Our first official stop was scheduled. Mike and I had signed up to help teach for a couple of mountain bike clinics during the Brown County Epic in southern Indiana. This was a nice kick in the butt to actually call the van “good enough”, wrap up our final projects, and hit the road.
We arrived at Brown County late on Oct 5 and met up with our fellow mountain bike instructors Fred and Amie to scope out a good camping spot for the weekend. They helped us celebrate our first official night of vanlife with a champagne toast - we had received the bottle as a housewarming gift when we purchased our first home together five years ago, and kept waiting for a special occasion to drink it. The first night in our new completed tiny home seemed an appropriate event!
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| A nearly full moon with a mostly cloudy sky made for a beautiful first night on the road. |
The next morning we had an awesome ride around the park, despite the muggy weather and slightly tacky trails. We finished up just in time to meet Danielle and Kate of
DNK Presents to prep for a series of short clinics on how to not die on the brand new jump trail that had just opened, Hobbs Hollow. It surprised me how much the small groups progressed over the course of just an hour focusing on various applications of one major fundamental skill – body positioning on the bike. We wrapped up the day by leading one of the clinic groups down the new trail, with lots of hooting and hollering and smiles along the way.
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| Lookout from Hesitation Point - the start of the new Hobbs Hollow flow trail at Brown County State Park. |
Saturday morning began with a half-day clinic with
Sundance Mountain Bike Skills Clinics. All morning we focused on skills and drills to refine and improve each rider before sending them off to hit the trails in the afternoon. Later in the day the wind began to pick up, and rain started to drizzle. A couple hundred folks lined up to grab a free BBQ dinner and beers provided by the event, and crammed into a giant circus tent to escape the rain. The whole thing was a hot mess, combining the high humidity with soaked riders, the smell of BBQ mixed with wet clothes, loud GoreTex swishing by, and folks trying to connect to each other by yelling over the sounds of heavy rain on the tent coupled with a bluegrass band playing a little too loud. It was a great night.
Sunday morning we splurged on the Abe Martin Lodge breakfast buffet (highly recommended!) We dawdled to give the trails a few hours to dry out and managed to get back on bikes for the afternoon. Near the end of our ride, I zoomed around a corner to see one of our friends standing next to the trail on one foot behind his bike. This is a pretty abnormal stance to take while riding, so I stopped to see how he was feeling. Unfortunately, we discovered he was in a lot of pain and his left ankle was completely unusable – he had smashed his foot into something on the ground while pedaling around a corner at full speed. We tried to immobilize his ankle as best we could before slowly scooting him on his bike back up the trail toward the road. After we got him out of the trail and on his way home to the hospital, we had an early dinner and drinks at Big Woods Brewery to say a final farewell to the rest of our Chicago friends.
After dinner we decided to wander around downtown Nashville, IN. Although the downtown area is tiny with only a few blocks of businesses, it's a charming little town devoid of any chain restaurants and an emphasis on the arts. We stumbled across an amazing display of wood carvings in a little open area surrounded by older establishments. The most impressive pieces in the collection were a life-size Bigfoot and a dragon the size of a pony, each carved from a single tree trunk.
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| No idea why, but downtown Nashville had a Coca-Cola style Santa polar bear set up as part of their Christmas display. |
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| Watch out for sasquatch! |
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| This dragon was carved from a single felled tree! |
Monday morning was another soggy day, even drearier than the last. We were eager to escape the rain, so we quickly packed everything up and headed to a McDonald's to grab some coffee and plan our next move!
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| Route planning. |
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