Day One: "Pavement!? No Way!"

Day 1 Starting Point: Villa Hills, KY (Brennan's dad's house)
Day 1 End Point: Columbus, IN (Super 8 Motel!)
Day 1 Brewery: Power House Brewing Company
Day 1 distance: 88.87 miles

Total distance: 88.87 miles

Mr. Behler and I have just checked in to the Super 8 Motel in Columbus, IN. And let me tell you. It's super. Just super. Really really super.

Day 1 greeted Brennan and Jason with both the most distance and elevation on our week-long trip. And surprisingly, it also dealt them the most gravel. That's right. While Indiana Hoosier hospitality isn't disappointing us so far, the lack of pavement certainly is (the type of road surface, not the band). But the boys sucked it up and went all off-road on southern Indiana's ass. And their tires wear the battle wounds. But I digress.

We left Mr. Basford's house around 7:15 and arrived at our first stop.....um....about 10 minutes later. We (and our bikes/car) took the Anderson Ferry across the Ohio River and continued from there.

Mr. Behler and I tried to draft off the guys for a while, but it wasn't working, so we finally left them in the dust as we headed to our lunch stop in Osgood, IN. There really was only one option for lunch -- the Osgood Grub Co.

(We assumed that moustaches qualified us as hippies, but tried to be the Rosa Parks of Osgood by refusing to use the side door.) 

Their parking lot was filled with odd/scary/confusing metal sculptures and yet their bathroom was one of the fanciest I've seen (waterless urinals, hand dryers that will melt your face, stuff like that).

After lunch, we pressed on, and found the aforementioned gravel roads. At every turn, we felt like we were headed up someone's driveway, to possibly be greeted with a shotgun. But no! We eventually snaked our way to Columbus!

The plan tonight is to hit up the Power House Brewing Company, which was just featured on some public access travel show. And lucky for you, they've posted a clip!



We'll check in later tonight/early tomorrow with a full report on our first brewery of the trip!

Check out the Flickr gadget in the left margins for all the pics from the trip!

Alright. We're back from the Power House. This place has a long history, dating back to its time as a blacksmith's store in 1890, it's time as some place called The Sanitary Cafe, and its most recent incarnation as the home of the brewing company started in 2005. Tonight, they had three of their brews on special, and I went for the trifecta. Working Man's Wheat was....well....not very good. Lemony. Jack the Bum had a great name and was a pale that held its own. Finally, I had the Diesel Oil Stout. Normally, I'm not a fan of stout beers. I still carry Irish Catholic guilt for not liking Guinness. But Power House's stout drank more like Smithwick's, which is awesome.

As we turn our attention toward tomorrow's journey to Noblesville, we're laying around in the motel room watching the Reds game. Be sure to leave the guys words of encouragement (or mockery) in the comments section!

For anyone in the Indianapolis area, we'll be at Barley Island in Noblesville tomorrow evening for dinner and beers. Feel free to join us. While the Behlers will be staying with family there, Brennan and I will stay on the fair eastside of Indy at my house. Come see the moustaches in person!