I can't get away from Crawfordsville's Lew Wallace

I visited the Shiloh battlefield twice while at the Return to Shiloh BMW rally last weekend - once on Friday and again on Saturday morning.

And, once again, I was struck by the solemn beauty of the place.

I was pleased to see the film and exhibits in the Visitors' Center included fellow Hoosier Lew Wallace.

Gen. Wallace and his Indiana boys might have changed the character of the first day of the two-day fight had it not been for somewhat ambiguous marching orders given him by Gen. U.S. Grant that caused him to arrive late at the point where he was intended to support Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's troops, who were under attack by Confederate forces.

Wallace found himself at the rear of the advancing Rebel forces and might have done them some serious damage if he had seized the initiative. Instead, he countermarched back and finally reached Grant's defensive line at Pittsburg Landing late in the day when the battle was winding down.

And, by the way, isn't it amazing that Wallace didn't realize how ridiculous he looked with that beard and mustache stuck on the front of his face?

But enough history.

After three nights of tossing and turning on a Thermarest air mattress, I was ready to come home and sleep in a real bed.

I struck camp Sunday morning and was on the road about 8:15. I stopped for gas at Corinth, Miss. and made a gas/restroom stop just north of West Memphis, Ark., rolling into my garage at 12:06 p.m.

There was much talk of reconnecting with my Indiana BMW friends next weekend at the Falling Leaf Rally in Potosi, Mo. At the moment, I'm not very keen on another weekend in a tent and the weather may also mitigate against going.

I had supposed Potosi was considerably closer to home than was the Shiloh Rally site, but I just checked with Google maps and discovered it's 177 miles (Shiloh was 199) with an estimated riding time of 3 hours and 57 minutes - pretty much the same time/distance on worse roads.

We shall see.