American Discovery Trail: Somewhere Near North Judson, Indiana

Indiana

Population 1,857.

I entered Indiana on June 9, and I will be out of the state before August 9, but not much before. I am still more than 40 miles from Illinois, and since 35 miles is a really good week for me, I will not make it by next Sunday. Maybe a couple of days later.

I will hit three million steps this week, which combined with my previous walk from Washington to Miami will make ten million steps since I started keeping track. Since my mileage tracking is different from the last trip, when I counted exactly 2,000 steps per mile, I am not quite to 5,000 total miles walked yet, but that milestone is coming soon as well.

As I wrote in an earlier post, my walking got behind this month, mostly due to one very hot week during which I cut back on my walks, but I made up about 15,000 steps and am now over 10,000 per day for the month. I only took one day off this month - yesterday for a bridge tournament - so my walking distance for July should be over 135 miles, the best since March. August will be different, but we'll deal with that in August.

My left knee seems to be healing itself, at least for the moment. When I was younger, I would have expected that. At this age, I thought it would just get worse. So that's good news.
 

American Discovery Trail: Walking for Democratic Candidates

Jessica Bateman

Part of my walking this week was walking around a Jubilee neighborhood (one I walk through often) with the woman in the picture to introduce her to my neighbors. It was hot on Saturday, but the walking was easy (only 6,000 steps!), and my part was just to say something like, "Hi, my name is Dennis Stambaugh. I'm from Clark's Landing [my neighborhood here in Jubilee.] I'm out today introducing candidates, and this is Jessica Bateman, who is running for state senate in our district." By this point Jessica usually started talking, and from there I was mostly silent while she talked quickly and made her points.

The candidates have maps of houses where voters have participated in Democratic primaries in the past. We visited about 50 houses in three hours, and everyone we talked to was at least cordial; a few of them wanted to chat for several minutes. We walked with a campaign volunteer who knew what she was doing, and she told us which houses to visit, then took notes on how the interactions went.

It was easy. I would do that again.

 Also, I had a birthday yesterday. Seven years ago, I turned 60, and I wrote about getting older, and Mike read it and called and suggested that we should start walking at night, and that slowly morphed into my walks across America (after I retired) and a bunch of weekly blog posts (more than 150 since I started walking toward Miami in 2021.)

This week we are near English Lake, Indiana, about 65 miles from Illinois.

Our path takes us close to Bruce Lake. At least half of the pictures I found of Bruce Lake are of people holding big fish they caught, some five feet long or more. Dude, I don't care that you caught a fish. I like this sunset.

We made it past Tippecanoe River State Park. Tippecanoe is a local Indian name for the buffalo fish, which still lives in the river. If you like pictures of people holding big fish they caught, once you are done looking at pictures of Bruce Lake you can look for images of buffalo fish on the Internet. There are plenty of them.

American Discovery Trail: Rochester, Indiana

Round barn in Rochester

We are now nine miles from Rochester, Indiana, in the north of the state, still about 100 miles from Illinois. Progress was slow this week because I played bridge twice Sunday, and because it has been very hot, particularly in the evening, near 90 several times, so I either skipped my evening walk altogether or took a shorter one. The forecast is for milder temperatures (just in the eighties), so things look good going forward

This week, I looked up things that Indiana is known for, so here are a few of them.

• Indianapolis. Capital city, largest city (more than three times the population of the second biggest), and right in the middle of the state. Apparently, you cannot get lost in Indiana, because all roads lead to Indianapolis.
• Large, flat farms. I can vouch for this.
• Hoosier, a term for people from Indiana. I just learned yesterday that a Hoosier is an old word meaning "a man who carries corn," so that fits.
• Basketball. Indiana kids learn how to play.
• The Monon Trail. Maybe Indianapolis's answer to San Antonio's Riverwalk, but 26 miles long and not all as urban. 
  
  
  

• Ope. Hoosiers like to say "ope" where you and I might say "excuse me." Like if you bump into someone, you say "ope."
• Johnny Appleseed, who was a real guy who lived back in the 1700s and 1800s, with apple orchards across Indiana that are still growing apples today.
• Pork tenderloin sandwiches. Might be worth a visit.
• Southern hospitality. This is odd, because Indiana borders Lake Michigan, but fine.

Total walking so far is 2.8 million steps, 1,268 miles. It does not seem like much versus the 4,870 miles total to get to Point Reyes, but if I had walked toward San Diego instead, I would be in Ensenada by now. If I were walking to Miami, I would be 40% of the way, in the middle of Wyoming. It's a good long distance.

American Discovery Trail: The Circus in Peru, Indiana

This week we are near Peru, Indiana, which was once the winter home of several circuses, including Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and now hosts the International Circus Hall of Fame. Every year in the third week of July, they have an amateur circus every day of the week, then a festival and a parade. There is still time to get there this year if you hurry.

Walking is difficult right now because the weather is beastly hot - 95 degrees today, maybe 99 tomorrow, and then it should cool off to mid-eighties. Arlo and I go out in the morning while it is still below 80, but in the evening it has been close to 90. Too hot. We just are not used to this around here. Yes, it is getting more frequent that we have these little bursts of heat, but even now they don't last long, so we just hide indoors and complain and wait them out.

We are about halfway through the second of three Indiana trail segments, and so halfway across the state. Peru is in fact located straight north of Indianapolis, which is right in the middle of Indiana.

I do not know which part of Ireland this is, but it's a wall, in a field, and I like it.

Last Ireland picture. We were there for a pride parade in Galway.