On my way home from Covington, I began my weekend photo adventure. The stats: 160 miles of driving, 196 photos, and 11 towns. I was out to capture rural America, and somehow mother nature decided to cooperate. The skies were only clear during the times I was out with my camera this weekend. I even got hints of blue skies. So this is going to be a long post, because I had some amusing encounters that I must make note of. Visit the photo gallery. Images are in order so you can follow along. First few are next to my parent’s house so skip those for the story. Pardon coloring…forgot I had manual WB set oops.

Day 1 was brief, as it didn’t begin until well after 5pm, but I managed to make it through Yedda, Tangier & Bloomingdale. Yedda was basically a neat church and remnants of Super 98 and Texaco gas stations. It was on a main highway so there was lots of staring. Tangier was just as scary as I remembered it, but I discovered some amazing countryside once I got outside it. I drove across a covered bridge for the first time in my life. I had to talk myself through it.

As I was passing through Bloomingdale, I glanced over to see this lovely elderly couple holding hands in their porch swing. I thought, “wow, what a perfect photo I just passed…” So yeah, I turned around and pulled up in front of their house. The lady stood up and was quite alarmed seeing I was armed with a camera. I finally talked them in to letting me take their picture. I get so flustered when I take people pics though that I didn’t really take my time to get some quality shots. I was proud of myself for stopping though.

Day 2 I set out at 2pm to explore the Putnam/Parke Co. area. Started out in Brick Chapel, which has this gorgeous red church. I’ve driven by it a zillion times growing up on my way to Indy. I will have to return when there are blue skies. My dad had mentioned there was a little place called Clinton Falls near the church, so a man at the elevator across the way gave me some stellar directions.

I must say Clinton Falls was one of the most gorgeous places I’d ever driven in to, but I noticed a sign for a covered bridge beyond the town so I drove to it first. I’d never seen this particular bridge, so it was a fun find. It was fairly new and the slope of the road it was on made for good photos. As I drove back in to town, I stopped for some pics of a Livery before parking in some random driveway, and tackling the rest of the town by foot. As I was walking down the road, a truck pulls up next to me. The window rolls down and this conversation ensues:

Man: “Have you taken any pictures of people who are lost yet?”

Me: *laughing* no, i have not

Man: “Well, you should take ours” *laughing* but wait, the real treasure’s in the backseat *rolls down back window, revealing another guy* Do you watch AMW?

Me: What’s that?

Guy: America’s Most Wanted. You’ll find this guy on there *backseat guy waves for his photo*

Me: “Well, crap. If i had my cellphone, I could prolly back some good money right now.

*everyone laughs and they pass up my directions assistance

Now what would make this story better is if the guy really were on AMW. haha. So then I wondered back to the falls. You’ll note the pic with the town sign was on my left as I drove in, so that’s the view I encountered. I’m surprised I didn’t run off the road. I wasn’t expecting anything so neat. I got a little camera happy there, but I was in this practically non-existent town with this beautiful creek running through it that I could just walk out in to and I was in heaven.

I traveled back to Brick Chapel and then headed to Morton, where there’s just a country store. The newspaper was significant because there have been so many bank robberies in the last month around my area. It’s big news in small towns. I was gonna try to find Russellville at this point, but then I saw a sign for “Van Bibber Lake” which intrigued me so I turned the other way. This revealed a cool building in Morton I’d never seen before. Well Van Bibber turned out to be…I dunno…I felt like I was a foreigner there. You basically drive in down along this lake surrounded by people and then it just drives in to this massive trailer park, and you soon realize that every other person there is driving a golf cart. I got major cult vibes so I only lingered there long enough to hide behind a tree and take the spy photos of the man & kid. heh. The tractor and flag stuff were all along the road on the way back to Morton. I took them from my driver’s seat, and I think I scared a little girl who saw me.

So I finally started down the road to Russellville. I’d never taken this route, and there were absolutely no signs beyond the one saying “

<- Russellville" on the highway. I swear I've never seen roads Y off more in my life. It's not a trek for the indecisive. I tried to stay on what appeared to be the more main road, but I was already taking the "back way/scenic route" so that didn't count for much. Well, that path ended me up at a bridge that had a pile of rocks blocking it. So yeah, I had to take the

MORE scenic route. I got some exciting back roads shots, and I drove by an elk farm. I saw no elk though :( The fences were all at least 12-15ft tall and I totally felt like I was in Jurassic Park. I was ready for a raptor to jump me at any minute. Oh, what an imagination I have. The farmer was feeding his cows as I took those photos, so I felt obligated to stop and tell him what I was up to. I decided to ask him if I were on the right track to Russellville, and of course, it ended up the highway was about 50 ft beyond their house.

I finally arrived at Russellville. This is the town I did all my banking and church attending in growing up. It totally died though, and I swear a few years ago there was an ad in the paper: “Town of Russellville For Sale” Yep, the whole main drag. I sort of freaked out when I saw all the cars parked in the town. There’s usually a few around the bank and the rest is just barren. Lots of new businesses have gone in, so it seems to be bouncing back. It was about the best place I knew to find old style sidewalks and storefronts.

Well, from Russellville, I cut across to Portland Mills. They were having a bean dinner at the church, so I stayed away from it. As I was driving, I saw a sign “

<- Historic Site". Must have been by it a million times, and I'd never noticed this sign, so I turned down this tiny gravel road between a bunch of trailers and found

this marker and some artifacts. Even my parents had no idea that existed.

From there, I ended up in Raccoon Lake area. I checked out Stringtown which turned out to be a glorified trailer park. Major letdown. I was on a quest to find the little town of Ferndale. My grandpa had taken us for random drives when we’d “go loaf” with him, and this one was one of the spots he took us. On my way, I started following signs to “Midwest Window,” which I secretly hoped was a photographer’s dream outlook area or something, but no, it was an Amish farm. So Ferndale was not at all what I remembered. The entire town consisted of a single grocery store, which just randomly reminded me of “The Corner Grocery Store” by Raffi.

By this point, my adventure was nearing 4 hours, and my camera battery was nearing death, so I headed home to get ready for my class reunion, which was really about as exciting as expected and not worth saying anymore about.

This morning I went canoeing through Turkey Run State Park with Rachel, her pseudo b/f, her co-worker, and my sis. It sort of rained but the water was warm and we had good times. I broke out my mad geology skills and found some geodes that I broke with other rocks out on the beach, after which I exclaimed:

“I broke it! I rock!”

The sis gave me a high five for the unintended pun. heh. One seems to contain amethyst, my first natural discovery of such a thing…actually, in this light, it looks to be smokey quartz. My other piece looks a bit like calcite, but it’s probably just quartz as well. It was a lovely morning, though. Rachel got to meet 2 of my ex’s who work at the canoe place in the summer. Her comment was “oh my gosh, they’re hot!!” I may have talked at least one of them in to joining us for Taste of Tippecanoe this Saturday. They went with me last summer.

Yes, I left out some details…like what? umm Rockafellar Skank started playing while I was on my more scenic route to Russellville. I found it amusing. Oh, and the rest of the photos are just random farm ones…gotta show the set to a guy at work so I compiled them.

So yeah, 3 fricken awesome weekends in a row. I’m aiming for a perfecto summer. I’m heading down to Louisville next weekend. Expect a long ass action-packed post every Sunday :)