Southwestern Indiana contains a plethora of excellent riding roads, with lots of curves (including many "midwest chicanes" around corn and soybean fields) and frequent changes in elevation. For this particular tour, three friends set out on a mission to find the famous Lost River of Indiana, planning our ride to take us over some of the best of these Indiana roads. We meet up at the Freetown intersection of IN135 and IN58, with the approach on either road already a nice ride.
Going west to Bedford can be enjoyed at leisure or at a more agressive pace, with a few challenging curves and ---. In Bedford we do a short stretch down 4-lane IN37 to IN450 - one of the better riding roads in the area - and point our iron steeds SW towards Williams Dam.
This dam, whis was completely inundated during the recent great flood of 2008, served as a source of electricity to the area from its construction in 1910 until ----, when it was deactivated an now serves primarily as a boat launch area and fishing hole.
As we continue from WilliamsDam, the elevation changes become more pronounced and the riding more spirited, with some tight curves in the vicinity of Trinity Springs and Dover Hill.Reaching Shoals, we pass the strange balanced rock formation affectionately known as "The Jug", and stop at a local drive-in to fulfill our nutritional needs. We then continue down IN150 and take a short detour on IN56 to the recently opened casino resort of French Lick - just for a quick looksie.
Not neglecting our main mission of finding the Lost River, we return to IN150 and then quickly find CR725W (OrangevilleRd). This is another riding gem which brings us to Orangeville IN, which rumor has it is where the LostRiver comes back out of the ground. Not only is the rumor true, but as it turns out the "Orangeville Rise" is a Registered National Landmark, a sizable geologic feature resembling a large spring. The volume of water emanating from the "rise" varies with the rainfall. On this day the flow was sufficient to appreciate the unusual feature of a river running part of it's course underground through limestone tunnels created by erosion over the ages. The rest of its journey to the join with the Wabash river then continues above-ground.
We leave Orangeville behind and enjoy more nice roads to Orleans, IN where, on a previous visit we tracked down the location of the LostRiver's disappearance into it's subterranean hiding place. At that time a brige on South Roosevelt Street proved to be a rough dividing line between the wet and the dry river bed. This changes with the amount of rainfall.
From Orleans we scoot up IN37 about 10 miles to Mitchell and head east onf IN 60 past SpringMillStatePark, which features a monument to the famous Apollo II astronaut and Mitchell native Gus Grissom, and take the TunneltonRd to the town of that name, riding high along a ridge then swooping down into the valley and across the White River East Fork.
From Tunnelton we continue east and across the Devil's Backbone, a narrow ridge that falls away sharply on both sides to valley floors below. Local riders visit this excellent oad regularly. We proceed through Ft. Ritner, a local landmark, and to Medora. Via IN235 we ride on to IN135, which we then fully enjoy going north and back to our meeting place at Freetown.
We look forward to taking this little tour - which takes about 8 hours, depending on the length of stops along the way - again and again. Next time we won't be searching for a river, however.