The problem for us was one of timing. We really couldn't do an 'overnight' trip because of Easter Sunday, and just one way on this is 5.5 hours and 270 miles. That makes going down and coming back all the same day about an 11 hours riding day (with only short breaks) and while that's probably still doable by me, it's certainly not how you'd describe a great day of riding to Jannette.
Then my buddies Matt & Lorraine suggested that we meet up with them for a ride on Saturday, since the weather would be nice. One thing led to another and we couldn't get our schedules worked out. Plus, it was still quite cold here at 8am, which would have been prime time to leave and give ourselves plenty of daylight.
Instead we ended up leaving here at about 11:30 and heading for Rising Sun, Indiana to visit a casino there. Should have been about 162 miles and about 3.5 hours each way. We knew that leaving at 11:30 would mean a very short visit to the actual casino, but this was a scouting expedition and more about the ride than the destination. So we figured we'd be down there by 3pm, leave around 4pm and be back home by 7:30p. Not so much.
The ride itself was pretty decent. A bit chilly of a start, with both of us wearing winter riding gloves, and multiple layers. We wore chaps too, for warmth and added 'just in case' protection. The sun was out for nearly the entire day, which made for a beautiful ride. Took 27 down through Decatur, Berne, Geneva, Portland, Winchester, Richmond and that's where things got hairy. There was a detour set up because 27 was closed in Liberty, Indiana. We should have plowed on through and found a local way around it, but instead followed the Detour 27 signs, instead of our better sense and Garmina - who kept blabbering about with urgent proddings to 'turn right', 'turn right', and 'turn right'.
We ended up outside Cincinnati, in a town called "Northgate" which is about 20 miles east of the Indiana border. Other than the fact it was rather packed with traffic, it was a nice place to see, and certainly far different from the manured-aroma of the farm fields we had been traveling past all day. We quickly jumped on 275, then US 50, and found ourselves approaching Lawrenceberg, Indiana. As we got within a half mile of the entrance to Hollywood Casino, I asked Jannette if she'd rather try this one instead of Rising Sun (about 12 miles more down the road), she said "Sure!" and we swerved off to the left hand turn lanes to make it happen.
As this isn't a casino review site, I won't go into a lot of detail, but Hollywood Casino is pretty nice, as far as Indiana casinos go. We were impressed with the cleanliness and the hospitality of the folks working there. All very nice. Not a great place to win money, but we never risk very much either.
The trip back got started about 5:00pm and this time we listened to Garmina completely. We took IN-1 from Lawrenceberg to Brookville, then 101 to US-27 and that caused us to backtrack from earlier in the day, which is something I hate to do, but in the interest of time and weather (and darkness) we decided on a more familiar route, with more traffic (to scare off Bambi) to get home. We had a brief dinner break in Portland at a place called Margarita's Grill (formerly Bandidos) then headed home and pulled in about 9:00pm.
Total this ride: 313 miles.
Goal for 2012: 7,500 miles
Previous rides: 650 miles.
Miles ridden total so far: 943.
No comments:
Post a Comment