David Ernst Chats with the World

Yup, I loaded up the bike and headed out towards Brown County State Park. This was my first major ride since the bike to Indy, and I had such a good time writing up [a plain-text log of that trip](http://www.bloomington.in.us/~drernst/bloomington2indy-log.txt) that I thought I’d do it again for this one. Could be a regular feature here on my blog. But whether that’s true or not, here’s this one…

[odometer follows [this map](http://tinyurl.com/8yf5p), which lines up with my recollection of my odometer quite well]

0.0 I leave home, feeling only slightly self-conscious riding around town with 30+ pounds of camping gear on my bike…

1.5 This is the first time in quite a while that I’ve ridden this section of road. When I first moved to Bloomington, I biked this route every day since I lived on High Street (just of Hillside)

3.0 I take the parking lot past Showplace West. Turns out it’s easy to cut onto a little path here, I didn’t know that.

4.5 I cross 446 and Moores Pike becomes Lampkins Ridge Road. WOW! This road is beautiful! Very little traffic, very wooded, very much on a ridge.

6.0 I note by my odometer that this lovely woodsy environ is only 3 miles away from the mall, which is the same distance my house is! Wow. Maybe if I ever get the bug to live in the woods I’ll try to live on this road, since it’s still so convenient to town.

7.2 “The water is downhill from here” I always say when I’m biking… I’m on a ridge, the road that I’m leading to goes to the lake… so I’m not surprised to see the very steep descent. Vroom!!!

8.3 My speedy descent ends at Friendship Rd., which turns out to be gravel. It’s in good shape, though, so I continue with my plan to go south here and see if any of the roads go through. Friendship stops at the intersection of Gross on some of my maps, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through. But the road keeps going! So I go!

10.2 The road is blocked off by a cable. I see a sign that says that this is a wildfowl resting area, and says that no trespassing is allowed from Oct 1 – April 27 (I’m fuzzy on that end date, actually). It’s not Oct 1 yet! I can go! So I do… Shortly after I start pedalling again (after pushing my bike under the cable), I see a deer jump out of the road into the woods. :)

10.5 Well, you can tell it’s a road because the weeds are chopped down, forming a path on the grass that’s about the same width as a car. Google maps is a bit optimistic about what counts as a road, I guess. :)

10.8 As I bike across the field, these funny little bugs jump out from the grass I’m biking on just as I approach it! There are so many insects I know nothing about. There are… so many insects.

11.3 This area is cool. I’ve certainly never seen this part of the lake. It’s very … marshy. things seem flat and kind of stagnant, and I hear frogs and bugs and stuff. Seems like there might be alligators there, but of course that’s ridiculous.

11.5 Uh, yeah, I don’t know what the story here is. The path that was kind of like a road turned into something more like a path and then even less than that. I can’t imagine a vehicle that could have ascended this hill. But it’s the end of the road. I have to turn around, and walk down that muddy, very steep hill. Man, if it were wet here, I’d be in deep shit… or at least something that looked a lot like it.

12.2 Back across the field, the bugs don’t scamper as much going this way. Or maybe they’re all gone for the moment.

13.0 OK, I’ll try this road that I refused to try before because it didn’t look developed enough. Damn my adventurous spirit.

13.7 Yeah, I don’t know. After the road petering out a few times and some confusing readings on the compass, I figure I’m hosed. One dead end happened right by a small river… I saw a road on the other side, which might have been useful to me, but “small” here did not mean small enough that I could walk across it, especially not carrying a 60 lb. “beast”, and especially not because it was so mucky. I turn around.

14.5 I look at this “McGowan Rd.” but there is a gate and security signs and stuff on it, and I see a sign that says “tree farm” or something. So I figure, even though the gate is open and it doesn’t threaten the lives of all who enter (as much of the land around here does) it’s private property, I should keep out.

15.0 This goes right by a small river (probably the same one), which you can’t see on the map very well.

15.8 When I get to Gross Rd. I look back and see a sign that says “dead end”. How did I miss that?? I feel stupid, but… on the other hand, that area was really neat… I could imagine that some people (especially Audobon types) might go there just to hike around. I’m glad that I saw that place, even I am right back where I was an hour ago!

17.1 So, the backup plan. I get on 46. Not where I’d like to be biking, but it’s a short ride to my next turn. It goes by quickly. It’s nice to be on pavement again.

17.6 Turn onto Kent, which is also a very nice road.

18.2 The pavement ends. But, hey, as long as you have the tires for it, it rides very well… pretty land, very little traffic… I like it.

19.?? back on pavement again.

20.7 On the corner here I take out my map to look around. A car, which had just passed me going the other direction on Kent, stops. I figure they are going to ask directions, but instead he asks if I’m lost. “Well, I know pretty well where I am, but wanted to make sure I knew which road this was.” (County roads are very poorly marked.) He says “this is Steele. [pointing south] that way goes up to TC Steele Park, and [pointing north] this way goes down to SR 46.” I know I am heading towards the park, so I am disappointed to listen to my brain compute “He obviously isn’t using the common “‘up’ means north, ‘down’ means south” convention. That pretty much leaves the “‘up’ means up, ‘down’ means down” convention. Dang.

21.1 Dang is right. JEEZ! Killer hill. Huff!! Puff!!

21.9 OK, the last crest of the hill is right around the park, to which I’d never been. Seems like a nice place, but I didn’t feel that I had time to stop. Might be a nice day trip sometime, actually, along this same route except without the excursion down to the wildfowl resting area. I guess it’d only about 13 miles each way… not bad… too bad there’s that hill at the end of it! Ugh…

I pass a family picnicking, and the (presumptive) mom asks if I’d like some lunch. That’s very nice of her, I smile through my huffing and cough out something like “I’m all set. Thanks.” It really is nice though… I hope she can tell that I sincerely thought that.

23.0 Well, it’s not really true that what goes up must come down, but I know I am going to see another part of the lake at the end of this road, so it makes sense when this long steep climb turns into a long steep descent. Wow! Fast! I think I hit 46 mph, [which turns out to be the high speed of the weekend]. Dang, that’s fast. I feel cold cruising through the trees with my sweat-drenched shirt…

25.0 Well, those last two miles flew by, but here’s a boat ramp, which means water, which means so much for coasting for a while. I pull into the parking lot to check it out and take a real break (meaning that I eat a clif bar. I’m trying to be good about eatin more on long bike rides!)

25.2 Once again, google’s idea of what counts as a road is pretty imaginative. Wow, this one looks like it’d be tough to hike on, much less bike upon. Couple that with the fact that I’m not sure it even goes through, and I bag it. I turn right around.

26.5 I didn’t think I’d be biking on Crooked Creek Road. Given that it’s hilly and gravel (a bad combination, the sum is definitely worse than the sum of its parts), it’s about as good as I could imagine. Very little traffic, very pretty terrain. Parts of Yellowwood State Forest that I’ve never seen. I don’t think of it being south of SR 46, but … I keep seeing signs!

27.5 A couple of these hills are just too much, at least with the gravel. I have to get off twice and push my bike up the hills.

30.8 Yeah, that was a long time on Crooked Creek. The pavement is a welcome site, although it is SR 45.

31.0 As I bike I’m trying to line up the landmarks I’m seeing with their proximity to Nashville. Is Ski World first? Or Mike’s Dance Barn? For a while I catch myself hoping that I’m past the Big Hill, but that’s silly… My only hope is that I can turn off on Upper Schooner Rd. before the hill.

32.0 Well, good news/bad news… just as the extreme ascent starts, there’s Upper Schooner on the right. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it has a sign that says “dead end”. What? Ugh. I get out my map. It’s pretty clear that this road goes through, but I bet there’s no park entrance there, so that’s why they say it’s a dead end. I consider trying it, but given that it’s after 4pm, I’ve already biked 32 miles, and so far none of my google-maps inspired risks has paid off, I decide not to.

What that means is that I have to climb the Big Hill. I’m reminded of telling Ted my biking plans the night before and him chortling, “woah, imagine trying to bike up *that* hill.” Well, shit. No imagination required I guess. Just a lot of determination and concentration to stay as steady as I can on the side of the road so as not to disturb/enfuriate the cars behind me. Ok, here goes.

32.5 Yeah, this isn’t really fun. The traffic is pretty heavy, although most of it is westbound. I see some proud blue Kentucky flags, and I realize that people must be heading for a football game. Whatever. Huff. Puff. Shit.

A driveway! Ok! that’ll be a nice way to catch my breath and clear out some lactic acid without having to dismount. I coast around in a *very* slow circle… And then resume my path on the road.

33.3 I crest the hill, and am VERY pleased about that. Here’s the entrance to the park. I wonder what entering will be like.

33.8 I approach the gate in line with some cars. The attendant sort of smirks at me, at first I thought he might be annoyed by the likes of a cyclist, but after enchanging words with him, I think it’s closer to the opposite, maybe like he was smirking with me at the crowds of RVs around. Anyway, he charged me $1 for entry to the park (car rate is $4), for which I received a number of maps and other bits of park info. Cool! He told me the campground was five miles up ahead. Roger that!

35.0 The thing about Brown County State Park… I rarely come here, because it’s very touristy… crowded with RVs and other automotive traffic. But, wow… it’s pretty. A case of my recurring “I can’t blame people for wanting to come here” theme. And, really, biking the park road is not too bad. For all the cars/RVs, they apparently spend most of their time parked, which is more than fine by me. :) Anyway, it feels very nice to bike through the park with beautiful hilly woods on either side of me. The road is certainly not flat, but the hills are pleasant, alternating mild exurtion with easy coasting. Nice.

36.0 I “hesitate” — stop for a moment at “Hesitation Point”. Elevation about 1030 ft. [as memory serves… definitely over 1000 ft., though] I don’t know how many place is Indiana are over 1000 ft. in elevation. Anyway, they have some trees cut away here so that you can lookout over the Hills o’ Brown County. They are truly beautiful. And, yeah, if you think about what this vista must look like in a good October, you can almost understand why so many people flock to Brown County to see the leaves.

38.2 Entrance to the camping area. I get into a line behind a car, who is behind a “small” RV. I stand there. The line is not moving. I wonder if something is wrong. I wait for, surely over 5 minutes… the line looks exactly as it did when I arrived. I wonder if something is wrong.

Eventually the RV pulls away, I inch up, and see a park ranger exit the building. I ask if I should come inside or anything, but he says, no, I should wait… they need the computer to register me, and there’s only one and the guy at the window has it. OK. It does feel a bit better to at least know I’m not missing something.

Eventually it’s my turn, I tell the guy I’m interested in camping. At first he doesn’t think that he has a non-electric site left, but he finds one. $16, more than I wanted, but I did pick Brown County in part because I wanted something easy as my first biking/camping experience, so… there ya go.

The registration ranger asks me if I’ve come a long way. No, just a weekend trip from Bloomington. “I’ve seen some that have come a long way. One guy from Germany who was biking across the country”. He ends up telling me at length about some cycling club in Bloomington that I can’t believe I’ve never heard of, but that sponsors an annual trip to somewhere far away for cycling, at unbelievably low prices. He tells me their website, but I don’t right it down, so I forget. I should ask around. I’m not sure I’d want to go on one of their trips, but I’d at least like to know more about them.

Anyway, he sends me on my way to my site, .75 miles up the road, he says. I pedal away, and the car behind me, undoubtedly, breathes a sigh of relief.

39.1 Here’s my site! Not bad. Right on the border between the “lawn” and the “woods”. I’m too close to one of my neighbors for my tastes, but really, I can’t complain. I set up my tent (Thanks Sue!) for the first time, and eat a package of vegetarian jerky.

Once I’m all settled, I have to decide if I’m going to build a fire. Collecting firewood is prohibited here, and you’re not allowed to bring it in either because they are worried about the Emerald Ash Borer, so you pretty much have to buy your wood at the park… I’m sure the park sees this as a not-unfortunate by-product of their forest management policies.

The question is: how does a cyclist carry a load of wood to a campsite? It’s supposedly .75 miles away, I don’t really want to carry it walking that far. But, why wouldn’t I be able to strap it to my bike? I can’t think of a reason, and the image of it makes me laugh. So I decide to do it… put all my gear in my tent and bike back towards the store.

You might think that the biking would feel much easier with all that weight off of it, but I really was not struck by it being a whole lot easier. *shrug* I think the weight rides well the way I packed it, which is good.

I buy the wood and successfully attach it to my bike and ride it back with a big grin on my face. :) Problem though: I don’t have much paper! I end up burning most of the park materials that I was given (carefully saving the maps). I also raid the case of my Palm and pull out a bunch of business cards of people I’m unlikely to need to contact. I transfer a couple of email addresses into the palm, but.. yeah, that gave me a bit more. And, I admin, I do pick up some twigs around the site, which I can only assume does not violate the spirit (at least) of the park’s policy. I do not venture into the woods, these are mostly the twigs that I had to move to set up my tent anyway.

Anyway, I get the fire going without much trouble, and I cook my Lipton Creamy Garlic (thanks, Xie!). It gets dark while I am cooking, which is fine timing. I eat leisurely, and clean up leisurely. Then I just sit by the fire for an hour or so. I actually start getting cold! I didn’t really expect that, and haven’t packed very much in the way of warm clothes. But, that’s ok, I have the fire, my rain coat, and I had intended all along to go to bed early, so… no problem.

I go to bed and my main issue is: staying cool! Between this very small tent and my brand new sleeping bag, I am having trouble avoiding being too hot. I eventually just lie on the thermarest and drape the sleeping bag on top of me. That is much better from a heat management point of view, and the thermarest is less annoying to my skin than I expect it to be. Still, I would like to have a sheet, I think I’ll have to pack one in the future.

I read a bad book for a short while, lighting working well (LEDs are a revolution). Then I go to sleep.

———-

I wake up just before 8a, which means I slept a long time. I cook my oatmeal and ponder my route home. Against my better judgement, I decide to take the rest of the loop I’m on rather than going back to the registration booth the direct way. The problem with this decision is not the extra seven miles or so, but rather that it goes by a lake (elevation 688) and a couple miles later passes a fire tower (elevation 1058). Ugh. I cherrily say “it’ll be fun! You don’t have to get home as fast as possible! It’s pretty here!” Damn my adventurous spirit!

I pack up and leave, and my odometer shows exactly 40 miles as I fill up my water bottles. I don’t reset it, figuring I can subtract 40 from whatever I do today. [my story, though, follows the odometer readings on [this map](http://tinyurl.com/d8ut6)]

1.0 Sure enough, after a nice quiet beginning, I descend down a very steep grade very quickly until things level out at the…

2.4 …horse camp. This is the road that I wanted to come in on, but couldn’t get to. Turns out, they dont’ really let people go through! It’s like there are two parks… one for people to bring horses, and the other to drive RVs. I wonder, if I called ahead and asked if one could ride one’s bike into the south entrance, if they’d let me through. No telling.

3.0 Strahl lake. I don’t actually see the lake, because it isn’t right next to the road. Looks like a short hike in. I know I don’t need the extra exercise because I caught a glimpse of the hill I was about to start climbing.

4.8 Fire tower. Yeah, seriously, ouch. Ok, that was a climb of approximately 400 feet in 1.8 miles. That’s a 4.2% grade *average* over the course of those 1.8 miles. It’s definitely not 4.2% the whole way. Jeez. I had to walk twice, and that still felt like a lot of work. Wow. Damn my… forget it. Breathe!!

8.5 The ride out is pretty eventless, because I had pedaled all of this yesterday. I turn in my campground permit thingy at the gate, which turned out to be a mistake: I was supposed to turn it in at the registration desk. But, the man at the desk offers to call it over for me. Phew! :)

One of my maps shows that there’s a road just across SR 46 from the park entrance that connects to some roads North of the highway. The only thing I see looks overgrown and private. I guess I take 46 down The Big Hill!

10.0 Going down is decidedly more pleasant than going up had been yesterday. :) Beyond the obvious reason, it’s just before 10am, and there’s not much traffic on 46 now… And of course, fewer cars would be passing me anyway as I roll down this hill at 30+ mph than when I was crawling up it yesterday and 3mph.

10.3 One of my maps shows this road going through. I’ll try it! Dirt road, not in very good condition, and… wow, passes a few houses that definitely conjure up thoughts of moonshine runners.

11.2 After passing the houses and a few large tractors I hit a hill. Very steep, and gravel… I can’t climb it. And does this go through? I don’t know. I can’t bear it. I turn around.

12.0 Y’know, biking on 46 is really not as bad as one might think. The road is obviously in great shape, and there’s a fairly good berm.. so really, the only reason not to bike on it is just that cars are noisy and not fun. But I feel perfectly safe on this road, and I can make good time.

12.9 I turn on to Lower Schooner Rd., which is the last “new road” for me on this trip. Like many of the others, this is great. It goes on my “prefered route to bike by Nashville” that I’ve been imagining. I follow a creek for a while, there are some pleasant hills, it’s wooded, the road is paved. I approve.

15.2 Back onto Kent. I like it going this way as well. My chain freezes up for a moment (it’s been doing that occassionally). While I’m trying to fix it, up drives a car, with a man and his two young daughters in it. He asks me for directions to Gilmore Ridge road. We talk about it for a while, I think he’ll get there soon. Funny that this was almost exactly the same spot as the exchange of directions with the car the day before.

18.2 Yeah, I’m making good progress here. Maybe I don’t even need to eat…. David!! You’re trying to be better about eating. Eat! Ok. I stop and sit in the grass and eat a Clif Bar. It’s a good thing to do…

19.0 I’ve decided that, especially since I’m enjoying biking on 46 ok, I’ll go up to Kerr Creek road and get home that way, although the temptation to go back to the beautiful Lampkins Ridge is definitely present.

22.0 Not too much to say about Kerr Creek Road. I’ve ridden it before. I ride for a short bit next to a young boy who lives there, he’s on his little bike. I’m struck by the similarity and contrast of our situations. I think about how Matece lives just to the south of where I am, which is over a steep, wooded ridge. And… the hill at the end of Kerr Creek Road is substantial. But I make it up!! Woohoo!!

23.8 Oh, maybe I should stop at Brusters! That’s a way to be better about eating on long trips, right? :) It’s a good idea, I spend my last paper cash on a single dip of butter pecan. I think the teenaged girl serving me wanted to avoid touching me, and I can understand that. :) It tasted good though.

24.0 What’s that noise? Uh-oh… something is wrong with my rack! My tire is scraping against my rack! Ick! I push things around a bit in hopes that it’ll help. It does, but I’m clearly going to need to do some kind of major repair before my next long trip… Argh…

25.0 I join onto the Path that follows the tracks here (Thanks, Cindy!). I like biking on this pathway a lot, I wish there were more things like this. It feels more tiring going this way than it does the other way, though. Maybe it has something to do with the 65 miles I’ve biked in the last 24 hours though… Hmmm.. Whatever, I take the bike route, cut through campus (which still looks beautiful, even after a ride like this) and then my normal route home. It’s a little after 12:30. I can go in and relax in a bath!! :)