USNA 1973 Ride-2-Remember

Day 46, 18 September: Munster to LaPorte, IN

That would make a good title for a song, and an appropriate one for today. It is Monday and it rained… hard, even though all but Ron’s weather app called for a sunny day. We dressed for cool weather, not wet weather and making wardrobe changes in the middle of a ride is avoided as much as possible. It started as a drizzle, then came down hard. After about 25 miles the rain moved on and the rest of the 50-mile ride was either overcast or sunny.

Almost half of our ride was on a really good trail system, which is a much better place to be than on the roads, especially in rain. Sally and Mark had to navigate the roads, which apparently had a lot of standing water and a number of accidents. Given the rain, I was not keen to take pictures of the trail, which looked much like trails we were on yesterday afternoon. Once the rain passed, we passed out of the urban area where we started and onto quiet, rural county roads.

Three vignettes are worth noting today. The first was at the motel while having breakfast and preparing to depart. The woman responsible for preparing and monitoring the continental breakfast was absolutely amazed to hear what we were up to. She couldn’t stop with exclamations of disbelief, admiration, and gratitude for the riders and Ride-2-Remember. She was delighted to receive a “business card” identifying means to stay in touch with our ride and elated to get a handful for her friends. Phyllis was a sweetheart… excited to have her picture taken with the team and sincere in her words of astonishment and support.

The second vignette presented itself once the rain stopped and there was opportunity to take in my surroundings and accompanying scenery. I noticed a cute cottage with flowers, so stopped and took a picture. I then noticed a very different but equally appealing home across the street… and took a picture. There were many lovely homes in this rural section of Northwest Indiana and most, from modest to opulent, displayed pride with upkeep and well-tended grounds.

I arrived at our next motel in LaPorte at the tail end of the third vignette, which holds useful information for anyone arriving early to motel. All but one lodging facility since we started on 8/4 has had a policy of no check-ins before 3:00 or 3:30 PM. We always arrive earlier. No amount of reasoning, pleading, telling our story or anything has helped us get into rooms early. From the first week we discovered that the secret to getting around the policy is to just accept what they tell us and then politely inform them that we have no place to go, so hopefully they won’t have a problem with us “setting up camp” in the lobby. It has never taken more than thirty minutes to learn that some rooms have become available and they can check us in.

Today, Tes arrived at about 10:45 AM. Same routine. So Tes didn’t push back, but he did start to take off his riding gear, advising the desk folks that his clothes were all wet and he needed to get out of them. When down to bare feet and starting to remove another layer, he was informed that our rooms had just been cleaned and they would be happy to provide us early check-in. Bottom line, motel staff do not want you hanging around the lobby like it’s your family room and so far, they’ve always managed to find a way to expedite the check-in process and by-pass their policy.

It was a rainy day (two in a row) and it was a Monday, but contrary to the song, neither got us down.

Doug Leland