enRoute 2008 : Athens to the Pacific: Day 7: De-touring the once flooded E. Indiana

T’was a lovely one night stand with our rustic cabin in the strip mall lawn (pictured above). We were a little worried, of course, that we’d wake up to a fork lift dragging the house away (with us in it), or to some malcontented hobo making a fuss over us stealing his sleeping place. Our big knives held tight in our sleeping bags helped put those worries to rest. We made it up at 5:45am with no encounters, peed out the back door and pulled our stuff to the front porch to trick the authority into believing that we didn’t sleep inside. Breakfast consisted of bear mush with hickory syrup and we were on the road to Terra Haute by 7:45am.

All was normal until we rolled into Spencer, IN. The “4 mile bridge” was out and we were supposed to take the detour way around town. Of course, being the strapping young adventurers we are, we decided to make our own detour. Instead of checkin out the bridge to see if it was passable, we descended into the river valley.... (perturbing bridge pictured below)

Boy was it a mess! The area had seen its worst flooding ever and the roads were a clusterf*@/& of washed out asphalt, deep ruts and sandbanks amist a rabble of prostrate trees which had fallen victim to landslides (ok, maybe 15% was a wreck, the rest was beautiful). 7 laborious miles and one mean dog later we had found no roads to cut across and we were heading due east, so we opted to ask some road repair men (casually discussing something in a group next to their dump truck) how to get back on track. They kindly told us the best way is to go back to from where we came and walk across the bridge. Grrr, we thanked them through gritted teeth and put our 14 mile joyride behind us (Below picture is of Sam and Luke gazing into a waterlogged hill that dumped into Rattlesnake road, note the mangled gate).

We made it to the bridge, walked our bikes across and lunched under some sycamores. A service man oooed and awed over our trip and excitedly proclaimed us his heroes. Heavy napping ensued and we booked it to Terra Haute. Well, we had to stop and fill our bellies with ice cream and fried chicken at the Country Junction, then we booked it to Terra Haute (Junction pictured below).

Terra Haute was as expected…We went to Starbucks for the advertised free internet, but discovered their generosity is extended only to those who have already purchased a T-mobile plan, so we skipped on over to the public library (located in a strip mall) for a quick bit of blogging. 8pm rolled around at we opted to get out of town to find somewhere to bed down in the Illinois hills. We made it to the Wabash River when Sam snagged us a camping spot by talking to an enthusiastic man named Bill at a traffic light. He had us up to his house, we graciously accepted a few beers, ate some adulterated (samilukenick style) boxed mac and cheese, and passed out under the stars (Bill, Nick and Luke discussing life's adventures over a drink and map).