54.3 miles cycling, 1692′ of climbing (3391.9 total) – to read from the beginning, click here.
We said goodbye to Sarah, Curtis, and Elam and hit the Pumpkinvine Trail to start off (for us) a short day to Angola, IN. We rode through the Amish village of Shipshewana — think Lancaster on a much smaller scale. Not much else on this route as we were on local roads for much of the way.
We stopped at a McDonald’s outside of Angola and met an older gentleman who was on his way with his son to the Trine University girls softball game in Cedar Rapids, IA. He was a big fan. He also suggested Wacky Jac’s as a good place to get a beer in Angola. After a few miscues we made our way there. There we met the bartender/owner, John, Kumar (who bought us a round), and a second John who was the owner of Monument Pizza. Turns out John (the second) was trained at the Greenbrier Culinary school in WV, and ran the country club in the area for 25 years, then bought the pizza place.
John (the first) told us about the history of the bar. It’s an all metal interior and the bands who first performed there suggested hanging stuffed animals from the ceiling to deaden the sound. Customers started bringing in stuffed animals and more and John said that all the “decorations” (some examples below) were brought in and installed by patrons. The only problem with Wacky Jac’s (and other bars we’ve been at in Indiana) was that smoking was allowed. Dana’s pretty sensitive to the smoke with her pulmonary problems, so we sat at a distance to talk and eventually had to leave. We checked in with our Warmshowers host, Lou Ann who was at a meeting, and set up our tent in her yard, got showers, and walked into downtown.
We had a cream cheese foccacia and salad at the Monument Pizza and John lived up to his culinary chops. It was delicious. Then we walked back to our host’s house, had a short chat and a beer with her and her friend Maggie, then headed into our tent for a good night’s sleep.
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