Wednesday August 13, 2008

Wednesday August 13—Day 45—Palos Heights to Chesterton –56 miles

Day 3: Today was another day of somewhat urban riding which lent itself to more stops and starts to aggravate the knees. We started the day with a celebration service at Trinity, and left in a group of seven the same as Tuesday with the addition of Claire Elgersma.

We cycled out towards Indiana and had an uneventful morning. Our first church stop was at Bethel CRC on Glenwood Lansing Rd in Lansing, IL. From there we made our way to the 2^nd CRC in Highland, IN for another great lunch stop. They catered in Subway subs, fruit, cookies, chocolate and candy. I have noticed an overwhelming amount of candy at our stops, candy and cookies. It sure is good that we are burning so many calories because we are consuming our fair share as well! Mmmmm Mmmmm Good!

From Highland we worked our way east again going through Griffith, IN where a tornado struck last week. The devastation is so very interesting. There are buildings which are virtually untouched and others with lots of damage. The large trees that were uprooted, thrown or ripped and twisted were a sight to behold along Calhoun and 41^st streets. This area where we rode through seemed to be needy, many houses were not maintained, small and decrepit. Hopefully they will receive funds to help them recover from the damage.

We continued on another trail, only 10 miles today, but we had our third portage in my third day on the road. The Prairie Duneland trail was closed as they were doing construction on a tunnel under a road in the middle. Let’s hope this portaging trend doesn’t continue for my 21 days on the road!

At the end of the trail we only had 5 miles to go before getting to the Indiana Dunes State Park where my sister and three nieces were also camping. Nancy had remarked earlier that we would likely be in the group camping area so we followed the signs towards the Youth Group Camp. On the way there we saw the semis in the regular campground and came around on the sidewalk at the back of our camp sites. In this process I missed my nieces who were waiting at the camp store for me, watching each of the cyclists as they came in…thinking….where is Aunt Melissa? How long until she gets here? Sorry girls, I took the back way in!

We had a wonderful reception from the Crown Point CRC, 43 containers of baked goods and lemonade were waiting for us when we arrived in the park. Once again, the theme of lots and lots of cookies and bars catches up with us!

Nancy and Pho and the girls enjoyed the time touring camp, the trucks, and meeting lots of the cyclists.