Start: Fulton Market District, Chicago, 10 am

In front of Millennium park bean. I took my gloves off to take the photo, and then 3 miles later I realized I left them there.

Finish: Dinwiddie, Indiana, 5:15 pm

Total mileage: 62.2

Total useful mileage: 53

Today went pretty much like I imagined it would. The day was perfect, and the 10 miles along the Lakeshore path leaving Chicago were a dream. From a bit south of the Museum of Science and Industry the route heads away from the lake through increasingly impoverished neighborhoods to the outskirts of Gary. It is Chicago for like 2 hours! I was primarily on rails to trails paths after leaving the lake with a few meanderings through neighborhoods. All was perfect and surprisingly bucolic for the area between south Chicago and Gary. But then I encountered the first of 3 big detours. An extremely long, like miles, train was parked on the track blocking the path. I waited for 20 minutes. Two people on bikes come through from the other side. They carried their bikes between coal cars.

I decided not to do that.

I headed up train for the 2 miles and was able to go under snd over tracks. I crossed over the tracks just as the long train that I’d gone out of my way to avoid went by.

Detours 2 and 3 added about 3 miles around construction in Indiana.

Todays lesson is that I need to account for detours. Who knew?