Indiana August 2006

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Off to the heartland – we left Columbia about 10 am and had a happily uneventful flight to Indianapolis, via Cincinnati. We ran into Sue Bowersock, physical therapist friend from Columbia; she was traveling to Little Rock, Arkansas to visit her son. At the Indy airport, we picked up our rental car and headed south.

Along I-65 and state route 7, we passed huge fields of corn and soybeans – this is big time farming country. We learned that Indiana is the #3 state in the country in soybean production and that the state produces more than 250 million pounds of popcorn annually. The only other crop we saw all week was tobacco.

Our first stop was a convenience store for a cold drink and to check the map. We were suprised to see large piles of bags of salt for sale. It didn't seem likely that so many pepople would be making homemade ice cream, so we figured it must be for icy roads. We later learned that folks use the stuff in water softeners to treat the hard ater in these parts.

We headed for Madison, which was founded in 1809 on the Ohio River. It was a supply town for westbound settlers and once was Indiana’s most prominent town – a prosperous 19th-century hub of riverboats, railroads and wagons. It is now not so bustling, but it is one of the best-preserved historic river towns.

We had dinner at a recommended restaurant, the Key West Shrimp House, which is located in building that once was part of a button factory overlooking the Ohio River. No changes have been made in the basic original structure built around the turn of the century. Some of the original foundation is still visible; narrow, flat river stones are mortared together with cement and clay-like mud. The roof beams inside are the original timbers and the floors are wide wood planks.

To make the old “pearl” buttons, mussels were fished out of the river by the tons and brought in by light barges from miles away to the button factory. Mussels were piled high in nearby vacant lots as reserve supplies to keep the factory going during the winter. The mussels were separated in halves, washed and cleaned. The button “blanks” were sawed out of the mussel shells, holes drilled in the “blanks” and countersunk. After beveling and polishing, the finished buttons were hand sewn onto cards, In the 19th century, buttons were made from the shells of mussels taken from the River; inside there are nice exposed beams and a wood-plank floor.

After dinner and the local history lesson, we drove east along the Ohio River Scenic Byway, to the town of Vevay, where the Swiss Wine Festival was in full swing. Vevay, the county seat of Switzerland County, was settled by Swiss wine makers, although today’s residents mostly make their living off wheat and tobacco. We saw beautiful bright yellow fields of tobacco – from a distance, it looked almost like sunflowers. Just east of Vevay, we stopped at Belterra, a huge riverfront casino, where we dropped a few coins in the penny slot machines.

As darkness moved in, so did the fog. Coming back along the river, we saw a doe and fawn – a little too close. We headed on back to our hotel in Madison for a quiet evening in a surprisingly nice room with a whirlpool!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

After breakfast at the hotel, we headed “downtown” to check out the historic district of Madison. On Sunday morning, there wasn’t much competition for parking spaces and we had the franchise-free Main Street pretty much to ourselves. There are many lovely antebellum mansions and old homes in the downtown area – formerly owned by big shots in the world of steamships and other river boats.

We had a look at the late 19th century office and hospital of Dr. William Hutchings – he was an old-fashioned horse-and-buggy doctor whose original equipment and furnishings are mostly intact.






Another local landmark is the Broadway Fountain, an ornate bronze creation which is saidto be one of only four of its kind left in the whole world. It started out in Philadelphia and was presented to the city of Madison in 1886 by the Odd Fellows.

The historic district is one of the largest in Indiana, with over 1,000 19th century structures and 130 blocks on the National Register of Historic Places. Charles Kuralt called Madison “the most beautiful river town in America,” and maybe it is.

We headed out of town with a last drive along the riverfront, where the city has done a great job of rejuvenating the old river walk. It’s a great place for walking, watching the river, and viewing cruising boats – too bad that we just missed a stop by the paddle- wheeler Delta Queen.

We headed west on the Ohio River Scenic Highway, which was designated as a National Scenic Byway in 1996. The Ohio River Scenic Byway is a 302 mile journey through Southern Indiana, at times only feet from the mighty Ohio River. It twists and turns past cypress swamps, scenic overlooks, archaeological sites, stately mansions, power plants and caves. Lots of things to catch the eye, including a colorful barn in the little town of Lanesville – and we thought tobacco-advertising was a thing of the past.

Our first serious stop was Corydon, a pretty little town that was the site of Indiana’s first state capitol. The old capitol building is a square, federal-style limestone structure completed in 1816. It served as the seat of government until the capitol was moved to Indianapolis in 1825. Other restored 19th-century buildings recall the town’s place in history. We looked for, but never found, the ‘Constitution Elm,’ an old tree beneath which was drafted the first state constitution in 1816.

Leaving town, the Scenic Highway passes through a mixed stretch of farmland, houses, and forested hills. We crossed the Blue River and entered Appalachian-type woodlands, thick with hardwoods in between walls of rugged limestone rising above the road as it wind among the hills. Here, it was hard to believe we were in the Midwest – this is not what we expected Indiana to look like!

We stopped for lunch in Leavenworth, a community founded in 1818; it was one of the principal shipping points along the Ohio River. The original town site was in a natural amphitheatre surround by bluffs; in 1937, a flood destroyed most of the buildings and the town was moved atop the bluffs.







We ate at the Overlook Restaurant – it sits high over the Ohio River, with a grand view of a long, lazy horseshoe bend. The building once housed a chicken hatchery and a small café and grocery store. Today the restaurant specializes in home cooking and a panoramic view of the river; we highly recommend the view, can’t say much for the home cooking. We also wandered through Stephenson’s General Store – it’s over 80 years old and features a hodgepodge of antiques, baskets, pottery, other goods and food items.

Beyond town, the drive enters the Hoosier National Forest, known for its undulating hills and sharp ridges. Once stripped of trees, the forest has been restored to its previous glory by the Forest Service. About 350 million years ago, a warm shallow inland sea deposited layers of limestone, which eroded over time creating interesting rock formations and an extensive cave system. The road has lots of ups and downs as it goes around the hills and passes through very small towns, such as Sulphur Springs. It sure would be a long drive to the nearest grocery store.

As we left the National Forest, we stopped at the Cannelton Locks and Dam. The navigation locks are located on the Indiana side of the river. We watched a tugboat pushing its load of barges into the 1200-foot-long locks – it was an impressive maneuver, but impossibly slow – we didn’t stay to see it through.

Next stop was Tell City, which was founded by the Swiss Colonization Society. This Cincinnati-based group established Tell City in the mid-1800’s as a homestead site for a community of Swiss-German workers. There’s a statue of William Tell in front of City Hall, a reflection of the town’s Swiss heritage. Tell City is also the home of the Tell City Pretzel Company, where we’d planned to watch workers hand-twist pretzels for us to taste. The pretzels originated in 1858 when Casper Gloor, a master baker from Switzerland settled at Tell City. He became well-known for the pretzels baked from a secret recipe he brought from the old country. The recipe has been passed down and the pretzels are still made in strict accordance with the centuries-old formula. It was Sunday afternoon, the workers had the day off, and we settled for buying some of the secret-recipe specialties from a local grocery store.

We followed the Scenic Highway to Rockport, where we headed north toward Jasper. German woodworkers who settled here in the early 1800’s took advantage of the area’s abundant forests to make Jasper a center for furniture-making and cabinetry. At Jasper, we headed west to Washington, the Daviess County seat. We found a trusty Holiday Inn Express, checked in and took the locals’ advice to have dinner at Betty and Bill Bobe’s Restaurant. It was pizza and pasta time, and it seemed like everybody in town was there – the place was packed, and for good reason. The food was good and the cookies (for dessert) were free. After deplorable session of overeating, we went walking around the hotel until darkness sent us inside to the treadmill – hopefully, we left some calories behind.

Monday August 28, 2006

We learned that about 650 old-order Amish families live in Daviess County. The Amish first settled here in the mid-1800’s after the Pennsylvania Amish began branching out. These folks have held onto to their heritage, with German being the first language learned by many Amish children. Their lives are simple with little or no use of modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. Ready to soak up a little local color, we studied the map of the Daviess County Amish Community and headed east and north of Washington along the criss-crossing network of narrow, mostly gravel, roads.

We made a big loop into the countryside, in search of various Amish establishments listed in the county brochure – such as the Deutsch Candy Haus, Graber’s Discount Grocery, Knepp’s Woodworking, Wagler’s Quilts and Crafts and Raber’s Buggy Shop. What the brochure didn’t say was that these businesses were small, backyard enterprises with little or no signage. We spotted a few of the places we were looking for, but only because of buggies parked in the yard. Sometimes a second look would reveal a small sign, but it was pretty clear that these folks weren’t expecting customers driving big noisy cars.










Road signs were also in short supply, but it was hard to get too lost – the roads run north-south and east-west – as long as we kept our bearings, we’d sooner or later find an identifiable landmark.


The local mailman tried to give us directions, but he didn’t know road names and numbers; he did show us the way to one of the community’s twelve one-room school houses, with basketball goals in the back and lots of buggies parked out front.

The Amish farms were neat and well-kept – it was such a quiet, green and peaceful area just for riding around and admiring.

We especially enjoyed seeing the horses and buggies.

And – it was Monday - just about every house was adorned with a colorful array of clothes on a line.







After touring Amish country, we followed the advice of our friend Karla Sneegas and went to the Gasthof Amish Village for lunch. This is a big operation in the little town of Montgomery; besides the restaurant and bakery, there’s an inn and several shops. And the food was delicious – lots of vegetables and homemade bread and sinful desserts. It was well worth the effort to get there.

Well fed, we headed east on Route 50. From the endless cornfields, we got back into rolling hills and limestone as we approached the city of Bedford, known as “Stone City” because it holds some of the largest and most famous limestone quarries in the country. The quarries that earned the city’s reputation are still in use, producing the stone that is part of many high-profile structures, including the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center, the Pentagon, the National Cathedral and the Lincoln Memorial. You can see the limestone in situ along the highway, as well as monuments and gravestones driving through town.

From Bedford, we continued east to visit the Medora Covered Bridge. Built in 1875, this is the longest three-span covered bridge in the United States, measuring 434 feet long with a 12-foot overhang. It’s in need of some repair, but it was in a pretty location, surrounded by (surprise) fields of corn and soybeans. From there we took a quick side trip into Brownstown and then headed north on state road 135.

The first part of this route followed rivers and creeks through (another) part of Hoosier National Forest. When we hit the Brown County line, the scenery changed dramatically and we were in the hills – lots of hills and curvy roads. It was a beautiful drive, including a short stop at the little village of Story, which looked like a good place for a nice long weekend.

We made our way to Nashville, a charming little town in the hills of Brown County, established in 1836. The region’s natural beauty has attracted a whole colony of artists who have turned the quaint town into a huge collection of galleries, studios and shops. We wandered around town, checking out the shops and picking up a few souvenirs. And then … the highlight of the day – fried biscuits with baked apple butter at the Nashville House downtown. Dee-licious! It’s a good thing we were only in town for a few hours.

Just north of Nashville is a small town with the great name of Bean Blossom, where Bill Monroe stages a Bluegrass Festival twice a year. From there, it was a straight shot into Indianapolis – we headed back to the airport to drop off the rental car (600 miles total driving). We caught a ride into town and checked into the conference hotel.

Our room overlooked the Indiana State House, a Renaissance-Revival limestone building completed in 1888. After unpacking, we took the cross-walk through the convention center over to the Circle Center Mall for some walking and window-shopping before hitting the sack.


Tuesday, August 29, 2006

We again took Karla’s advice and tried the Café Patachou in the new Simon Building next to our hotel. She was right – it’s a great place for breakfast – we had the daily special omelet, with mushrooms, onions, spinach and ham. It came with sourdough toast and a bowl of fresh fruit and left us ready for manual labor. It also left us with a real appreciation of Indianapolis' smoke-free status; it was great to breathe clean air and avoid second-hand smoke. Keep up the good work, Karla!

We headed over to White River State Park, Indiana’s only urban state park, with more things to do than we had time to consider. We walked along the river front first, past the NCAA Hall of Champions and on down the river to the first bridge (at ? Street).

On the far side of the river, we walked along the River Promenade back towards town. There are nice views of the river and the city’s skyline ...

... as well as interesting carvings in the big blocks of Indiana limestone lining the walkway.






Our first stop was the Indianapolis Zoo, one of the major attractions in White River State Park. It covers about 65 acres, with well-done exhibits in four different habitats – the Plains, the Forests, the Deserts, and the Waters. We enjoyed close encounters with the giraffes and the meerkats, as well as a nice exhibit of walruses and a spectacular dolphin pavilion. New arrivals included a baby elephant and a three-week old zebra.









We also spent some time at the White River Gardens, 3 acres of botanical gardens right next door to the zoo. There are plantings, sculptures, water features, flower-lined pathways, and meandering trails. A butterfly exhibit was on display inside a large glassed-in conservatory.


We got lots of new ideas for the garden at home and probably would have spent more time except for the threatening storm clouds overhead (not to mention tired feet underneath).














The road back to town took us across the old Washington Street Bridge; this bridge was built in 1833 as part of the National Road – it’s now a pedestrian walkway linking the two sides of the riverfront park.


A short time later, Karla picked us up at the hotel. After a quick after-hours peek at the Indianapolis Racetrack ....







Karla took us to dinner at Rick’s Café at the Boatyard. It’s located in northwest part of town, on Eagle Creek Reservoir. The food was as good as the company – we enjoyed catching up with Karla and the news of her family and tales of tobacco control in Indiana.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

With just a few hours before getting down to business, we headed off for a last look around the city. First stop was Einstein Brothers Bagel Shop; too bad these guys haven’t found their way to SC. All over town, we loved the beautiful flowers - really adds to the walkability of the city.

From there we headed toward Market Square to see the Soldiers and Sailors Monument – this monument is constructed of Indiana limestone and has historical and mythological sculptures on its exterior. It is 285 feet tall, with a state of “Miss Victory” perched on top. There was lots of action around the monument as antique and restored cars were unloaded as part of a big convention in town.


At Karla’s suggestion, we headed over to the City Market to check out the local produce. The 1886 market building has been restored and on Wednesdays a whole city block closed off for market day – a great deal for city workers.

From the market, we walked over to the Lockerbie Square area. This is a seven-block district dating to 1847; it is the city’s oldest surviving neighborhood and is noted for its Victorian houses and cottages, including the home of James Whitcomb Riley, lining the cobblestone streets. There are antique gas lamplights and limestone mounting blocks used for horse-drawn carriages.

We walked along the Veterans Memorial Plaza and by the Scottish Rite Cathedral, an impressive Gothic structure built by the Freemasons in 1929. It contains a 54-bell carillon and a 7,000-pipe organ. The building features hand-carved woodwork and elaborate stained-glass windows, all adorned with Masonic symbols.

From there, we headed over to the Canal Walk, a portion of the historic Indianapolis Central Canal that has been renovated into a beautiful pathway lined with shops, townhouses and lots of flowers.













Our stroll turned into a trot when a cloud came up and the rains came down. We hustled back to the hotel - a tad damp - just in time to get ready for the meeting.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

After the meeting, everyone heaed to the airport, where we sat and waited and waited and sat. Tropical Storm Ernesto stirred up a ruckus, causing flight delays all up and down the east coast. Our flight to Atlanta was late, as was the flight from Atlanta to Columbia. Both flights were fine, just late. We got home about midnight, 3 hours later than planned – but at least we got home!