Mission: Impossible!
Saturday, July 22, 2006
As you can tell from the title, this was going to be a trying trip. The destination is Peru, Indiana, often referred to as the Circus Capital of the world. It is located right in the middle of Indiana, east and west, and about in the middle of South Bend and Indianapolis. So it made a great meeting spot for myself, and a riding friend, Julie. She is also the President of the Michiana Cruiser Club Chapter.
The meeting spot would be Thornton's on East Washington Street. Besides my father and I, Easy Rider Jim and Carl had also arrived for the ride. I had forgotten that I planned to ride the route Julie and I would take back to Peru this morning, so I was calling up the wrong route. I had a pretty good idea of where to go, so we headed out. We went west on Washington Street to Shadeland Avenue. North on Shadeland Avenue to Pendelton Pike which becomes SR 67. I was to get off before then, but I was improvising. After several twists and turns, and a crossing of Giest Resivoir, we were on track.
Not so fast, this mission is about to self destruct. Just as I was comfortable in the saddle, up pops those familiar orange signs. The road I wanted to take was closed, so we had to detour. After a few turns of county roads, we were back on track, not too much of a delay.
After cruising through Noblesville, we started heading north on SR 19. Before Tipton, a town about 30 miles from Noblesville, we ran into not one, but two construction delays. I know you should be safe, and take it slow through these areas, the guy that was holding us up was a at a snails pass. A worker could be in the way, get out, and get back in the way again with this pace!
This would delay us about another 15 to 20 minutes, so now we are about 30 minutes behind. We would get through Tipton just fine, but north of there, we would hit a small town with railroad tracks. As we pulled up to the tracks, I could see the train coming to a stop. I saw a few cars heading down a side road, and I thought it would be smart to follows the locals. That didn't help too much, as there was no way out, but crossing the tracks, or backtracking several miles. As we pulled up to another crossing, west of the east bound train, it was moving again. We waited until it passed.
So now we were running at least 30 minutes late, and we still needed to make a stop. Besides the fact that Carl had some medication to take, we generally had been riding for while, about 2 hours, and needed a little out of the saddle time. I was able to create enough of a route to get us to where we needed to go.
After another 20 miles, we arrived in Greentown, and yet again, another hitch in the route. This time we needed to navigate around a downed tree in the road!! I was beginning to think I was cursed, and was mentally writing my Road Capitan Resignation!
We were closing in on town, so I thought we would be eliminating the obstacles. Yeah right, we were not done yet. After riding on some rougher country roads, I decided we had enough, and it was time to give it up and hit the highway. Of course the sign that read, "Broken Pavement: Travel at your Own Risk" might have had something to do with me changing my mind to US 31.
Once I saw the welcome to Peru sign, I really felt like I was out of the woods. Nope. As we pulled into downtown, we realize that the Circus City is hold a street fair! The fair just had to be taking up the street we needed to take to get to the restaurant. Since my father grew up in Peru, I was familiar with the area, and had traveled a lot of these streets. We were able to navigate to the restaurant, and it's full parking lot!
I had gotten a voice mail from my brother, so I called, and he was in the restaurant, sitting at the bar with Julie. We were able to gather up enough chairs, and we squeezed in to the place for lunch.
After a great tasting meal, if you are ever in Peru, stop by Harvey Hinklemeirs, we were ready to brave the hot, sunny air for the trip back. There were now six of us, and we headed out to Misseniwa, and the resivoir via Frances Slocum Trial. This is the best I road I had found in this area. We were able to cross over the damn, this time, as it has been closes for work. We continued on several back county roads to SR 213, and then to SR 13.
SR 13 was long unwinding road. It was quite boring, but I good way to get back to Indy. Carl and Easyrider Jim took off when we pulled into a gas station. Dad mentioned he would take I-69 back home, so it would just be the three of us, Julie, my brother and I heading back to Indy. Kevin, my brother, wanted to follow me home to get some Honda Spray Cleaner that I just bought from Reed.
We would take Fortville Pike back to near Greenwood, it is a nice meandering road. We would head west from there along 21st and tenth streets. This is a back way into my neighborhood, and Julie though we were really out of town!
Since the second part of the trip went fairly well, I decided to extend my Road Captian duties for at least another day.
As you can tell from the title, this was going to be a trying trip. The destination is Peru, Indiana, often referred to as the Circus Capital of the world. It is located right in the middle of Indiana, east and west, and about in the middle of South Bend and Indianapolis. So it made a great meeting spot for myself, and a riding friend, Julie. She is also the President of the Michiana Cruiser Club Chapter.
The meeting spot would be Thornton's on East Washington Street. Besides my father and I, Easy Rider Jim and Carl had also arrived for the ride. I had forgotten that I planned to ride the route Julie and I would take back to Peru this morning, so I was calling up the wrong route. I had a pretty good idea of where to go, so we headed out. We went west on Washington Street to Shadeland Avenue. North on Shadeland Avenue to Pendelton Pike which becomes SR 67. I was to get off before then, but I was improvising. After several twists and turns, and a crossing of Giest Resivoir, we were on track.
Not so fast, this mission is about to self destruct. Just as I was comfortable in the saddle, up pops those familiar orange signs. The road I wanted to take was closed, so we had to detour. After a few turns of county roads, we were back on track, not too much of a delay.
After cruising through Noblesville, we started heading north on SR 19. Before Tipton, a town about 30 miles from Noblesville, we ran into not one, but two construction delays. I know you should be safe, and take it slow through these areas, the guy that was holding us up was a at a snails pass. A worker could be in the way, get out, and get back in the way again with this pace!
This would delay us about another 15 to 20 minutes, so now we are about 30 minutes behind. We would get through Tipton just fine, but north of there, we would hit a small town with railroad tracks. As we pulled up to the tracks, I could see the train coming to a stop. I saw a few cars heading down a side road, and I thought it would be smart to follows the locals. That didn't help too much, as there was no way out, but crossing the tracks, or backtracking several miles. As we pulled up to another crossing, west of the east bound train, it was moving again. We waited until it passed.
So now we were running at least 30 minutes late, and we still needed to make a stop. Besides the fact that Carl had some medication to take, we generally had been riding for while, about 2 hours, and needed a little out of the saddle time. I was able to create enough of a route to get us to where we needed to go.
After another 20 miles, we arrived in Greentown, and yet again, another hitch in the route. This time we needed to navigate around a downed tree in the road!! I was beginning to think I was cursed, and was mentally writing my Road Capitan Resignation!
We were closing in on town, so I thought we would be eliminating the obstacles. Yeah right, we were not done yet. After riding on some rougher country roads, I decided we had enough, and it was time to give it up and hit the highway. Of course the sign that read, "Broken Pavement: Travel at your Own Risk" might have had something to do with me changing my mind to US 31.
Once I saw the welcome to Peru sign, I really felt like I was out of the woods. Nope. As we pulled into downtown, we realize that the Circus City is hold a street fair! The fair just had to be taking up the street we needed to take to get to the restaurant. Since my father grew up in Peru, I was familiar with the area, and had traveled a lot of these streets. We were able to navigate to the restaurant, and it's full parking lot!
I had gotten a voice mail from my brother, so I called, and he was in the restaurant, sitting at the bar with Julie. We were able to gather up enough chairs, and we squeezed in to the place for lunch.
After a great tasting meal, if you are ever in Peru, stop by Harvey Hinklemeirs, we were ready to brave the hot, sunny air for the trip back. There were now six of us, and we headed out to Misseniwa, and the resivoir via Frances Slocum Trial. This is the best I road I had found in this area. We were able to cross over the damn, this time, as it has been closes for work. We continued on several back county roads to SR 213, and then to SR 13.
SR 13 was long unwinding road. It was quite boring, but I good way to get back to Indy. Carl and Easyrider Jim took off when we pulled into a gas station. Dad mentioned he would take I-69 back home, so it would just be the three of us, Julie, my brother and I heading back to Indy. Kevin, my brother, wanted to follow me home to get some Honda Spray Cleaner that I just bought from Reed.
We would take Fortville Pike back to near Greenwood, it is a nice meandering road. We would head west from there along 21st and tenth streets. This is a back way into my neighborhood, and Julie though we were really out of town!
Since the second part of the trip went fairly well, I decided to extend my Road Captian duties for at least another day.
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