Leg 2, Ride 2: Chicago to Hobart

State #3! Indiana!

Today was a great day of riding. A little chilly, but we dressed for it. Clear skies all day, and generally very good bike infrastructure almost all of the way.

A wise philosopher on the internet once told me "There is no such thing as a day with a tailwind. There are days with headwinds, and then there are days where it's easy riding and you're going fast because you're in good shape and you're doing a really good job". Today was the latter.

Chicago is so huge geographically that we started with 10 more miles all within the city limits. Much of this was on lakefront trails, but a bit of it was on city streets, including a couple of miles on US-41. We were a bit worried about that part, but traffic was very calm, and there was a bike lane for almost all of it.

While packing for the trip, I asked myself: "Why buy a small bottle of dry chain lube, when I have two huge almost-full bottles already? Why not just find a small discarded bottle of Rain-X in the gutter, dump it out, and fill it with lube from one of my large bottles?" The answer is "because all of the lube will leak out before you get a chance to use it, and then you'll have to buy a bottle on the road anyhow".

Hero of the day: a dude doing a workout on a bike share on the very far southern reaches of the city. He wasn't riding the bike -- the bike was still in the dock, and he was sitting on it, vigorously pedaling backwards, while cranking some upbeat workout tunes.

I was worried a bit about Indiana. Indiana has a bit of a reputation as the most "southern" of the northern states, moreso even than New Hampshire. I don't mean that in the sense of great BBQ or a rich musical heritage, etc. I mean it more in the sense of backwards politics and a higher-than-average amount of doofus men driving giant emotional support pickup trucks. So, I was kinda worried about the bike infrastructure here. But, so far so good! It was quite a pleasant ride to our hotel.

Two small hiccups: Within 100 feet of joining the Lackawanna Trail, the way was blocked with a fence, and marked as closed for well over a year. But, it turned out the closure was for one city block, so no big deal. Later on, in Gary, the underpass at Broadway was flooded, and I don't mean a puddle. Proabably at least 2 feet of water. We stopped and talked with a couple of gentlemen enjoying some bagged beverages there, and one of them said "Been like that for months. Someone's gotta put on a pair of big boots and go in there and clean out that drain. But, it ain't gonna be me." Cheers, buddy!

I'll also say, this is my second time having absolutely bangin' Mexican food in northwest Indiana.

We're staying in Hobart, which looks like it has a nice downtown. But, alas, we are pretty far away, at a highwayside asphalt pod with a truck stop, a couple of chain motels, and a Cracker Barrel. 20 years ago, we would have had to ride along a awful busy stroad with no shoulder and high-speed traffic in order to get here. But now, the detail of information available on the internet let us figure out how to cut between two unconnected neighborhoods, by riding over a landscaped berm associated with some industrial building. So, that's nice.