"For want of a screw the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the bike was lost..."

And with apologies to William Shakespeare "for want of a shoe the ride was (almost) lost" That is the way my day began today. I pulled out of the hotel onto the highway and after successfully crossing began to clip into the pedals. The right shoe went in smoothly but the left just kept slipping around on the pedal. I pulled out of the pack of riders and into a driveway to check the problem and found I was missing a screw in the cleat on that left shoe. The cleat had twisted itself sideways and no way was it going to work. And for those who don't cycle, you could probably pedal without "clicking in" but it wouldn't be fun and you wouldn't want to do it for long. So I made a quick u-turn and headed back to the hotel where Tracy was just getting ready to shut the door on the truck and head out for whatever would have been her first stop on today's route. She said "no problem" and went immediately into her super-organized supply cabinets and came up with three different sizes of cleat screw. The second one was the winner and within fifteen minutes I was back out on the road. Of course by this time the group I was going to ride with was long gone and my thought was to catch up at either the first store they stopped for or at the SAG stop. By this time I was most definitely the last person out of the hotel by a good twenty minutes or so.

By the same token it was a nice cycling day - a bit of a cloud cover (but not the rainy kind) and just cool enough to be comfortable - so I really didn't mind heading out alone. Once we got out of town the country was much like what we saw yesterday - family farms, most corn, some hay and today for the first time I saw soy beans. Interesting that the corn in the fields varies from just barely coming out of the ground to some fields where it is already waist high. I'm guessing that they have had so much rain that the farmers' schedules were way off - some of the crop got planted early but for a lot they had to wait for the rain to stop before they could go out with their tractors.

Somewhere around the 20 mile point I did catch up with another group and jumped in with them for awhile. We had to wait a bit for a very long train to go through a little town whose name completely escapes me. We were then back out on the road and again, riding through the corn fields and farm houses. Knowing we were only doing 65 miles today made it fairly easy even as the wind picked up again and, of course, turned into a somewhat annoying headwind.

Our only SAG of the day was a fun stop. It was at the Gentry family farm and apparently has been a SAG stop for something like 10 or 12 years. It is run now by two brothers, Tom and Bob, and Tom was out to greet us. He had lawn chairs out for us (all with names taken from their cows - I had to take the picture of 'Beth") and eventually we did a group shot of the cycling folks who were there and Tom in the middle. I got talking with Tom and learned that he has about 800 acres in corn and soybeans. They were originally a dairy farm but couldn't make a living with it and finally sold off almost all the cows. I told him my son-in-law was in the same business and he was somewhat surprised to learn that we have farms in New Jersey - I'm sure his image of New Jersey was crowded developments, turnpikes and refineries, and cities like Newark. Even as we left he was still shaking his head over this idea of New Jersey farms.

Before I left the SAG I had a quick phone conversation with Susan. She called me yesterday to tell me that a neighbor's tree had fallen on our garage, front porch roof and her car - and of course took down all the electric and phone wires as well. Very scary and very traumatic for her and one of those "of all things to happen while I'm gone" kind of things. I'm happy to report that she was feeling much better today and also that she handled the whole thing with grace and intelligence - bravo...Fortunately nobody was hurt and the house itself was not harmed - it is now in the hands of the insurance company.

Indianapolis is probably the biggest city we have visited and we really took the back way in. Our cue sheets had us going through residential neighborhoods primarily, past homes and golf courses and making left and right turns every mile or so for the last 10 miles. It was a bit of a pain to keep referring to the cue sheet but on the other hand, it was very interesting to see the neighborhoods of the city.

One of my thoughts as I covered so much of the day's journey alone was how dependant I was on that cue sheet. At one point, out there among the corn fields I missed a turn and went maybe a mile and a half before I discovered my mistake and retraced my course and found the right corner. It occurred to me that all I really knew was that I was in Indiana and headed for Indianapolis but if anyone asked me where I was I had not a clue. It's not like being in the middle of the Sahara without a compass but it does give you a feeling of really being on your own in a strange land for awhile.

And one last thing for tonight...I discovered another great beer tonight. It is Leinenkugel - a great German sounding name that almost demands it be a great beer. It is a wheat beer but with a definite malty taste and a glass with a steak is a wonderful way to end a day of cycling.

And tomorrow we have one more day in Indiana...83 miles to Richmond. We are hoping for clear skies and a tail wind. We shall see...(and Go Red Wings!!!)