PLAYING HOOKY RIDE

Okay so my husband and I decided to take the day off to play hooky (probably not spelled right) oh well, we invited a few other friends to go along with us.  We met at around 10:45am in Noblesville; the morning was cold but grateful there was no rain.  Big John, Shiz, Dan, and Marci pulled into the gas station.  After a short break, it was time to mount up and head out on the day’s ride. 

Our Shadow decided to come along for the ride!

We headed north on Hwy 37, it was a beautiful morning; the sun came out and parted the clouds just enough for our ride up north.  Everyone agreed that a good restaurant was in order and John & Shiz picked the place, we headed out to Ivanhoe’s in Upland, IN. This place had a great review in one of our HOG newsletter’s in the beginning of summer.  This restaurant literally had over 100 flavors of ice cream, and to see the menu was extraordinary.  Needless to say none of us ate any of the ice cream because we were to full.  

 

We went outside to take some photos before leaving and we met a young man who is “Walking America”, we took some pictures and he told us his story and it is truly amazing at the amount of miles, trials, and tribulations this young man has been through in his journey.  To read more about Allen and his quest please visit www.allensjourney.com you can follow all his post and you tube videos as he goes along.  He was a super nice & humbled young man.

This is "Allen"

After spending some time at Ivanhoe’s we headed into Jonesboro, IN to see what they had going on as many of the towns were hosting their Fall Festivals.  Upon our arrival, we parked the bikes and decided to stroll down Main Street.  There were quite a few vendors set up and music was going for the day’s festivities.  I found some chaps that were at a good price but decided not to buy them.  I later regretted that decision.  

After visiting there, it was time to head to our final but best stop of the day in Fair Mount, IN, “James Dean Days”.  It was exciting to be able to go see this festival, the locals work hard all year long to be able to host this event, and this is the biggest one of the year for this small little town.  I finally get the chance to see what all the fuss is about.  History lesson again, I found out this was the childhood area two major names Jim Davis who is the creator of “Garfield” and the famous “James Dean”, we were not able to go see the grave site of James Dean, but since we are not far from here it will be an easy day trip for next year.

We pulled in and hunted for a suitable parking area for our four motorcycles.  All the people walking around and all the cool cars that I could see off in a distance distracted me.  Dismounting the bike and I eagerly started walking towards the festivities.  With quite a few pictures taken, I hope you all enjoy the selected few that I have posted on here.  We walked all around and enjoyed the sites, smell of food and each others company.

It was time to leave as a couple of friends of ours had to head out to keep an appointment, so we all mounted our bikes and took off for home.  We ended up getting on Southbound I-69 and headed for home, my husband and I were last in the lineup as my husband was running sweep and we would be the first ones to leave the group for the day.  

I hate this interstate, traffic is horrible, and I got the crap scared out of me.  As I stayed seated tightly on the back, a couple of dingbats decided to play chicken with our bike as the other three motorcycle’s were able to maneuver their way around, we became boxed in with Semi’s to our right and an SUV in front of us and a truck right behind us.  They would speed up and hit the brakes causing my husband to have to stay within the boxed area and keep us alive.  All I could do was hold on for dear life and pray and we made it through this seemingly stupidity of other drivers that have no concern for motorcycles or someone else’s life.  One of the Semi drivers observed what was going on and made a move to allow us to be out of this boxed in area and move forward away from these two idiots.  Thank you to the trucker for the kindness he showed us.

We finally caught up with our small group to wave goodbye as we headed off our exit.  The rest of the group had no idea what we just went through, as they were a mile or so ahead of all of it. It was a great day without rain and glad we were able to get back early as we had riding plans for the next couple of days.  This was going to be a long weekend, and probably the last overnight ride of the season as the riding season is winding down and will eventually end for the winter.  However, do not worry readers; I will have weekly updates on what is going on during the winter months so please stay tuned.