Day 16: Rochester, IN to Valparaiso, IN

July 9, 2023

In which I just have a nice day

"Farming isn't for everyone, but hay, it's in my jeans" -Anonymous

I got started about 8:30am - the temperature was hovering near 60 degrees, making it almost jacket-worthy, but knowing it would warm up, I resisted. There was lingering fog that made the fields look a bit sinister and mysterious since I couldn't see the horizons.

The sun warmed things up fairly quickly - aiming for a high of 80 - almost perfect cycling weather as the wind wasn't a factor.

I may have overdid it on the wildflowers today, but honestly there wasn't much else to look at. I'm getting a bit tired of Ohio & Indiana farmland. It's nice, but one wants a change of scenery now and then. Tomorrow will be much more urban, so fewer flowers. Take it away, Bill...

At the 30-mile mark I hit another rail-trail project. The Erie-North Judson Trail. I knew this was coming, and it was indeed a very nice trail. Good to forget about traffic for a while...10 miles at least.

When I hit North Judson I found an open Subway and had a sandwich. Subway's one of my go-to spots when cycling - they aren't the best sandwiches I've ever had, but they aren't bad and they are everywhere, making them a pretty reliable find in any decent sized town.

After that, it was detour time. I saw a road closed sign ahead and flagged down a mom coming out of her driveway and asked about it. Turned out the bridge over the Kankakee River was washed out, and I would have no chance of scrambling across like yesterday.

This didn't substantially increase my mileage, but the detour involved a mile of pure gravel (ugh!) and then a very busy highway with almost no shoulder (yikes!) I got past that and worked my way back to the original route. This is the 3rd washed-out bridge I've encountered in Indiana, but don't remember reading about much flooding here. Perhaps I'm just not paying attention.

I got to Valparaiso, IN about 3pm. I am staying in a cool spot that is a room above a little pub/restaurant downtown. Here's the exterior:

Downtown Valparaiso also looked surprisingly healthy, with lots of people walking about, people in the park, and several food & drink spots open for business. Nice to see this, instead of the vacant storefronts so many midwestern downtowns have.

Tomorrow ends my ride - 58 miles from here to Union Station in Chicago. I thought I would need to leave at 7am to make sure I made my 3:15 train, but then I remembered I pick up an hour with the time-zone change, so an 8am start should work fine.

Today's ride: 72 miles (116 km)
Total: 907 miles (1,460 km)

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