Before we headed to Bloomington, we were in Lawrenceburg, IN for 4 days because of rain, but the rest was much needed and we were at my brother Michael’s house, which was really nice with his wife, Nadine and their daughter, Little Nay. We spend these days mainly inside as storms came in and out of the area everyday, all day. Quality family time was the name of the game.
Thursday, April 28th came and it was time to head to Bloomington. It wasn’t so sad leaving my brother’s because we were going to be seeing them in Florida the following week for his wedding. Bloomington was 107 miles away and we were looking forward to having a short two-day ride. As you may have found out, nothing comes entirely easy on this trip. The wind was gusty up to 25 mph on the road and going along flat roads felt like you were constantly going up hill. After some stops to avoid the rain we made it to a pizza shop in Westport, IN, where we met Marshall Bradshaw. Marshall was an older gentleman, who started to ask us about our trip. After some conversation and asking where we were going to sleep tonight and our response being, “we don’t know yet” (this was at 6pm). He offered up his floor to sleep on only a couple blocks away from the pizza place.
We stayed up talking about religion, as Marshall was a devout Christian. He was very respectful and we really appreciated our time together.
The next morning we were off to Bloomington and it was such a beautiful ride--who knew that some parts of Indiana were so green. My friend Greg Clarke from college, who we were staying with in Bloomington, met up with us in Nashville, IN, about 20 miles from Bloomington and biked the rest of the way with us. It was really great having someone else bike with us.
Bloomington was a really great, friendly place with great people. Our host, Greg, Kristy and Emmy were so great and biked us around the city and we met some really amazing people. Bloomington is also home to some bands that I really like and we went to this great place called the Owlery, which was a restaurant/community space and all of them seemed to be there, haha. Great food, great people, great vibes!
Greg was also so kind to help me with some minor repairs on my bike and showed us the local bike coop call the Bike Project in town. There is too much to write about Bloomington, so if you want to talk about it more contact me ☺ Oh, also Rach got a massage.
After three wonderful days there we embarked on the one-day, 65 mile journey to Indianapolis. Little did we know what was in store for us that day. We didn’t leave until 11am to avoid the rain and for Rach and I to get on the same page. About 20 miles into the ride my tire went flat! This was the first, so I changed the tube up really quick and got the sharp shit that was poking through my tire. 10 miles later the same thing happened. This time it seemed like my tire had really gone to shit, so I changed the tube and the tire. Then to find out that this shifted my brakes, so I had to fettle with that. I was so frustrated because we were making such great time and going at a good pace. It was about a 45 minute stop, which really sucked and I was extremely frustrated, you know like cursing a lot and yelling.
We were back on the road and when we were only about 12 miles away from our destination’s house (my friend Ed’s house in Northern Indy). A dog came out of nowhere and took a big bite at Rach’s leg. Read Rach’s post to hear more about that.
We finally made it to Indy and are being hosted by Ed and Ellen Smith, who have been so nice to us with feeding us, taking us around Indy and driving us to the airport to head to Florida for five days! We will be back on our bike to head to West Lafayette, IN and Hoopeston, IL (hometown of my Dad) on 5/11!
ah... the double flat. nice! call me next time you need to rant/curse. miss it.
ReplyDelete