Reporting on: Friday, June 12, 2009
Riding Route: From Crawfordsville to Indianapolis, IN
Temperature: 64 - 75 degrees/ Winds: 10mph headwinds
Elevation Climb Today: 2400 feet
Miles Ridden: 64

Day 35 of riding was another good one. The weather was great. It was cool and balmy - and as you can see I wore my jacket most of the day. There were a minimum of hills and the scenery was beautiful. Our only challenge was that in the 64 miles we rode there were 48 different turns on our route sheets. It meant that we had to really pay attention to where we were going all the time. Champ took on the responsibility for us today - which was great!

There were two major highlights today.

1. The first one was that I had two riders join me from Lee Supply in Indiana: Chip Lee, who is VP of Operations and Andy Cherf, who is Branch Manager for their Carmel, IN location. First thing this morning Bill Lee (VP of Sales and Marketing), Dave Barnes(Controller) and Jeff Beeson (General Manager) showed up to send us off on our ride! Thanks guys - for all your support! (Group pictured above) I've been working with Lee Supply for about three years. It's a family owned and operated business...with the 4th generation now entering the scene. They operate great showrooms - and have been great listeners and implementers of Darlington's ideas!



2. The second fun thing today was our SAG stop at mile 33: The Gentry Dairy Farm. Each year the family opens up their yard and home to the Crossroads Riders. They were wonderful! The picture above was taken on their front porch! More of the embracing Midwest hospitality!

We passed through many small communities (in Jamestown I had my picture taken at Darlington Street), hit lots of country roads, had detours and did anything to stay out of the Indianapolis traffic...which meant going through several local neighborhoods and past golf courses and parks. We're told it was the calm before the storm - because the next five days are supposed to be long and tough!

Indianapolis is known for the Indy 500 and the Motor Speedway...and is the racing capital of the world. The facility has a permanent seating capacity for more than 257,000 people and infield seating that raises capacity to an approximate 400,000. That makes it the largest and highest-capacity sporting facility in the world. (Just so you have the facts - the world's largest stadium is in Prague and seats 220,000 spectators). The first Memorial Day "500" race was run in 1911 - 2 years after the track officially opened! If you're a race car fan, then you know the rest is history! (Of course Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina is my namesake)!

I've done a little survey to try to find out where the term "Hoosier" came from. Ohio has the "Buckeyes" and North Carolina has the "Tarheels"...so these state names are somewhat common. But no one seems to know where the term came from. Most agree that it had a very derogatory meaning in the beginning. But today the term is used with pride! The Indiana University teams (Carol's alma mater) are part of the Big Ten Conference and we all know they are referred to as the Hoosiers! What a strange word!