Jill's Bike Log 6/20

6/20 Sun-Drove to Bandon, Indiana. Rosi invited us to head over to the house at 7:00 am to eat breakfast, which I did. I let Mal sleep. I enjoyed chatting with Rosi, her husband Mark and their friend from out of town. One of the conversations was about the challenges of “launching” children. (They have a son who’s 21 and an 18 year old son). They had a good sense of humor about it. Rosi cooked a delicious breakfast of pancakes, sausage, bacon and a fruit salad. Woke up Mal at 9:00 to eat breakfast and then we headed to church for the service.

The UU Church of Evansville gets an “A” for friendliness. When we entered, there were several greeters at the door. Once we sat down in the sanctuary, Trevor confessed that he didn’t feel comfortable going to church because he’s only been to a few services in his life and he doesn’t know the protocol. I assured him that UU churches are generally laid back. Before the service began, Trevor shared that he enjoyed his stay with Ed who is an avid lepidopterist. Before leaving the house to go to church, Ed showed him some of his butterfly collections. Their minister wasn’t preaching that morning, so they had a guest speaker to talk about the area’s program to combat homelessness which this fellowship has been involved with. Jan read a great children’s story about homelessness. Parts of the service were very familiar. They have “Joys and Sorrows,” as we do, as well as sing “Spirit of Life,” after a silent meditation.

After the service, we stayed for a bit and chatted during coffee hour, and then headed back to Jan and Susan’s house to collect our bikes before heading out. The night before, Jan and Ed told Trevor and me about a historic Utopian Village in New Harmony which dated back to the 1800’s. In the village were also two labyrinths. Since it was already 12:30, and really hot outside, the consensus was that we would take the day off biking and would head to New Harmony to check out the historic village and labyrinths. Jan sent us off with a case of bottled water, snacks, and a paper bag stapled shut with a surprise inside. She instructed Mal that we weren’t to open it right away. About 10 miles down the road, we couldn’t resist, so we opened the bag. Each of us had a red, white and blue paper bag with our names on it. The bags were filled with trinkets which Trevor was excited that some could be used to put in geo cache boxes.

New Harmony was a really interesting town. The historic buildings were private residences which blend in with the town. In the center of the town was a meditation garden, a stone labyrinth made out of granite and a roofless church. The hedge labyrinth was on the outskirts of town, so we rented a golf cart for an hour to drive around town and to go the labyrinth, which Mal got into. The hedge labyrinth was about the size of a soccer field and shoulder height. The kids got a kick out of getting lost in it.

Everyone was disappointed we didn’t have time to visit Santa Claus, IN where there’s an amusement park, which Jan, Susan, Rosi and Mark recommended. Headed to Hoosier National Forest Where we stayed at Tipsaw State Park. Set up camp and then B,T, and M biked to the swim area and I decided to drive the van since I wanted to use my computer to do some blogging. The lake was like bath water, so wasn’t as refreshing as it could have been. I headed back to camp to cook supper and T, B and M went geo caching around the lake trail. They located 4 out of 7 of the caches. While geo caching, Bryce picked up 7 tics and Trevor 4. Each night we’re having to do a thorough tic check on ourselves.