Day 13: Fletcher Lake Campground to Wabash, IN

June 28, 2012

(By Jeff)

I liked Fletcher Lake Campground and its modest charms a LOT more than some of the huge, noisy, state park campgrounds we've stayed in on this trip. The frogs in the nearby lake did wake me up several times in the night, but they were just doing their frog thing. Live and let live, I guess.

We had already decided it would be a short ride today, since it was forecast to be the hottest day yet – record-breaking, even. We would try to make it to Wabash, less than 40 miles away, and stay in a motel.

Because (as usual) I hadn't slept very well in the tent, I was sleepy this morning – so sleepy that I briefly attempted to mount one of the large panniers on my small front rack. After Joy pointed out that error, I checked my rear tire to find that it was soft. I pumped it up and we rode off, but less than two miles later it had gone flat again. So, we stopped in some shade by a soybean field to change it. It was undoubtedly the fastest tire change I've ever been involved with, thanks primarily to the presence of the ultra-competent Joy.

After the tire change, I made one more attempt to take an interesting photo of a soybean field. Once again, it proved impossible to make soybeans look even slightly compelling.

It was nice riding to the tiny town of Deedsville, where we got on the Nickel Plate Trail, a paved bike path that Joy found on the Internet when she was working out today's route. It was very nice – silky smooth pavement and many shady sections.

After several miles, we got off the trail in Denver, one of the friendliest little towns we've seen the last few weeks. We stopped for breakfast at the Hoosier Hot Spot (“Get a Tan... Get a Pop... All in One Spot”), which contained a table of the old men who usually hang out at these types of places in the morning, and a young waitress who seemed shocked by the scope of our (relatively modest) bike tour. It was too hot for me to have anything but Diet Pepsi, but Joy enjoyed her biscuits and gravy, washed down with Yoo Hoo, which the waitress and I agreed was a disgusting beverage.

While we sat in the Hoosier Hot Spot, I observed a man walk across the street and conduct an intense, 10 minute inspection of Joy's recumbent bicycle. His mouth was literally agape. I expected him to enter the cafe and ask us many questions, but instead he finally walked back across the street, without ever finding out “Is that seat comfortable?”, “How much did it cost?”, etc. etc.

Eventually we dragged ourselves out of the Hoosier Hot Spot, where a friendly old man asked us about the trip, and a friendly old couple warned us to be careful of the heat. Denver is a nice town.

We got back on the Nickel Plate Trail, the significance of whose name I never learned, for several more great miles, before we exited it for the back roads which would take us into Wabash. The next several miles were not noteworthy except for a dog that ran out at me, causing me to make the quickest controlled dismount EVER. After that, it was more nice farm lanes until we were forced to do a mile of gravel. Joy hates riding on gravel with her new bike – she says it requires much more concentration than her previous bikes – so we did a spur-of-the moment route change to avoid more of it, and finally got to the outskirts of Wabash, a town of about 11,000 people.

By now it was not even noon, and it was already over 100F, among the hottest days In which either of us have ever ridden. Following a minor meltdown on the side of the road, we made it into the town, where various concerned citizens asked if we were Ok – we stopped at a car wash to ask directions, and the lady there seriously suggested we go through the car wash with our bikes to cool off. Finally, we made it into the city's historic Market Street section, where we sat at a table in Modoc's market and split a half gallon of chocolate milk. We had planned to stay at the budge-priced Knight's Inn, but it was a couple of miles away on a busy road. Directly across the street from where we were drinking our chocolate milk was the Charley Creek Inn, an historic “boutique” hotel that someone had apparently spent serious bucks (I later learned it was $15 million) renovating. I decided that we were done riding today, damn the cost, and strode across the street into the swank lobby, where I handed the lady my credit card.

The hotel was, as expected, super-nice, and later we walked across the street for a great dinner at the Market Street Grill, whose seemingly eccentric owner has many rules, our favorite of which (after living for three years in ultra-child-friendly Utah) is the clearly posted “You must be 18 to enter.”

A nice, if ridiculously (and record-breaking) hot day.

Today's ride: 37 miles (60 km)
Total: 508 miles (818 km)

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