The photos in this post are a few we snapped while riding through downtown Richmond, which I wish we'd had more time to explore. Our stay was short, and we were always in a bit of a hurry -- either to get to the Cardinal Greenway or back to our hotel (and Paisley!), but it was clear that there were some interesting shops, restaurants, and buildings in town. There are some fine murals as well, so we made sure to capture those. I learned more about Richmond from Wikipedia. The city has a rich history in jazz music and architecture. Here's just a snippet of the information there: [Richmond, IN] is sometimes called the "cradle of recorded jazz" because some early jazz records were made here at the studio of Gennett Records, a division of the Starr Piano Company.[6] This site includes more information about the Railroad Depot Historic District in downtown Richmond. Here's one of the murals downtown referring to the city's jazz roots. Gotta take a closer look... I also learned from Wikipedia that a natural gas explosion and fire in April 1968 destroyed much of Richmond's downtown area, killing 41 people. I am guessing this somewhat startling mural is referring to that event. Fortunately, Richmond has rebuilt and downtown is once again vibrant. I love that the mural below even depicts a cyclist! I wish people didn't feel the need to deface public art with graffiti. Finally, I couldn't resist a quick shot of this business sign -- Burns is my maiden name. Stay tuned as we continue our westward journey across the US!
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Since we'd finally located the Cardinal Greenway trailhead in Richmond, Indiana the day before (see this blog post), it was an easy 2.5-mile bike ride over from our hotel the next morning for our long ride north. Barry planned to ride to the town of Gaston and back (over 100 miles round trip), and I was going to ride just as long as I felt like it and turn around when I wanted. Ah, freedom! We were lucky enough to get a beautiful, sunny day in the 70s for this long ride, and we got going right after breakfast. On the way over, Barry spied this sign so stopped for a photo op. Richmond really is a nice little town -- who knew? The Cardinal Greenway rail trail is very attractive and and pretty much flat, though I am sure it rises and falls just a bit here and there. Wind was light so was not a big factor -- what a change from so many windy spring rides we've taken lately! Barry and I rode over to the trailhead and started out together, but before too long we split up as he wanted (and needed) to ride faster than me to meet his mileage goals. We kept up with each other by occasional cell phone calls along the way. Here's Barry about to ride under I-70, the interstate we took so many times heading to and from Kansas City, but never knew the Cardinal Greenway ran right underneath it! There's a big FedEx distribution center in KC, so good chance this tandem trailer was heading east from there. It was very easy and fun riding north as the small amount of wind must have been at my back, and any minor slope must have favored that direction after the first few miles out of Richmond. There was another cyclist riding south from time to time, but for the most part, the trail was quiet and a breeze to ride. I helped this little guy covered in dried dirt, across the trail. We'd seen a big snapping turtle crossing earlier when we were riding together. No, we didn't try to give him a hand (or a finger or three!) I didn't make it all the way to the city of Muncie, home of Ball State University, so Barry took some photos for me. He said I didn't miss too much. Barry called me from the northern end of the trail at Gaston. He was now half way done with his ride, and I was about 2/3 finished with mine as I'd already turned around in Medford. I rode farther north than I expected, as it was just so smooth and easy, but I started paying for that later in the ride. Although there are porta-potties at every trailhead along the greenway, there is but one water fountain along the portion of the trail south of Muncie, in the tiny hamlet of Losantville. I had only brought one water bottle, counting on a refill at this fountain, but when I arrived in Losantville, I discovered the fountain was "temporarily out of order", per the handwritten sign. Running out of water is every cyclist's worst nightmare on a rural ride with no stores or restaurants along the way. Fortunately Losantville did happen to have two convenience stores close to the trail -- the only town on the section of trail I rode that did. So I was able to ride over to one on my way south for a bottle of water and one of Mountain Dew (for the caffeine!) The only real negative of the ride was the aggressive red-winged blackbirds that dive-bombed my helmet, squawked, and chased me no less than 6-8 times coming and going through the more open trail areas. They must have nests nearby. I yelled and waved my arm, but this is the first time I have ever been scared of a bird. I would probably avoid riding this trail at this exact time of year again for that reason alone. Barry also got chased, though not quite as often as I did. After getting back, I googled, and turns out this is a common phenomenon in many areas during nesting season. People reported getting chased and dive bombed by red-winged blackbirds while walking, running, cycling -- they even terrorize farmers on tractors. I read on one blog that tragically, one man lost his life when he fell off his bike during a blackbird attack. He was not wearing a helmet. Since they go for the back of your head, I was really, really glad to have my helmet on! Shades of The Birds, no? I started regretting how far north I'd ridden between miles 55 and 65, since I was now having to retrace my steps (so to speak). At that point, the little bit of wind seemed worse than it was, the trail seemed all uphill, my quads were burning, and my posterior was very tired of sitting on a bike saddle. I stopped quite a few times in the return leg just to stretch and get off the saddle for a couple of minutes. Fortunately, the last five miles or so back into Richmond are all slightly downhill, so I got my second wind there, and finished strong! I even felt great on the last 2.5 miles in town back to the hotel and ended up with my longest ride of the year, clocking 75.8 miles. Barry rolled into the hotel a little later in the afternoon, and I was able to capture a shot of him riding in from the road, all smiles. Why is this man smiling? Because he just completed his second century (100+ mile bike ride) in less than a week. Over 110 miles -- truly amazing!
From Xenia, Ohio, we had only a short drive to our next destination, Richmond, Indiana. Just over an hour, in fact. Short drives are great and are part of our plan for this phase of our travels. No more 8+ hours behind the wheel and arriving at a destination exhausted already. Another plus was that our hotel in Richmond had a 1pm check-in time. 3pm is more common and sometimes means that we are stuck in between places if we leave the previous spot too early, so we have to be careful with our timing or find a place to hang out in between that is okay with a dog in tow. With the short drive, we arrived in Richmond a little early and drove to a nearby park for a quick picnic lunch. Then we headed over to the hotel get checked in, situated, and out on a short bike ride that afternoon. We wanted to find the closest trailhead for the Cardinal Greenway, a rail-trail that brought us to this city we knew literally nothing about! The trailhead was about two and a half miles from our hotel, so we rode our bikes over, but had a hard time finding it. We ended up in Veteran's Memorial Park. We found a sign for the trail, but not the trail itself. So we looked around the park for a bit. There were monuments for each war, plus a few others, and some tanks. Not really my cup of tea, but Barry seemed to enjoy it! Eventually we realized that there was a bike trail going off to the south. Turns out this was a spur of the Cardinal Greenway running through the Whitewater Valley Gorge Park. It was only a couple of miles in each direction, but was beautiful, mostly meandering through deep green forest beside the East Fork of the Whitewater River. One part goes through a more open area and included views of one of the old Starr Piano Company's manufacturing buildings. Very cool! There was also a very colorful and interesting mural in this area...I'm not sure if it is an official mural or "grafitti", but I liked it either way... ...especially this part of it. What a great message! Finally, after riding to the end of the southern spur of the trail and back but still not finding the actual trailhead to the much longer northern section (the two portions are not quite contiguous), we asked a couple of cyclists in the area, and they directed us to turn a couple of times to find it. We were SO close so many times we couldn't believe we'd missed it! But now we knew and would have no problem finding it the next morning for our long ride.
Of course we couldn't resist doing a few miles on it. Actually, by the time all was said and done and we got back to our hotel, I had 32 miles on the odometer on this "short" ride! |
Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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