indiana, about 7 miles west of Winamac, Indiana. As it was Sunday morning and there was a service at 9:30, I wanted to be sure to be out of there before anyone started arriving. I didn't expect there to be any problems with my being there, as I did get permission to camp from the janitor the night before, but I didn't want to risk being invited in for service and proselytized to for an hour. Breakfast was the remaining reconstituted lasagna from last night and gatorade. Mmm...
I broke camp around 8:00 and knew I had about 90 miles to cover before I got to Fort Wayne. I passed through Winamac, taking the opportunity to both refill my fluids and toss out my trash from the night before. I see plenty of trash along the side of the road, carelessly tossed out by people in cars. It would be easier for me too, if I just didn't care and cast aside my trash wherever it was that I was done with it. But that's not right, it's bad for the land, plants and animals, not to mention just plain ugly. You might not care if you live in a trash can, but I'd prefer not to. So I carry the burden of my waste until it can be disposed of properly. It's really not that hard for me, but clearly too much to ask of some people in cars.
I continued along highway 14 as the sky cleared slightly and the temperature started rising. After the two solid weeks of low to mid 60's I dealt with back in the west, I'm happy to have days in the mid to upper 80's. I'm one of those people who functions much better in hot temperatures than cold. I'm solar powered, I can't help it.
I started the day about 1/3rd of the way across Indiana and I was looking to wind up in Fort Wayne, about 15 miles from the Ohio boarder. I soon came to Rochester and went along the shore of scenic Lake Manitou. At this point, 14 goes southwest and then takes a swing due north for a couple miles. Heading east again after that, I passed through several small towns as the day started to get hot. My water levels started to drop again and it was now getting to be lunch time.
I arrived in the town of South Whitley. Here the highway turns south again to cross the Eel River. I looked north and south to see which seemed to have better options for lunch. Arbitrarily choosing south, I crossed the river and found JD's Riverside Cafe. In the parking lot was a couple who had just emerged from the restaurant and were about to get onto their motorcycles. Immediately, I asked if this was the place to stop for lunch and they emphatically assented. We talked for several minutes, comparing the maintainance needs of bicycles and motorcycles. They informed me that the cafe was owned by a Mexican family and not only was the food good, but the service was the best to be found anywhere in town. I went inside to see for myself.
As I sat down, the chips and salsa and water hit the table. Good start. Looking at the menu, I decided on the Reuben sandwich. Maybe it didn't quite go with the chips and salsa, but whatever. As I was eating my sandwich, the woman who was quite clearly the matron of the family was clearing a table nearby. She looked out the window at Penny, then looked back at me. She asked one of her daughters nearby 'El muchacho venga con bicicleta? De donde?' I both saw the exchange and understood the question, but waited for the girl to translate her mother's question. I responded in English that I had started in San Fransisco and was making my way to New York. She smiled widely and said in broken English that that was fantastic. She seemed really happy to see someone riding a bike so far. She offered to refill any water that I might need before I left.
Finishing my sandwich, I went up to pay my check. One of the daughters looked to her mother and asked how much she should charge me. 'Nada' the mother replied, waving her off. The girl shrugged and said that my lunch was free. I looked at the mother and asked 'Esta seguro?' 'Si, si, si'. Thus, after nearly 3600 miles of riding across the country and telling waiters and restaurant managers about my trip, finally here, in a smallish town in central Indiana, from a woman who spoke very little English, I got my first free meal. I tipped 30% of what the bill would have been, then brought in my water bottles to be refilled. When I next come through South Whitley, Indiana, I will surely eat there again.
As I was getting back onto the bike, I saw on my phone that I had gotten a message from the producer calling me back about a time to meet up with her reporter once I got into Fort Wayne. I called back and told her that I expected to be in town soon and gave her a rough time and location for a reporter to meet me. Continuing on, I got back onto 14 and headed toward the city.
I reached Fort Wayne, and suddenly a bike path appeared alongside the highway. It looked like it had been recently installed or upgraded from a sidewalk. There were a couple other cyclists and pedestrians on it, but it was wide enough that three or four cyclists could comfortably ride abreast. I crossed over interstate 69 and entered the real city. For a while I was elbow to side mirror with the traffic, but soon enough I had gotten to one end of the River Parkway. Checking my phone, I saw I had a message now from the reporter, so I called her back and we decided on a nearby playground to meet.
I crossed a street to Rockhill Park and waited for the reporter to arrive. There was an older man with a metal detector scanning the playground. Finally, the reporter arrived, set up her camera, and started the interview. I talked on camera for about 10 minutes, explaining what I'm doing and why, what I've seen and what I'd like to see in the future. The reporter was suitably impressed and I passed her one of my cards so she could check out my blog. She needed to get back to the studio so she could get this onto the 6:00 news, barely an hour in the future. I wished her good luck as she drove off.
I called Ben and found out where to meet him. As it turns out, he was working on one of the few streets in downtown Fort Wayne that actually has a bike lane. I got to him easily. He is working for a tv production company that creates a lot of commercials. In the studio, there were a couple walls and the floor painted in bright green. We decided to go check out Greekfest that was winding up that evening at a park not far away.
We got down to the park and were disappointed to see that they were packing up already. I was hungry, as usual, and really would have enjoyed some kind of food there. We met up with Ben's housemate and decided to go try to find food. The first place we went to was not open on Sunday. We walked around to a pizza joint a block away, but found the tables all full and the line pretty long. So we walked down to a bar called Henry's and established ourselves at a table in a corner.
A dinner and several beers later, we went back to the studio where Ben had left his car and I had left Penny. We took a couple pictures of me on Penny in front of the greenscreen. Instead of the laborious loading of my bike into the back of his car, I rode behind him to his place a couple miles away. Here again the cruel reality of real estate prices of new york vs the rest of the civilized world hit me like a metaphor. Ben and his housemate share a large three bedroom house with a back yard and blah blah blah and pay pretty much 1/3rd of what I pay for my half of a little Brooklyn condo. We spent a couple hours on his back porch catching up. I was aware that, as I sat there talking, words I had spoken into a camera several hours earlier were now being played on the evening news for an audience of a half a million people in the greater Fort Wayne region.
From Indiana's News Center's website:
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/home/97272464.html
Day 59, Bethel Church Camp, IN - Fort Wayne, IN
93.0 miles in 7:34:24. totals now 3620.7 in 283:24;13 and a top speed of 28.0 mph
I broke camp around 8:00 and knew I had about 90 miles to cover before I got to Fort Wayne. I passed through Winamac, taking the opportunity to both refill my fluids and toss out my trash from the night before. I see plenty of trash along the side of the road, carelessly tossed out by people in cars. It would be easier for me too, if I just didn't care and cast aside my trash wherever it was that I was done with it. But that's not right, it's bad for the land, plants and animals, not to mention just plain ugly. You might not care if you live in a trash can, but I'd prefer not to. So I carry the burden of my waste until it can be disposed of properly. It's really not that hard for me, but clearly too much to ask of some people in cars.
I continued along highway 14 as the sky cleared slightly and the temperature started rising. After the two solid weeks of low to mid 60's I dealt with back in the west, I'm happy to have days in the mid to upper 80's. I'm one of those people who functions much better in hot temperatures than cold. I'm solar powered, I can't help it.
I started the day about 1/3rd of the way across Indiana and I was looking to wind up in Fort Wayne, about 15 miles from the Ohio boarder. I soon came to Rochester and went along the shore of scenic Lake Manitou. At this point, 14 goes southwest and then takes a swing due north for a couple miles. Heading east again after that, I passed through several small towns as the day started to get hot. My water levels started to drop again and it was now getting to be lunch time.
I arrived in the town of South Whitley. Here the highway turns south again to cross the Eel River. I looked north and south to see which seemed to have better options for lunch. Arbitrarily choosing south, I crossed the river and found JD's Riverside Cafe. In the parking lot was a couple who had just emerged from the restaurant and were about to get onto their motorcycles. Immediately, I asked if this was the place to stop for lunch and they emphatically assented. We talked for several minutes, comparing the maintainance needs of bicycles and motorcycles. They informed me that the cafe was owned by a Mexican family and not only was the food good, but the service was the best to be found anywhere in town. I went inside to see for myself.
As I sat down, the chips and salsa and water hit the table. Good start. Looking at the menu, I decided on the Reuben sandwich. Maybe it didn't quite go with the chips and salsa, but whatever. As I was eating my sandwich, the woman who was quite clearly the matron of the family was clearing a table nearby. She looked out the window at Penny, then looked back at me. She asked one of her daughters nearby 'El muchacho venga con bicicleta? De donde?' I both saw the exchange and understood the question, but waited for the girl to translate her mother's question. I responded in English that I had started in San Fransisco and was making my way to New York. She smiled widely and said in broken English that that was fantastic. She seemed really happy to see someone riding a bike so far. She offered to refill any water that I might need before I left.
Finishing my sandwich, I went up to pay my check. One of the daughters looked to her mother and asked how much she should charge me. 'Nada' the mother replied, waving her off. The girl shrugged and said that my lunch was free. I looked at the mother and asked 'Esta seguro?' 'Si, si, si'. Thus, after nearly 3600 miles of riding across the country and telling waiters and restaurant managers about my trip, finally here, in a smallish town in central Indiana, from a woman who spoke very little English, I got my first free meal. I tipped 30% of what the bill would have been, then brought in my water bottles to be refilled. When I next come through South Whitley, Indiana, I will surely eat there again.
As I was getting back onto the bike, I saw on my phone that I had gotten a message from the producer calling me back about a time to meet up with her reporter once I got into Fort Wayne. I called back and told her that I expected to be in town soon and gave her a rough time and location for a reporter to meet me. Continuing on, I got back onto 14 and headed toward the city.
I reached Fort Wayne, and suddenly a bike path appeared alongside the highway. It looked like it had been recently installed or upgraded from a sidewalk. There were a couple other cyclists and pedestrians on it, but it was wide enough that three or four cyclists could comfortably ride abreast. I crossed over interstate 69 and entered the real city. For a while I was elbow to side mirror with the traffic, but soon enough I had gotten to one end of the River Parkway. Checking my phone, I saw I had a message now from the reporter, so I called her back and we decided on a nearby playground to meet.
I crossed a street to Rockhill Park and waited for the reporter to arrive. There was an older man with a metal detector scanning the playground. Finally, the reporter arrived, set up her camera, and started the interview. I talked on camera for about 10 minutes, explaining what I'm doing and why, what I've seen and what I'd like to see in the future. The reporter was suitably impressed and I passed her one of my cards so she could check out my blog. She needed to get back to the studio so she could get this onto the 6:00 news, barely an hour in the future. I wished her good luck as she drove off.
I called Ben and found out where to meet him. As it turns out, he was working on one of the few streets in downtown Fort Wayne that actually has a bike lane. I got to him easily. He is working for a tv production company that creates a lot of commercials. In the studio, there were a couple walls and the floor painted in bright green. We decided to go check out Greekfest that was winding up that evening at a park not far away.
We got down to the park and were disappointed to see that they were packing up already. I was hungry, as usual, and really would have enjoyed some kind of food there. We met up with Ben's housemate and decided to go try to find food. The first place we went to was not open on Sunday. We walked around to a pizza joint a block away, but found the tables all full and the line pretty long. So we walked down to a bar called Henry's and established ourselves at a table in a corner.
A dinner and several beers later, we went back to the studio where Ben had left his car and I had left Penny. We took a couple pictures of me on Penny in front of the greenscreen. Instead of the laborious loading of my bike into the back of his car, I rode behind him to his place a couple miles away. Here again the cruel reality of real estate prices of new york vs the rest of the civilized world hit me like a metaphor. Ben and his housemate share a large three bedroom house with a back yard and blah blah blah and pay pretty much 1/3rd of what I pay for my half of a little Brooklyn condo. We spent a couple hours on his back porch catching up. I was aware that, as I sat there talking, words I had spoken into a camera several hours earlier were now being played on the evening news for an audience of a half a million people in the greater Fort Wayne region.
From Indiana's News Center's website:
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/home/97272464.html
Day 59, Bethel Church Camp, IN - Fort Wayne, IN
93.0 miles in 7:34:24. totals now 3620.7 in 283:24;13 and a top speed of 28.0 mph
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Mile 3527.2 - Advancing east again.
It has now been 58 days since I left the fictional city of San Franclisco. Beautiful, metropolitan San Franclisco. My intention was to leave Steve's place after breakfast and try to get as far across Indiana as possible. Well, that soon turned into going to watch the local girls' softball all-star team play another playoff caliber team. After that we had to get ice cream, and this turned into that and it was soon 2:00 and I hadn't even packed up yet.
Finally I got everything together and loaded up Penny again. Once again, I felt the mixed pangs of wanting to stay with my friends longer and relax in comfort and the desire to draw myself ever closer to home. Once again, the road won. I talked to my friend Ben, with whom I would stay in Fort Wayne, near the Ohio border. Ben had contacted someone he knew at the local news station. I got a call from one of the producers who wanted to set up a time when I would be in Fort Wayne that I could be interviewed about my trip. I gave her a tentative time that I though I would make it, but said it would be best to contact me Sunday morning, when I'll have a better idea of when I'd hit the city 180 miles away.
Headed down the shaded but nearly shoulderless rural Illinois highway, I go south then swing east. It takes less than two and a half hours for me to traverse the 41 miles between Wilmington and the Indiana boarder. Again at this state line, there is no grand sign welcoming me to this most virtuous of states, just a small green rectangle notifying me of the county I was entering. Shrug. Maybe Indiana isn't the most virtuous state. The shoulder was only a couple feet wide here, and the heavy truck traffic picked up.
After a couple dozen miles of this, I turned off onto a single lane road that shot between corn fields. Going down the nearly empty road without shoulders, I took a break at a small bridge over a creek. Looking at the time and the map, I wanted to cover another 30 miles to get to the Tippecanoe State Park, where I could camp. At this point though, it is already after 7:00 and in less than two hours it will be dark. I quickly ate and then set out again.
I passed through more fields and small towns, covering miles, but not quite keeping the pace that I would need to make it to the park. There were a number of farmhouses I passed where I suddenly found myself being chased by dogs. None of them ended up catching me. As the sun set, I was still nearly 10 miles away from the park. Eventually, I saw a brightly lit sign in the distance that at first I took for a restaurant. As I had not had a real meal since breakfast, I thought that I should get a bite then continue in the dark to the park. As I got to it though, I could see that this structure was a church. Despite being 9pm on a Saturday, I could see that there were lights on in the building. I went around, trying to see if there was an unlocked door, and when I came around to the back, I found a janitor who was taking the trash out. I asked if it would be a problem for me to set up camp in a corner of the yard somewhere. He nodded and said it would be fine, so I set up off the back of the unpaved parking lot, between a small playground and the fence marking the boundary of a cornfield.
I sprayed myself down with insect repellent and pulled out one of my freeze-dried backpacker meals. Just add 2 cups of boiling water and wait 13 minutes and the food miraculously reconstituted itself into something that tasted more or less like the lasagna it promised. It was nice to have a hearty, hot meal and watch the fireflies flicker in the expanding darkness. There were sounds of fireworks in the distance, though I was never able to see any.
Day 58, Wilmington, IL - Bethel Churchyard Camp, West of Winamac, IN
92.2 miles in 6:53:47. Totals: 3527.7 miles in 276:51:49 and a high speed of 25.0 mph
Finally I got everything together and loaded up Penny again. Once again, I felt the mixed pangs of wanting to stay with my friends longer and relax in comfort and the desire to draw myself ever closer to home. Once again, the road won. I talked to my friend Ben, with whom I would stay in Fort Wayne, near the Ohio border. Ben had contacted someone he knew at the local news station. I got a call from one of the producers who wanted to set up a time when I would be in Fort Wayne that I could be interviewed about my trip. I gave her a tentative time that I though I would make it, but said it would be best to contact me Sunday morning, when I'll have a better idea of when I'd hit the city 180 miles away.
Headed down the shaded but nearly shoulderless rural Illinois highway, I go south then swing east. It takes less than two and a half hours for me to traverse the 41 miles between Wilmington and the Indiana boarder. Again at this state line, there is no grand sign welcoming me to this most virtuous of states, just a small green rectangle notifying me of the county I was entering. Shrug. Maybe Indiana isn't the most virtuous state. The shoulder was only a couple feet wide here, and the heavy truck traffic picked up.
After a couple dozen miles of this, I turned off onto a single lane road that shot between corn fields. Going down the nearly empty road without shoulders, I took a break at a small bridge over a creek. Looking at the time and the map, I wanted to cover another 30 miles to get to the Tippecanoe State Park, where I could camp. At this point though, it is already after 7:00 and in less than two hours it will be dark. I quickly ate and then set out again.
I passed through more fields and small towns, covering miles, but not quite keeping the pace that I would need to make it to the park. There were a number of farmhouses I passed where I suddenly found myself being chased by dogs. None of them ended up catching me. As the sun set, I was still nearly 10 miles away from the park. Eventually, I saw a brightly lit sign in the distance that at first I took for a restaurant. As I had not had a real meal since breakfast, I thought that I should get a bite then continue in the dark to the park. As I got to it though, I could see that this structure was a church. Despite being 9pm on a Saturday, I could see that there were lights on in the building. I went around, trying to see if there was an unlocked door, and when I came around to the back, I found a janitor who was taking the trash out. I asked if it would be a problem for me to set up camp in a corner of the yard somewhere. He nodded and said it would be fine, so I set up off the back of the unpaved parking lot, between a small playground and the fence marking the boundary of a cornfield.
I sprayed myself down with insect repellent and pulled out one of my freeze-dried backpacker meals. Just add 2 cups of boiling water and wait 13 minutes and the food miraculously reconstituted itself into something that tasted more or less like the lasagna it promised. It was nice to have a hearty, hot meal and watch the fireflies flicker in the expanding darkness. There were sounds of fireworks in the distance, though I was never able to see any.
Day 58, Wilmington, IL - Bethel Churchyard Camp, West of Winamac, IN
92.2 miles in 6:53:47. Totals: 3527.7 miles in 276:51:49 and a high speed of 25.0 mph
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