Back Home Again in Indiana

Indiana calls itself the “Crossroads of America”. It’s not inappropriate. You can’t really get anywhere, at least by car, without going through there. Such was the case this week for me. I wrote about my trip to South Bend the other day before heading up to Michigan. From there, I was trying to get to Springfield, Illinois, which required me to drive right back through Indiana again. I decided to take the opportunity and visit Bloomington, home of Indiana University and site of (one of) the greatest annual bicycle races - the Little 500. When I started my ride yesterday, I needed to go 30 miles to reach 3000 for the trip. My plan was to ride the series of trails in town, which claimed to be 22 miles, but in reality was closer to 18. That left me needing to ride all over town just to get the mileage in. I decided to ride to and through the university and was not disappointed. The campus was beautiful (shocking to write these words about anything in Indiana). The Greek Row was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The houses looked like 5-star hotels and there were many, many of them. The crowning moment of my impromptu romp through campus, however, was the visit to Armstrong Stadium, the venue for the aforementioned Little 500. Finding myself at the top of the hill, looking down into the stadium, I noticed a gate open to the track. Seeing nothing but stairs, I went cross country down the hill, rode on to the track, and did a slo-mo victory lap before anyone could come out and kick me off. The Little 500 is a 200-lap race (50 miles) around the cinder track for the men and 100 laps for the women. Just like the Indy 500, there is qualifying and only the top 33 teams make the field. Also like the car race, the teams line up in a grid with 11 rows of 3. Teams are made up of 2-4 people. There are all kinds of other related races over the same weekend with teams earning points. The 1979 movie Breaking Away was about 4 students who attended IU. One of them was a cyclist. The race inspired part of the movie plot. In turn, the movie inspired a group of students to form a team and compete in the race. The team was called “Cutters” - a derogatory term used in the movie to refer to certain lower class people in Indiana. The Cutters team debuted in 1984 (the first Little 500 was in 1951), and has been the most successful team in the history of the event, winning 14 times in their 38 years.

Indiana University is also responsible for two of my favorite musical artists/groups. In a prior post, I mentioned John Mellencamp/Cougar/Cougar Mellencamp. He’s an Indiana legend. The other group is called Straight No Chaser, an a capella group that started at IU. The Huttons introduced us to them several years ago and I’ve been hooked ever since. They seem to be in Portland every year around the holidays and their Christmas music is excellent. I have a bunch of their songs on my playlist, including covers of Rehab, All About That Bass and Dock of the Bay. There are no instruments but they have a vocal percussion guy that is pretty spectacular. Worth a listen if you’re up for a little change of pace.

This was unexpected on the trail in the middle of Bloomington

Switchyard Park had everything from a huge dog park, to basketball courts, pickle ball, a skate park and even old guys playing bocce.

A little bit of history but I’m sure the first Black person to play in the marching band or the chess club doesn’t have a plaque on campus.

A very modest sized Greek house. It was the first one I came to. I had no idea there would be a couple dozen more and many would make this look like a carriage house

A top 5 burger

3000 miles in the books