Maidei comes to Indiana (Part 1)
Maidei had a quiet Thanksgiving. So quiet, I forgot to take photos. We dined on homemade deep-dish pizza and fresh veggies, followed by mock pecan pie and chocolate-chip pie.
Travels around the area began with a trip to the Knightstown Academy, which was built as a Quaker Academy in 1877. Designed in Second Empire style, the structure has a mansard roof and twin, four-story towers topped by the building's unique and most notable features -- a globe and a telescope. The Academy served as a local high school before being taken out of service and nearly torn down. In the end, it was renovated as senior apartments.
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Attached to the Knightstown Academy is a small gymnasium that now holds world acclaim. This was Maidei's second stop. That old-time gym was the setting for the home court of the Hickory Huskers in the 1985 movie Hoosiers. No trip through this area is complete without a visit to the Hoosier Gym, as it is now known. Visitors can not only sit in the stands and tour the downstairs locker room, but also shoot a few hoops. Maidei didn't try to put the ball in the basket, but she did take a close look at center court.
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In what may have been a first, Maidei took her bike onto the court. Note the banner in the background, one of the remaining props from Hoosiers. While a road bike on the playing floor is a bit out of the ordinary, the Hoosier Gym is regularly used as a SAG for the Raintree Ride (formerly Stride & Ride), which includes a metric century.
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Maidei comes to Indiana (Part 2)
History lesson. Knightstown is located on the National Road, which was one of the first major improved highways built by the federal government. The project began in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1811, with the road eventually stretching to Vandalia, Illinois, by 1839. Along the way, the road passed through Knightstown, Indiana. Now known as U.S. 40, this highway was the most traveled east-west road through central Indiana until the construction of Interstate 70, which took away traffic and syphoned the life out of many small communities along the route.
Here's Maidei at a Historic National Road sign just outside of town.
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Since we're on U.S. 40, figuratively speaking, it's relevant to mention that every year around 1,500 cyclists take a literal trip down this historic corridor during the annual Ride Across INdiana, better known as the RAIN ride. This one-day, one-way, 160-mile ride starts on the Illinois-Indiana state line and travels to Richmond, Indiana. The route is primarily on U.S. 40 and includes passage through the heart of Knightstown.
Since Maidei couldn't be here in mid-July for RAIN, she settled for a quick spin to Dunreith, Indiana, the last SAG for the ride. The Dunreith Volunteer Fire Department hosts and runs the stop, which is the favorite of many RAIN riders, thanks in part to the availability of popsicles.
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One of the features of the Knightstown area is the Big Blue River, which originates in Henry County (the local county). Much of the Big Blue remains untouched, as can be seen in this photo.
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Maidei comes to Indiana (Part 3)
Next stop: Greensboro, Indiana. Okay, so there's really not a lot to see in Greensboro. The post office is a mobile home (I'm not making this up), and the local church has had a sign up for months that uses the word "Christion". This is small-small-town Indiana. But, there's a bit of history in this place, which once had five gristmills in the immediate area. Most notable is that Greensboro was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, as Maidei learned during her visit.
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About three miles outside of Greensboro is Westwood Park -- a 750-acre park with a 180-acre lake. Created by the Big Blue River Conservancy District and opened to the public in 1974, the park is home to one of the state's best and most scenic mountain bike trails. The 10-mile, one-way path circles the lake, offering some great views of the water. Spotting white-tail deer and other woodland critters is common. Lucky riders might also have an owl swoop down the trail ahead of them or catch sight of any number of majestic fowl, from trumpeter swans in the spring to sand hill cranes migrating overhead in the fall.
Winter had set in by the time Maidei got a chance to take a spin on the trail.
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It was good to have Maidei's company, and I wish her well on her future adventures. She left my home having made new friends here, including Xero, my husband's office cat. (Yes, the cat is named after bike wheels. We're such cycling geeks.)
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