KATY Ride Day -2 Driving to St. Louis

 My friend Jim and I are going to ride the KATY Trail, which is a rail trail that goes from near Kansas City to near St. Louis. I am driving my truck to St. Louis with my bike, leaving the truck near the end of the trail, taking the train to Kansas City, and riding back to my truck. Jim is just flying to Kansas City, and flying back from St. Louis.

It's a day and a half of driving to get to St. Louis. I did as much driving as I could stand today, which was 10 1/2 hours to Terre Haute, Indiana. I decided to stop at Terre Haute because there are a bunch of cheap motels here, and if I leave early, I have time for my daily bike ride before it gets dark.

So I packed everything up the night before, and left at 6:30 AM, which is about an hour before dawn.

This is my bike in the back of the truck.

The dogs were very confused when I drove away in the morning. They generally can tell when I'm going away from watching me packing. Which makes them nervous and upset. But yesterday, they watched me do all the packing, and got all nervous, but I went to bed. False alarm? They didn't know what to think when I drove away before dawn. Debra reports they are very sad and depressed now.

It was a very, very boring ride, almost all I-70, and it poured down rain the whole way across Ohio. I got to Terre Haute around 5:00. Here is my room at the Super 8. I don't know why Wyndham bought Super 8, and I am even more confused as to why they admit to owning it.

I rode around Terre Haute for an hour and a half for my daily bike ride. I went up to the Rose Hulman Instute of Technology campus, which is just outside of town on a nice bike trail. I remember being interested in RHIT when I was in high school looking at colleges. I don't think I applied, but they did send me the famous "Ski Terre Haute" poster which I hung in my bedroom.

The RHIT campus is pretty small, it's all modern, and it's boring. No gargoyles.

My motel is just off the Interstate, and it's surrounded for several miles in every direction by ugly shopping strips with every fast food and chain restaurant that exists. But, luckily, I discovered on my bike ride that Terre Haute does have an actual downtown with interesting places to eat! Who woulda thought?

And there is a giant painting on the side of the local history museum depicting the momentous contributions Terre Haute has made to Western Culture.

It seems the Coke bottle was invented here.

I wasn't expecting much for dinner, since Terre Haute is pretty far from anywhere interesting, but it turn out that there is some upside to being halfway between Chicago and Cincinnati.

That's Cincinnati Chili and a 3 Floyd's Zombie Dust draft. This is at the Terminal Bar downtown, which is very popular. 40 minute wait on Tuesday night! I lucked out and snagged a seat at the bar.

Here's the Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/16068742009