Ten O’Clock Treaty Line Trip, Day 2, 10-Sep-2006

I should have been motivated to get going sooner, because this was going to be the longest ride of the week. The day’s destination was north of Pulaski, at least 80 miles away. But we first went to get a restaurant breakfast, and it was late morning before I got going. And then the weather turned drizzly.

On workdays I wouldn’t ride on CR-22, but I took advantage of low traffic to ride the windy, rolling road to Goshen. I happened to see a log cabin as I was leaving town, and stopped to take photos. I must never have taken that route out of town before. I’ll have to find out if there is any interesting history associated with the building.

The afternoon route took me through Amish country to Nappanee. There were lots of smiles and waves from the buggies today. The rest of the afternoon was through mostly new country for me, on roads I had never before ridden. I went around the south side of Plymouth on roads that had less and less vehicle traffic. At one place a pack of hound dogs came out to bark at me from all sides. A few miles later I rode past a farm where the roadsides were edged with flowers. Perhaps the farm wife didn’t think the corn and soybeans were pretty enough in themselves. I wondered how she convinced her husband to put up with the slight inconvenience of having to plant, cultivate, and harvest around them.

Mind you, I realize I’m stereotyping here. I don’t know for a fact that it was a wife who planted them. I mean, it could have been a woman who ran the farm while her good-for-nothing boyfriend planted flowers when he should have been working on his Great American Novel. Or it could have been the man who planted flowers so he could avoid going in the house to listen to his wife nag him about how he ought to be expanding the operation. But given the realities of farm life, I’ll put my money on a traditional farm couple who like each other well enough to indulge each other.

I stopped in Culver to get a bite to eat at a Dairy Queen – the only choice available as far as I could tell. I regretted my choice of burger most of the rest of the evening — too heavy and greasy. I still had almost 20 miles to go to the Tippecanoe State Park. The sun was getting low as I headed west-southwest towards Ora. In a couple of places I found myself on gravel, which I probably could have avoided if I had had better maps. The first stretch of gravel was on open prairie country. The 2nd was in heavily wooded country near the Tippecanoe River, with trees arching over the road. The sun was down by then, and I thought of those stories from out west where wildcats have found bicycle riders to be an entertaining type of prey.

Ora was the kind of place that… Well, while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to call Myra, an expensive-looking car from the west stopped. A man of about my age, but perhaps more of a country club type, asked for directions. For some reason people think bicycle tourers know the local directions, even when they are in strange country and are on the verge of getting lost themselves. There wasn’t much light left, I still had several miles to go, and wasn’t even sure where I needed to go (which was why I was trying to call Myra). But I decided I may as well be helpful. I told the guy I had come from Culver, but he probably didn’t want to go the way I had come. He said he would be glad if he could find Culver; he had been there before and would know where to go from there. He got out and we studied the map together. After he got an idea of where to go, he gave the town a quick lookover, which could be done right from where we were standing. North Carolina used to have places like this before it got all developed, he said, somewhat wistfully. We visited a few minutes longer, and then we each took off in our separate directions.

I then followed winding back roads that took me to Hwy 35, finally. It wasn’t really that many miles, but riding in the dark in strange country sometimes makes the distances seem longer. I headed south, still not sure where to get into the park. Here on Hwy 35 there was traffic, but my main concern was finding the park. Finally I got in touch with Myra. I still had trouble understanding where to go, so she drove out to the highway to pick me up. I had ridden about 90 miles for the day.