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7/5/09, Newberry, IN - The lads and I pulled out of the Horse Progress Days grounds in a light misty rain. It was a little after 8 am and we soon fell in a line with the folks headed off to their Sunday morning church meetings. We had to take extra care to avoid a buggy traffic jam. The “Sunday-go-to-meeting” trotters pulling the buggies were fast stepping horses. Even with Bob and Bill in a trot, the church going crowd was passing us like we were standing still. So nobody would be late for church, we pulled over and let the “high speed” traffic by.
Our first stop was the home of good friend Chuck Steadman in Elnora. Chuck’s wife and mother in-law were ready with a breakfast brunch fit for a king. After a full belly and a little charge on the batteries, Chuck accepted my offer to ride along to the town or Newberry. On the north side of town, we stopped and let a nice family full of young girls pet the horses. Chuck’s wife picked him up there.
A couple of miles north of town, I accepted an offer from Carla Riggins to stay at their place. After sipping a couple of Margaritas and having supper, my sister Cathy showed up in her motorhome. She was on her way to Kansas City to attend and Auctioneering school.
Carla’s husband Travis, had just bought a beautiful people-moving horse drawn wagon at Horse Progress Days. Since he didn’t have a team ready to pull it, I hitched up Bob and Bill and we all took it for an 8 mile test run. Together with a bunch of family and friends, it was great moonlit, evening ride.
7/6/09, North of Worthington, IN - After saying goodbye to my hosts and my sister, the team and I hit the road around 9 am. There was a lot of large truck traffic on route 57, so we took it kind of easy and turned on the red and blue lights a lot.
I made several stops for supplies in the town of Worthington. After a lunch stop at the grocery store, the team began climbing up the hills on the way out of town. A couple of miles north of town, I ran into Tom Smith and accepted his offer for a place to stay at the old farm where he keeps his horses. It’s a real quiet setting with only half a dozen cars going by all evening.
Tomorrow, the team and I are headed for Spencer. As of right now, I plan on taking route 44 around the south side of Indy again, and traveling up the east side of the city. This will give me an opportunity to stop at the barn-ga-lo and rest the horses for a few days while I do some wagon maintenance. After that, I plan on heading north through Indiana on the way to Michigan (between Grand Rapids and Lansing.) Of course, all these plans are subject to change at any minute as the whim strikes me. The nice thing about not having any FIRM goals is the freedom to change plans and do something else when I want to. Good Night Everyone.
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