Wednesday, June 19, 1996
Day 39
Tippecanoe State Park, Indiana to Huntington, Indiana
Today's Miles: 75
Cumulative Miles for the Tour: 2607
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Terrain: Flat Farmland
Find of the Day: The Good Shepard's Retreat
Everyone was in a hurry to leave camp this morning. The mosquitoes were so bad, it was hard to concentrate on anything for more than a couple seconds without swatting the back of your neck or brushing insects off your legs. Add that to the raccoon attack at one in the morning, and we all agreed Tippecanoe State Park was definitely one of the worst campsites we've had.
The ride today made up for the sleeping situation last night. We had three spots vying for "Find of the Day". The first one was "Karen's Family Restaurant" in Rochester, Indiana.I caught up with Lee as he was sitting down to order at a cafe in downtown Rochester. Dave Blair showed up to tell us the other riders were going to another place over on Highway 114, east of town. Lee and I had already ordered, so we ate and went over to see what the other place looked like. Boy, did we miss out.
Only HALF of the selections at Karen's
Karen's is the type of place you want to go to when you want to hurt yourself. The lunch is an all you can eat buffet for $4.50. Today it included grilled cod, spaghetti, roasted pork, a full salad bar and fried chicken. That's just the stuff I can remember. By the time Lee and I got there, David Wallace, Adam and Ken were moaning and said they had eaten so much they wouldn't be able to ride for the rest of the day. Adam kept insisting that he had to have a nap before we could continue. As all this groaning was going on, Angel, the waitress, kept coming over to the table, refilling glasses, checking to make sure everything was moving according to plan. All in all, Karen's would have been the major find of the day...except this was no ordinary day.
We rode down Highway 114 for about 15 miles. We were standing at the crossroads of nowhere, Highway 114 and Highway 15, talking with David Blair about which route to take. Some guy jumped out of his car and asked where we were biking from. We told him we started in Seattle and he got a big grin on his face. His name was Wayne and he was one of the managers at Sun Rims, one of the largest manufacturers of bicycle wheels in the world. He invited us to his plant, seven miles down the road. We all raced to our bikes and were standing at the doors to Sun Rims within 20 minutes.
The Sun Rim Factory
We were given a complete tour of the production facility, shown each stage of the production process and had all our questions answered concerning the building of Sun Rims. I wouldn't have known the process was so fascinating without having seen it myself. This is MAJOR industrial stuff with heavy equipment, twisting and drilling the aluminum strips into rims. Wayne, Bill and their staff wanted us to tell everyone that their 50th Anniversary is this weekend. If you're near the area on Saturday, stop in and say hi. There'll be a lot going on.
Normally, Sun Rims would have been the "Find of the Day", but this was no ordinary day. After lunch at Karen's and the tour of the Sun Rim production plant, we were ready to finish off the last 20 miles, have a quick dinner and hit the tents. This was not to be.Donna and Sarah do our scouting each day. They have to find a campsite large enough to setup six tents and a dinner area for 8. Today, when we pedaled into Huntington, they had found a Monestary that was built in the 1920's and is now being used as a retreat for groups passing through the area. As we were riding along the roads of Huntington, a massive, brick structure began to tower over the other buildings. It looked like a citadel in ancient Spain, acting as the heart of the town. When we realized, this was the place, there was a look of shock on all our faces. We pulled into the gravel driveway of the Good Shepard's Monestary Retreat and went around to the back of the building looking for an area of manicured lawn to setup our tents. Nope, that wasn't the plan. We were taken inside the Monestary where we were each given OUR OWN, PRIVATE ROOM FOR THE NIGHT and told that we had access to the swimming pool after the pool officially closed at 6:00pm.Larry, the pastor of Good Shepard's, came over to say hi after we had spent an hour in the pool. Donna put out a great picnic dinner for us as we sat in a gazebo overlooking the gardens of the Monestary. As I write this journal, I am sitting in an 8 by 10 foot room overlooking the grounds of the Monestary, as I get ready for bed IN MY OWN ROOM! This might not sound like much to those of you who have a warm, DRY place to sleep each night, but we've been sleeping in tents for the last 40 days and to us this is pure luxury.Sherry, the custodian, gave us a complete tour of the facilities and a little bit of the history of the building. It was built in 1928 by an order of catholic monks. In the late 1970's, the order wasn't as popular as it once was. There were only 5 monks left in the order and they couldn't keep up with the functions of an estate this size, so they sold to a local church organization and moved to Wisconsin to complete their studies.Larry, the pastor, said we're welcome back anytime and can use the facilities whenever we are riding through the area. I don't think he has to worry about that. David Blair will make this a permanent part of the tour for the coming years.The price for staying at Good Shepard's?...a donation of your choosing. What else is there to say, except "Thank you, Good Shepard's. We'll see you next year."10 days and counting to DC...
From the journals of Dave Blair
Mosquitoes can turn an otherwise pleasurable camping experience into a slapping, scratching, swatting nightmare. This was the case at Tippecanoe State Park in Indiana. . . in fact they were so bad that we tried, and failed, to get a refund once we went to our site, hopped out of the van and immediately became the main entree of every buzzy, biting bug within a country mile.
We quickly set up our tents, jumped back into the van and headed for town. . . spending the next four hours eating and running various errands before heading back to camp and diving into our tents.Ten minutes later the first of what would be an army of raccoons decided to visit our site even though we had already gone to bed. This didn't seem to bother them in the least. They made themselves at home trying with minor success to open and then devour everything in our two coolers and two food tubs. The night before in Kankakee State Park, Illinois, two raccoons were very successful in opening one of our coolers and finding a dozen eggs at their disposal. I didn't get the chance to thank them the next morning for leaving us six eggs.Did I mention these coolers are up in the back of my Nissan Pickup? It's a very helpless feeling when you're shining your flashlight from your tent and there are three to six raccoons climbing all over your pickup like it's a jungle gym. You yell at them and they just let out a snicker somehow knowing you're not going to come out of your tent to face a wall of mosquitoes that are so aggressive you would look like you had chicken pox by morning.I wouldn't trade tent camping for hotel rooms while we cross the USA. Just think of all the experiences you would miss while you lay on a comfortable bed in an air conditioned room watching ESPN.
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