Wednesday, 14Jul10, Richmond, Ind
Another good riding day … 75 miles from Indianapolis to Richmond. Mostly level, flat riding with a few hills. Adella and I started out with Kevin, Phil and Kiwi Rick … yet … we decided to stop and see the Hoosiers Gym, so had to let them go.
One amazing stop we made today was in Knightstown at the “Hoosier Community Gym” where the movie, “Hoosiers”, was filmed.
We met Reid Brennan and Mike who are caretakers at the gym.
Reid actually went to school there and played basketball in the gym during his early years. He gave us a tour of the gym, locker rooms and a historical background about how the movie was filmed, etc. (Check out the Facebook pictures)
After we left there … Adella and I caught up with Robb and Lester and rode with them until Big John and Oklahoma Rick came along and then we rode with them for awhile until Adella ran out of steam! (at a 22-23 mph paceline, that’s understandable)
Pretty soon Lester and Robb came back up to us and I was pulling for awhile … then Robb decided to pick it up and I decided to ride with them … make was he flying, especially on the pulls up the “hills” … in fact, we caught back up with Rick and Big John … but only because I think they had stopped for some reason. We then rode the rest of the way into Richmond together!
Once we arrived in Richmond we first stopped at Wendy’s for a bite to eat. (And took our bicycles into the restaurant with us … the manager questioned it at first and then said OK … however this was the first time he had seen that, in his 26 years of the business.)
Then I received a call from Adella saying there were people at the hotel looking for us!
So when I made it to the hotel … we were met at the hotel by employees of the Community Blood Center-Richmond, Indiana … Tracy and Andrew, Sher, Melinda and then later we met Amy and other staff over at the blood drive.
Also Steve Roger … a reporter from Pal-Item.com, Richmond, Indiana, newspaper, http://www.pal-item.com/ was there taking some photos of us for the newspaper. (Thanks Steve!)
At the hotel we took a few pictures and then we rode our bicycles about a mile over to the blood drive at the Richmond Blood Center at 4450 Garwood Placed, it was great to meet the staff who greeted us as rode up to the blood center.
As soon as we arrived at the blood drive, there was a donor named Angie who was leaving … yet, took the time to talk to us and take a picture with us.
After a gracious greeting, we were given the opportunity to meet the donors.
One of our first donors that we met, since he had just finished giving blood, was Rich Lemming (who had recently moved to Seymour, Indiana, yet had driven all the way back up here to donate). The staff thought that was great because I was from the Seymour area.
Fred Obermyer who was donating today, was there with his wife, Peggy, who was also retired law enforcement. It was great fun talking to her about LE and saying “thank you” to Fred for donating blood.
And another donor, ??, was their with her daughter, I thanked them and her daughter said that she would like to donate when she’s old enough.
We are now back at the hotel, loaded with lots of goodies from CBC-Richmond, IND, for the other ABB cyclists on our trip to Maryville, Ohio, tomorrow.
A special thanks to Sher and her staff for the incredible “gifts” they gave us … you are an amazing, compassionate, giving group of people and we want to thank you for all you do! (Thanks Sher … great job!)
We’ll probably see them tomorrow along the route … probably somewhere near the 1st SAG … since she said the media wanted to interview us and take some photos.
So until then or later this evening …