Blog for 7/30/2012:
Actual Trip:
I am now up to 140 miles on my 700 mile trip around The Villages here in Florida. I have posted some photos of my ride this morning. The Villages is an over-55 community in central Florida about 60 miles northwest of Orlando. It is the world’s largest over-55 community, now at 90,000 people and going up to 120,000 over the next few years. It is beautifully laid out…over about 90 square miles. All amenities are included in the $140/month amenity fee…including 25 pools, 22 golf courses, polo field, 30 rec centers, 2 downtown areas with live music every night 365 days per year, etc. The housing is reasonable. I have a three bedroom home with a 2.5 car garage and about 1/3rd acre of ground for under $200,000. You can buy a home in The Villages from $70,000 to about $1.5 million. I am riding about 6-9 miles per day, and I do a 20-25 mile once per week.
Virtual Ride:
I discovered that the best bicycle route from the office of the Foundation for PM&R in Rosemont, IL to Atlanta was to head east on the back roads until you get to Route 41 in Indiana. This road goes all the way to Atlanta, and since it is not a super highway you can bicycle on it. It takes you through a number of picturesque towns in Indiana as you travel south on your way to Kentucky. There are towns like Munster, Lowell, Lake Village, Enos, Kentland, Veedersburg, Covington, and where I am now, which is Clinton, Indiana.
If I had taken route 26 east out of Oxford, Indiana I would have gone to West Lafayette, IN, home of the Purdue Boilermakers. I don’t know if you are familiar with Indiana politics (I practiced in Indianapolis for a number of years). The state legislature only wanted one medical school at Indiana University. So they prevented Purdue from having one. IU alone is allowed to have a medical school, dental school and law school. In exchange for this, Purdue alone is allowed to have a school of engineering and a school of pharmacy. In the 1970’s every little town in Indiana wanted to have its own medical school. To avoid the problem that developed in Ohio where many little towns did get their own medical school, Indiana decided to all allow six satellite medical school branches in various towns throughout the state. These were allowed to teach only the first two years of medical school. All the students come to Indianapolis for the final two years of medical school. This has worked out very well for the six towns affected, and the students taking the first two years in those towns have done as well as those students taking the first two years on the Indianapolis campus.
Indianapolis wanted to have its own major state university. They wanted to be like Columbus, Ohio…which has Ohio State. The problem was that Indiana University (which is located mainly in Bloomington, IN) and Purdue University (which is housed mainly in West Layafette, IN) did not want to compete with a large state university in the city of Indianapolis. So a deal was worked out in which IU and Purdue would cooperate to build a campus in Indianapolis. This became IUPUI…which stands for Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis. The students pronounce IUPUI “ooey-pooey.” As expected, IUPUI has grown dramatically and will most likely eventually be larger in terms of the number of students that either of its parent universities.
As I travelled further down route 41 I could have turned east and gone on route 136 out of Veedersburg to Crawfordsville, IN…home of Wabash College. Many of you probably aren’t aware that Wabash College is an excellent all boys school…and to my knowledge is the only all- male college left in America. About 20 years ago the administration wanted to open the school to girls, but the alumni had a fit and the administration reversed itself and decided to stay all male. It is an outstanding college and is probably the only one left in America that requires that each senior pass a final examination before graduation. You can be on the Dean’s list at Wabash and not graduate if you don’t pass the final exam that covers all of your four years there. It was founded in 1832 by Presbyterian ministers, but was never a sectarian school. It is expensive ($32,000 per year in tuition alone)…but 90% of the students get financial aid because Wabash has an endowment fund of $330 million. The students call themselves the “cavemen.”
I must admit to you that I went to DePauw University, which is the bitter enemy of Wabash…more about this in the paragraph below. If you want to learn more about Wabash College, go to
www.wabash.edu.
As I travelled further down route 41 I could have taken route 36 east out of Rockville and then down to Greencastle, IN where I went to college at DePauw University. This liberal arts school was founded in 1837 by the Methodist Church as Indiana Asbury College. It originally admitted only men, but in 1867 it began admitting women, probably due to the fact that most of the men were fighting in the Civil War. In the economic hard times of the 1870’s Washington C. DePauw gave $600,000 to the school, and the school was renamed DePauw University. DePauw has had many firsts: First Phi Beta Kappa chapter; first sorority in the nation (Kappa Alpha Theta in 1870); Sigma Delta Chi…the honorary journalism society in 1909; the first college FM radio station in 1949; and the oldest college newspaper in Indiana. They have many famous alumni, including ME! Each fall the DePauw Tigers plays the Wabash Cavemen in the Monon Bell football game. This is the oldest football rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains. Not to be outdone by Wabash, DePauw has an endowment fund of $513 million dollars.
I am spending the night in Clinton, IN. This is a small town of about 4000 people, but famous for their annual Little Italy Festival that is held every Labor Day Weekend. For more about it, go to
www.littleitalyfestival.org. Unfortunately Clinton’s best known citizen is
Orville Lynn Majors…the famous hospital serial killer. He was a licensed practical nurse at Vermillion Hospital in Indiana…and he killed patients who were whiny, demanding, or who disproportionately added to his workload. He was convicted of killing 6 patients, but is felt to have killed about 130. He is serving 360 years in prison at the Indiana State Prison.
