Indianapolis to Greencastle

May 21, 2014

DO YOU EVER have one of those days when you, your shorts and your saddle bicker and won't stop? Well, today was one of those days. It started as I left the Indy hostel in Indianapolis to a call not of "Way to go!" but "Man, you really got me inspired now" from a lad in a baseball cap, and it went on for the rest of the day.

I wriggled and twisted and came close to conflagrating but nothing helped. And nor did Indianapolis, or Indy as they call it here. The suburbs may change name and people who live there may see the difference, but the road west was just a linear museum of fast-food "restaurants" (a woman pouring me a drink in a Wendy's burger bar once said to me: "And will you be dining with us this evening?") and tyre depots and places to get a loan until pay day.

It went on out past the airport, where giggling girls heading for the sun teased each other because they'd left their bikini tops at home, and for all I know it is going on even now. I did eventually manage to turn right into rolling countryside remarkable only for being a lot more pleasing than the highway.

The civil war in the upholstery department continued. No outright hostilities but a lot of taking positions and advancing in one direction and retreating in another. This was going, clearly, to be a day of certain but unsatisfying progress.

The covered bridges, like the Great Wall of China, are rarely as old as they appear. But it's pleasing that they're there at all.

This one is being bypassed by a less pleasing option in concrete

Well, it sounds as though I didn't enjoy it. But, really, I did. There's something to enjoy in every ride, even if it's not having to ask customers if they'll be "dining with us" this evening.

I found a bike track running to Greencastle but it was shingle, not even compressed. But, singing ho for the open road and with the stimulus of thunder nearing from behind, I got into town and loaded up with groceries as the sky sunk ever lower.

"Hell is going to fall," a woman told, as well as that her doctor had told her to give up cycling because of an illness with a complicated name which she enjoyed pronouncing.

You must let me know if you ever go Greencastle because I never got to see the V1 rocket on the courthouse lawn (a soldier, simplifying the story, brought one home as a souvenir after 1945), nor where John Dillinger pulled off his biggest bank raid just a few doors from the unsuspecting police station. I didn't see them because the sky fell on Greencastle as I got to a motel. And it rained the rest of the night.

Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 1,472 km (914 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0