Day 20: All In The Family

We woke up early trying to beat the heat and get to the hardware store by noon. The route through Indianapolis was long and confusing. At one point , google maps routed us to the Nickel Plate trail which seemingly didn’t yet exist this far north. We eventually joined it and it looked new and nice with lots of walkers and cyclists early in the morning.

Ray and Brad welcomed us to their store and we had a good chat about our trip and the family history of the store. The easiest way for me to describe it is that Ray and I have the same great grandfather i.e. Bernard Suding. Ray’s grandfather Henry Suding started the store in 1932 so it’s celebrating its 90th anniversary. Wow! That’s rare these days. Ray showed us the expansions over the years. It’s a classic mom and pop hardware store with local connections. Ray pointed out Henry’s old house just down the road.

As we were chit-chatting, Steve fell for the old quarter on the floor trick (Ray had it welded to a bolt and fastened to the floorboard) Ray even told us of a persistent customer who broke his knife trying to pry it up. Brad suggested Greiner’s deli nearby and it certainly hit the spot. My dad would like that we stopped by to visit our relatives in his hometown.

We bought some train tickets to Chicago and got a room at the Motel 6 as close as we could (near the truck stop). One way to look at it is, we traded some east-west miles for north-south miles. We will continue from Chicago Heights on our original route.

Summary: We rode 49 miles from White River campground near Cicero to South Indianapolis and downtown near Lucas Oil stadium on the Nickel Plate Trail and major roads.