From covered bridges and scenic trails to small-town discoveries and big-city adventures, this month’s fall travels took us all across Indiana—and gave us plenty of stories to share!
Fall—what a great time of year to wander! Many places to showcase this month from my fall break trip.
Fall break started with the Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County, well, for Nettsie, not me. I rode my bike on a beautiful, sunny, warm afternoon west from our house and ended up on the Vandalia Trail in Amo/Coatesville. This trail is a National Road (US 40) Heritage Trail and is located in Western Hendricks County and extends into Putnam County. I rode to Fillmore. Fun fact, our family is related to former President Millard Fillmore, whom the town is named after. Dinner at The Bridges Craft Pizza and Wine Bar on the roof, watching the sun set in Greencastle, was the perfect way to finish off the evening. Never been to this venue before. Highly recommended!!
Keeping with the bike riding theme, the Leonard Stringer Memorial Airport (IAA) Loop Ride was a fundraiser for the White Lick Creek and Vandalia Trail Alliance. What an awesome opportunity to have a police-escorted ride around the perimeter of the best airport in the country! And to be able to do it and raise funds to further build and extend trails. Downtown Indy is very vibrant, and we experienced some of that vibrancy while attending a wedding at St. Joseph’s Hall near Mass Ave. Besides the wedding we attended, it was obvious that downtown was hopping—Pacers preseason, concerts, and multiple venues filled with action. Wandering can and does occur in urban areas as well. Highly recommend downtown Indy for exploring.
Blessed is the day the Lord has made! A wonderful worship service and Bible study prior to a good day of wandering makes it that much more precious. Prayer time and worship bring you true peace and set the course for the day. It sure did that for us as we retreated to one of our favorite spots. Traveling to Southern Indiana, we first ventured to Corydon as our first stop. We tried a new venue for us, Fistful Craft Restaurant & Brewery in downtown. Good food and atmosphere. This included a stroll around Indiana’s first state capital city. The history is remarkable. Hard to believe back in the early 1800s that this is where it all started. Why Corydon? Seems like an odd location, but it ended up doing the state well in its early stages.
SR 62 west out of Corydon through White Cloud, Wyandotte, and Leavenworth is such a beautiful drive, especially on a fall afternoon. The windy, curvy rural highway has Southern Indiana wandering all over it. Fredonia is a small rural town along the Ohio River in Crawford County. Our place to go and get away. We stay at Big Timber River Cabins, and oh, what a place! We highly recommend this spot to get away from the hustle and bustle. The cabin has quite the overlook view of the Ohio River. You look into Kentucky and the beautiful wooded, hilly areas across the river. Barges periodically pass by, and they are as mesmerizing as sitting around a campfire and staring, which, by the way, we did that as well. Watching the eagle glide over the river is quite the sight. Sitting down, relaxing, and just taking it easy. An elimination of hurry sort of life is what we experience at this place. Our evening fun, besides the campfire, included a dip in the hot tub with a cold drink and an unbelievable view of the Milky Way and God’s great sky show. Who says getting away from city life isn’t worth it? An unobstructed sunrise on a cabin deck just capped off the stay. Very blessed!
Our hike at Yellow Birch Ravine was really refreshing and enjoyable. The goal was to find a natural arch. Yes, there are three natural arches in Indiana (they don’t look like the one in Utah, by the way), but we were denied seeing it. We hiked in the wrong direction, but next time…. The hike was still fantastic, and it is hard to believe that you can find the natural features we saw in Indiana. Eating a wonderful meal at Schwartz Family Restaurant topped off our busy first part of the day. Wandering home through English, Marengo, Valeene, Livonia, Campbellsburg, Tunnelton, Fort Ritner, and Brownstown took us to Seymour and Stromboli’s at the Pizza Palace. And I forgot to mention another off-the-beaten-path hike at Cave River Valley Natural Area. This area is managed by Spring Mill State Park staff, and it is a truly unique area where water comes gushing out of a cave. Check it out.
Well, I have discussed Central and Southern Indiana, why not a trip to Northern Indiana? You have to try out Uranus in Anderson. What a blast! If you want to experience something unique, you have to visit this attraction. The best fudge you can find on the road. As the slogan goes, “The best fudge comes from Uranus.” On to Fort Wayne. The typical 1-1/2-hour drive for the Banning’s takes about five hours. Why would we do anything simple and easy? The places you go, the things you see! I won’t bore you with all of our side trips, but I will share with you that there is so much to see if you will only take the time to get off the beaten path. Hall’s Tavern at Coventry was our place to dine that evening. Unbeknownst to us, Don Hall owns several restaurants in Fort Wayne. I guess now we have another reason for a return visit.
Heading through and out of the city, we found several other sites. There are so many interesting neighborhoods in the city with a lot of character and beautiful homes. For my planning and engineering friends who read this, there were many areas that had “skinny” streets, no curbs and gutters, and no sidewalks. There were no detention basins and no HOAs. It was a different time in the past, but maybe we should rethink what we do from a development standpoint today versus back in the day. We can truly learn from the past—both good and bad, what to do and what not to do. Let’s rethink how we do developments in our communities and what that looks like from a long-term sustainability standpoint. Did new rules and regulations “solve” the perceived problems, or did they create more long-term needs from a taxing and upkeep standpoint? Our country is deeply in debt, and we need to figure out how to “eat the elephant” and be more forward-thinking. Maybe a more simple and scaled-back approach can help us start thinking about accomplishing this, and let’s start today rather than kick the can down the road. Are Indiana and our communities open for business and ready to thrive?
Downtown Fort Wayne has really taken a wonderful approach to redevelopment! Seeing Electric Works redeveloped is a perfect example of creative thinking. We have an old building, an old user, and we make something new. You see that in downtown as well. Walking through Parkview Field, which is so unique. It is basically a city park, and the public can walk in and traipse around it. Where else can you do that? Looking at how Headwaters Park has developed and has become a wonderful, activated space. We also took in the Foellinger Botanical Conservatory on our visit and had a “slider” at Power’s Hamburger Restaurant. That place has been in business since 1940. We can integrate the old and the new! There are always things we can work on, but it appears that Fort Wayne is making progress and apparently being visionary and succeeding. As you head out of downtown, you have to visit “The Fort,” where it all started near the confluence of the St. Marys and St. Joseph Rivers, forming the Maumee River.
On to Shipshewana, via Kendallville and the Mid-America Windmill Museum, Rome City (we were not able to visit the Gene Stratton-Porter Home but highly suggest the visit), and LaGrange (check out the Wizard of Oz Museum). We stayed at the Blue Gate Garden Inn & Conference Center. What a place! Really enjoyed the buffet breakfast with homemade omelets and quite the spread. Took in a show at the Blue Gate Theatre and had a wonderful buffet dinner. The places we ate on this trip were fantastic! The extra pounds are really showing that! Shopping is not my thing, but the crafty stores and the Amish/Mennonite stores are actually pretty cool to visit.
On the way home, we tried to wander to as many countries and cities as we could find. We were in Peru, Mexico, and Chili. We found Syracuse, Warsaw, Topeka, Denver, Rochester, Galveston, Miami, Kokomo (does that really count, or was that just a Beach Boys thing?), and who knows where else. Wandering and wandering in Indiana can be such a fun adventure. Try it out and let me know some places to go see.
