Rain All Day

Tuesday, July 11. Logansport, IN to Rensselaer, IN.

When we woke up this morning, the rain was imminent, but I managed to talk Matthew into heading out anyway. To my credit, as part of my argument to leave in the morning, I did not ask "What's the worst that could happen?"

As we set out, it was raining lightly, but steadily. Riding through Logansport wasn't too bad--we have rain gear, and at least the pavement wasn't going to boil today. The route was still flat, and on the roads had even less traffic than normal because of the rain.

We crossed a road that Matthew thought should have been Rt. 16, but was marked as 700N. I made a command decision to stop at a farm house to confirm Matthew's suspicion, and there we met Bob and Cathy. They invited us in to their garage, where we dripped dry while Bob drew a rudimentary map on a large chalkboard hanging in the garage. We visited with them for about 30 minutes, and when we stepped back outside, found that the rain had stopped. Quick, Robin! To the BOB-mobiles!

The rain started up again within the hour, and started to rain even harder as we rode on. Our rain jackets went from shedding precipitation to actively collecting rainwater. I was able to empty out about a 1/2 cup of water from my sleeves. Still, it was a pleasant enough ride, zig-zagging through rural farm roads. On the zigs, we actually had a tailwind, so we were making good time. We'd done about 30 miles by the time we reached our planned lunch stop, and as we pulled into the only eating establishment in Buffalo, IN, we saw a recumbent tandem parked under the roof overhang.

We parked our bikes right behind the tandem, and found Priscilla and Daryl inside Dotson's Family Restaraunt. We sat down with them and swapped stories and road info. They'd left their home in Brookline, MA, 18 days earlier, and were headed for RAGBRAI, Iowa's famous weeklong bicycle party across the state. Daryl is originally from Iowa, and they've ridden RAGBRAI seven years now. This year they decided to ride to the ride. Priscilla will return home after RAGBRAI, but Daryl will continue on to Anacortes, WA.

By the time we met them, they'd started the day in Wabash, IN, and had already logged 60 miles for the day. They were planning to end at Rensselaer, IN, and were anxious to put those remaining 30 miles behind them. We said our goodbyes, but later caught up with them around 4:30pm, not far outside of Rensselaer. Their schedule to meet the RAGBRAI event is driving the pace of their days, so they are riding some big-mileage days to get to the ride in time.

The hotels in Rensselaer are all near Interstate 65, so we rode through town to get to them. My odomoter read 67 miles, and my clock registered 4:55pm when we stopped at a DQ just before our hotel. I had calculated that we'd reach Rensselaer after 5pm, so arriving early seemed like a good opportunity to celebrate. I noticed that the clock inside the DQ was an hour earlier than my clock, so we knew we'd reached the Central time zone. And as we talked with the DQ staff and enjoyed our cool treats, the sun came out! Again, I ask, is there anything that ice cream can't do?

It's pouring here now, and we've seen lightning flashes, too. The weather report is predicting storms all night tonight and into tomorrow, but clearing at some point tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to ride in clear weather tomorrow, but if not, the roads are still flat and the ride will probably seem a lot like today's. Except that tomorrow we'll cross the border into Illinois. We're rapidly approaching the halfway point of this journey, and it's hard to believe that we'll soon have more of the road behind us than in front of us.