| Bloomington, Indiana to Evanston, Indiana | |
| Day's Route Overview: Today I planned for a relatively short day, but it has many stops. I was able to add some miles to try to shorten up not only tomorrow, but also days to come. From
Bloomington, Indiana I
headed North-East to
Indianapolis and then East into Ohio. For most of the day, I had terrific weather. The only exception was while in Louisville with the heat. When I looked yesterday, each city along today's route had
forecast for thunder storms. |
|
|
Starting out: Trip / Odometer / Time: 1.3 / 42,497 / 5:55 AM PDT |
|
| From Bloomington, the fastest way is to swing up to Indianapolis and head due East from there. |
  |
|
Richmond, Indiana has a HD dealer. I visited
there. Two sales ladies were trying to solve a problem.
An accessory that a customer was trying to buy was not in the
computer. The two hemmed and hawed and were generally
ineffective while I and three other customers queued up unattended.
I guess they do not hire brain surgeons to manage the clothing and
accessory counter.
Harley-Davidson Center, Inc, 2240 Chester Blvd, Richmond, Indiana 47374 |
|
| I entered Ohio for the first time on Lola. This is the furthest east state I have ridden to. I was going to try to get to Cincinnati, Ohio last year when I was out here, but I had just ridden through two days of steady rain and I was anxious to head south to get out of the stormy area. |
 |
|
Dayton, Ohio area: While getting gas in Ohio, a fellow approached me and asked if I were touring. Yes. Turns out he was just returning from Maine with a group of friends on their motorcycles. They live in Oklahoma. I mentioned that I had not gotten to east coast because it is so far from California. He said that they hadn't yet gotten to California. |
|
|
F & S Harley-Davidson,
7220 North Dixie Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45414
Open Monday thru Sunday, fshd.com,
(330) 898-8084 I had trouble finding this place. I read the map wrong. Exit 59 puts you out north of the dealer, not south. Note: this dealsership has closed. |
|
| Today I did hit the
eastern most city,
Xenia, Ohio. Last time I researched it, I could
only find two cities in the United States that begin with an "X".
This is the second one that I have ridden to. The other is Xenia,
Illinois. These are the closest "X" cities to California. I found the post office, but it had no sign for the city. A large, old, stately building, but it only said "United States Post Office" I searched around and finally found the city hall. Across the street is a little park and a gentleman sitting on a bench, probably enjoying his lunch hour. When I asked if he could take my photo, he was very happy to do so. A nice guy. Xenia has a Harley dealer. Buckminn's Harley-Davidson,
1213 Cincinnati Avenue (Route 42 South), Xenia, Ohio 45385 |
  |
|
Cincinnati, Ohio has two Harley-Davidson dealers.
I visited one. I looked for about 15 minutes trying to find
this dealership. It is on a street that changes name from
"Ross" at one end to "Tennessee" in the middle, and then back to
"Ross" at the other end. Until I figured this out, I had a
devil of a time.
Harley-Davidson of Cincinnati,
17799 Tennessee Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229 Not only were they out of dealer pins (inexcusable!) but the woman who waited on me was anything but pleasant. If I had more energy and thought it might do some good, I would have asked to see the manager to complain. |
 |
| Kentucky. I need a photo to show I was in the
state, but there is nothing I want to see this trip until I get to
Louisville. I did come across a rest stop that was in the area where Daniel Boone actually wandered. Since I too was wandering through the area, I thought a photo with me in it was appropriate. A friendly, convenient wall had a niche for the camera on delay. While standing in line in a Wendy's a couple behind me asked about Lola. Turns out they have a Harley and enjoy touring together. We spoke for a while and compared notes. |
  |
|
Louisville, Kentucky also has two Harley-Davidson
dealers. I had hoped to visit one. Due to the slow time
I had finding photo targets in the more important cities
earlier in the day, I was running close to closing time.
Louisville is on east coast time. The dealership stays open
until 7:00. Approaching Louisville, it looked like I could get
there with about 10 minutes to spare. I was vacillating. Stopping would mean a side trip, but Louisville is where my mother spent part of her childhood so a memento would be very nice. As I approached closer, there was a highway sign that said that I-64 West through the city was closed. Detour on 264. This put me out of reach of the dealer. Look at the map. I-64 would mean going from I-71 from the north-east to the north west, skirting along the north side of Louisville. On the other hand, I-264 meant that I had to go down the east side of the city, across the south side and then back up the west side, about three times as far. Not only that, but the exchange between I-264 and I-64 in the north-west corner is designed to handle a relatively low volume of traffic. The traffic that normally travels I-64 is three full lanes with a large number of big-rigs. The interchange I went through narrows down to one lane. There was five miles where everything was stop and move an inch and stop again. This with it being in the mid nineties and the sun bearing down and the humidity very high. Neither Lola nor I enjoyed this very much. My skin glowed with a healthy dew. No, more like I was sweating like a pig! Were this California, it is legal for me to ride between lanes and advance. In almost no other state is this allowed. After an eternity, I got onto I-64 heading west and started to move at highway speeds. I was soaked and sticky. To add to the irony of it all, one of the signs I saw first on 64 said "Caution, bridge may be icy." Now, I suppose that is sage advice during some parts of the year, but it seemed a bit silly at the time. |
|
| From Louisville, I kept on heading westward. I went by a little town named Santa Claus, Indiana. There were all sorts of billboards along the highway for various themed businesses, ornaments, decorations, etc. | |
| I started the day in Indiana. I went through Ohio and into Kentucky and then finally settled for the night back in Indiana. |
 |
|
As an aside, this is a photo of the parking sticker that the toll
lady gave me at Mt. Rushmore. It is void if removed from the
vehicle. As long as it stays attached, I have free re-entry to
the monument for the rest of 2007. I figure that there's as
much chance that Lola will revisit Rushmore this year as there is of
me winning the lottery; and, I never by the tickets. I just want to see when the wind whipping it around will finally cause it to fail. Not much wear yet and it's been six days and over 2,000 miles flapping around on my handlebars. |
 |
|
Done for the day: Trip / Odometer / Time: 39.0 / 42,989 / 7:18 PM |
|
|
ABC Letters: New States: Ohio, Kentucky Day's Totals: 492 miles, 13 hours 23 minutes |
|
Updated: Wednesday, May 28, 2014 02:34:12 PM