Lunch with a blonde, Playing hookey, a whiskey cheat, some cobbler and 135 South

This started out as a JM thing, and evolved into an actual ride report

You are sitting there thinking that dead birds, a crappy monday, four wisdom teeth, demerol, sushi, a cute blonde, a tiny town that stopped advancing forward in time right around 1921, an abolitionist liar who cost Indiana a perfectly good distillery, and a curvy road have nothing to tie them together.

So my big Grouse hunting trip gets canc'ed because my wisdom teeth decided last Thursday morning at about 3:13 a.m. would be an excellent time to make my life hell.

By Friday at 1:30 four wisdom teeth are gone and my buddies are well on the way to Wisconsin and I am in the beginning of a two day demerol haze.

Didn't get to go to Wisonsin to make tasty dead birds out of live ones and I was way too fucked up on meds to even think about going for a ride.

Sunday is a waste because it is basically half assed day of zero motivation.

A gorgeous weeked shot to hell.

AAAAAAARGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


And I come in on Monday morning to a lot of files that need moved from one side of the desk to the other.

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Weather says today will be "Sun along with patchy clouds. High 66F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph."

Sounds like a day made for the outdoors.

And me with all of this work to do


What to do, oh what to do.

Work, work work, all of this work.


Now just how should I spend this day

let me put my feet up, kick these goddamn files out of the way, an get down to some serious cogitating 'n ruminatin' on this Monday shall be spent

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Why there is an idea, why didn't I think of that in the first place.

I'll go try to have lunch with a cute blonde.

now off to lunch and to find me a hottie

There is one, maybe she will have lunch with me

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wonder what that guy is making over where that cute woman is sitting

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well, doesn't like your typical mid-western fare, but WTF if gets me a seat next to the blonde I am in

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ummmmmmmmm, Chirashi

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OK. That was fun. Now what else can I do to salvage this day?

Early lunch with my lovely wife who still actually lets me seen with her in public places.

Time to go back to cogitatin' and ruminatin'

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Slowly it begins to come to mind. A voice that whispers 'south, you big DUMMY, take a ride south.'

Ok, maybe the voice yelled a little.

But here is the picture

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My office is the big city and one of hte best roads in the state is the purple wiggle at the bottom. Looks about right doesn't it.

If anything can tie the disprate elements of this thread together it has just got to be a curvy road.


But what tool shall I use to navigate it?

Quick to the batcave.

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Pulling out of the garage is like leaving the matrix. The world of work and responsibility about to be left to behind.

What was left on our list? A whixkey cheat, a town locked in time, some dessert and a road.

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Time to start closing the distance between my office and that gorgeous purple line south of here.

135 South is a 40 miles run of curves with few stops, fewer cross streets and it passes through Nashville Indiana and Story Indiana. Acouple of touristy type stops but well worth stops and rusticly charming.

Also on the way is the johnson county courthouse.

Crappy picture but I stopped to take because as I am riding by one of my buddies is inside working. Hookey is always way more fun when you get to rub it in someone's face.

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Out of civilization an onto some good two lane roads.


On the way down I see this little historical marker for a spring and figure it will be a pretty good place to fill up the camelbak and add to the story.

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Once I manage to turn around

park,

pull off my helmet,

dig around the tankbag for my camelbak,

pull it out,

get rid of my gloves,

walk down to the maker and I read it.

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Well, save for being an abolitionist Mr. Henderson sounds like an outright son of a bitch.

He cheated the Hoosier state out of a perfectly good distillery. Well at least I can fill my camelbak here.

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NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


NOT A GOD DAMNED THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No spring, not even a blasted faucet. Nothing but dirt and some wet rocks.

And we could have had a distillery.

May the soul of Thomas Henderson rot in eternal sobriety, and may he do so in the company of his pastor and his wife.

Forever.

Amen.

And back on the road.

Not nearly as happy as I was.

Damned Thomas Henderson anyway.

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HEY! I recognize that GPS!



Glad to see it's getting some good use.

Any day when you play hookie is a good one.

Yup, that is yours.

I beat the shit out of it on hte fall At The Farm Ride and it keeps going.

thanks man.

more report coming - hopefully get it done tonight.
But you are getting ahead of the story.

nearly forgot, a pox on the house of Simon Covert for whatever part he played in sending Jack, Jim, the Turkey brothers or whoever else south.

You intentionally rode to Houston?? Oh, my bad, Indiana

Nice report! And you rode through Nashville too!

On down the road.

Let the curves of I35 melt away the evil thoughts caused by the whiskey hating sunzabitches Henderson and Covert.

And melt they do all the way down in Brown County
Brwon County Indiana is one of those places where the lands seems to speak to the best parts of you.

Around the turn of the century most of southern Indiana was completely deforested. Much of it was turned into famland but it was a constant battle beating back nature to bring in crops.


In the 20's and 30's the depression wiped out a lot of family farms and the land defaulted back to the Federal Government via tax debts. Much of it was devoted to the Hoosier National Forest.

It is all second growth forest so no initials in treees carved by Lewis and Clark but still a gorgeous place.

Just off of I35 is the little town of Story.

The road through Story is little more than a wide lane. The sign says dead end but the dead end is 'a ways' down the road so rather than stop I just kept going right though Story and into the Hoosier National Forest.

On the way to that dead end this little gem pops up.

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Because no good Chaingolian rides all day through the countryside without a spot or two of gravel thrown in a detour is in order.

Story is little more than a dot on a map but time came to a screeching halt sometime around the 1930's.

The town itself was founded in 1851 when a Dr. George Story was given aland grant in what was then pretty much forest and swamp with a narrow dirt road.

Timber harvesting was a rip roaring business until the timber was gone. Which ked to the farmland which was lost as mentioned during the deression and is now mixed farmland and forest . . . and damned beautiful.

The town moved right along until the depression and then fell flat on its face.

In 1932 another whiskey hating son of a bitch, Sherriff Clarence Moore, chopped up a local still. It was actually gin but why screw up a good storyline, besides the teetotaling bastard probably did hate whiskey.

May the good Sherriff spend his eternity in the sober company of Mssr's Covert and Henderson, their wives and pastors.

Forever,

and ever.

Amen.

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more tomorrow

The asphalt winds down into a dead end a few miles outside of Story but if you rurn back to the bridge you get into some of this

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There is an orienteering course at one ond of this road but before that is forks off into what looks like some excellent bird cover.

If I could figure out how to get a dog and a shotgun on a Dakar I would squeezed in a little birdy time but you can ask for too much.

Ran some more of the gravel road and then headed back into Story.

Fromthe depression on until about the mid 1970's Story stumbled forward as a gas station general store out in the middle of nowhere.

The town of Bean Blossom, where the annual Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival is held is just north of Story as is Nashville IN. Nashville resurrected itself after the depression as an artits colony and both towns did ok but Story just kind of ambled forward lost in time.

No one ever came forward to try to modernize the place and that is its saving grace.

As you come back in to Story from the back road there is a big red barn.

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Becuase perspective is everything and you can never really stop time a real look at the barn is in order. But we'll get to that in a minute.

It is mid after-noon and my stomach is talking. I ate lunch with the pretty blonde early in the day.

Today the town of Story is a Bed and Breakfast. The whole place. The general store, a couple of homes, part of hte saw mill. All of it.

Pretty neat place and it supposed to have some pretty damn good food.

Might as well head in to check it out.

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Looks pretty quiet today. There is a family in a minivan talking a walk around town. The whole place is maybe three blocks long.

There is an older couple on a Harley and another couple on a new yellow Goldwing. My bike is the only dusty beast and I am the only solo rider today but pleasantries are exchanged all around.

In my ongoing quest for berrry pie or cobbler I decide to head in to the restaurant.

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Well, that sucks.

now what does a man in search of pie do?

Hey Multineer, what helmet are you are sporting in these pics?
Thanks

Arai XD with the visor taken off - less noise at highway+ speed. Great helmet. Worth the loot.

I really love rides where you keep on taking the turns that you normally blow by. Keep it coming.

Sweet! I need to put Story on the map.

Make my day and post a picture of Syd's

not bad. didn't know you had it in you.

Well, oddly enough the sign is telling the complete truth.

The restaurant is closed.

I NEED PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


What the hell am I going to do.

What every man of action does in a similar survival situation.

If the restaurant is closed, look for a bar.

There is always a bar.

Right around the corner from the front porch we find the bar. In honor of that no good whiskey hater Sherriff Clarence Killjoy Moore it has been named the "Still Room"

I am saved.

But no pie.

Nope, not a single slice.

Cobbler on the other hand, they have got some fresh Blackberry cobbler.

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Hot berry cobbler and cold milk on a breezy fall day.

Maybe just a little snort from the flask in my tank bag if for no other reason than to compliment the last of the berry cobbler with the smoky tones of peat and malt of the Scottish highlands.

Ok three more reasons, a toast to unholy triumvirate of whiskey haters who tried, through their piety and moral righteousness, to bring Indiana to ruin.

May they spend eternity at quilting bee in a dry county.

As the afternoon meal comes to a close I see some horses and riders come in off the trail.

The riders who came in on steel ponies wander over to check out the flesh and blood kind.

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I am pretty sure I heard her ask where they guys put the cd changer on their rides.