After all of our trouble getting in last night, the campground staff told us to come in the morning to pay...she thought we'd had a rough enough day. This morning, in the course of conversation I mentioned it was our 50th anniversary ride and we were from Sturgis, MI. She shared that it was their 50th anniversary this year as well and that they were from Buchanan and Niles, MI. We quickly realized that Phil and her husband Jim were classmates from the class of 1961 in Buchanan. We walked down to the garage where Jim was working and Phil said his name and Jim said he had just been thinking about him a couple days ago and wondered what he was up to. I then found out that they also knew Phil's neighbor who introduced Phil & me and set us up on our blind date that led to us getting engaged and married. The guys enjoyed catching up a few minutes before we headed out on the road. Meeting up with old friends certainly made up for the trouble we had yesterday and if we'd not had trouble and gotten in late we probably would have never met the office staff. God does work in mysterious ways sometimes. If you'd like to see where we were, visit the website Lakeviewcampingfun.com. Since we missed the first part of this route, we'll visit with our new old friends when we ride the route.
Barry & Carol Ann are tent campers so each day they will be setting up camp with their tent. They are our SAG support if needed and our "camp staff". We are thankful they were able to join us on this fun adventure!
We got on the road about 9:30 am and rode back into Rochester.
Shortly after we left the campground we had to stop to take a picture of this barn that had a large bicycle in the shingles of the barn roof...not sure the day could have gotten off to a better start! You might have to zoom in on this picture...it's a little hard to see the bike!
We found the trailhead for the Nickel Plate Trail - A Rails to Trails path from Rochester to Kokomo. This little bit of art was along the trail..three bicycles hanging from an old telephone pole. We stopped for lunch in Macy, IN, which is about the size of Burr Oak for those of you from Sturgis. We enjoyed our lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, chex mix, bananas and oreos in a nice little park just off the trail. It was a beautiful day with a high of 84 degrees and we rode the trail with the wind at our back, a few minor grades and NO dogs!
This is the bridge over the Wabash River. There is a railroad track painted on the bridge since the rails are no longer there. We saw lots of wildlife and little critters and even a white-tail deer. It was a beautiful ride and we arrived at Mississinewa Lake Recreation Campground about 4pm after riding just over 50 miles.
We enjoyed shish-ka-bobs for dinner and are relaxing and enjoying a quiet evening playing Chicken Feet Dominoes!
Tomorrow we head to Alexandria, IN, about a 45 mile ride.
We enjoyed shish-ka-bobs for dinner and are relaxing and enjoying a quiet evening playing Chicken Feet Dominoes!
Tomorrow we head to Alexandria, IN, about a 45 mile ride.