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My husband and I left Monday afternoon to go to the covered bridge festival in Parke County Indiana. We stayed outside the area and went Tuesday morning, arriving a little before 10 in Rockville, where he remembers attending the festival for the last time almost 50 years ago. It had definitely changed, and not for the better. He remembered apples for sale, but he had cautioned me that the orchards are dwindling in the area. Still, we thought there might be some, and certainly there would be apple cider. They used to have a press set up. Well, we could not even find apple butter, much less cider and fresh apples. There were a lot of the commercial food places that are found at various local fairs, selling the usual non-healthy foods. There was a large tent with vendors, but the booths held items that are mostly sold anywhere. I considered the Indiana maple syrup, but it did not specify light or dark, so I skipped it, and will mail order from Vermont Country Store. After quick look arounds (and we could not take our dog into the tent area), I browsed the local antique stores and came away with a darning egg with handle for $5. (It reminds me of my grandmother's, and I like old needlework tools, especially ones I can use.)
My husband browsed the local food area outside, and we patronized the Elks and bought a nice, grilled boneless pork chop. We took it to a local park, split it, and made it into sandwiches. It was delicious. We then headed toward Bridgeton, which has a re-built covered bridge (original was destroyed by arsonists), after stopping and touring our first bridge along the route. We did not realize that Bridgeton has become a major tourist-festival trap, with about five times what we saw in sedate Rockville. When we saw all the cars parked, and the people, we decided not to stop, although I would have liked to visit the still operating flour mill. We missed our turn and ended up on a different route but we had to go through Rockville, where traffic control was non-existent, and people casually walked in front of cars. That shot our nerves. Again, all we could see in the various booths were the same kind of commercial food places and other vendors that could be found anywhere.
The route we were on did turn out to be less traveled, perhaps because it had only two bridges, and none of the hoopla because these bridges were out of town. We were able to stop at one and walk across it and back and admire the construction. We then left behind bridges and went over to Turkey Run State Park and went hiking. I do not usually think of canyons when I think of Indiana, but this area has some spectacular ones created by glaciers, and the park has put in stairs to prevent erosion, so it is possible to go down into these canyons. We also saw some spectacularly large trees which escaped the logging that reduced so much of Indiana to second growth forest.
The next day, we skipped any festival activity--who knew that the local schools were on fall break?--and went hiking in Shades State Park in the morning and the adjacent Pines Nature Preserve in the afternoon. Again, the canyons were spectacular, and we got excellent cardio climbing the stairs, going up hills, etc. Our dog particularly enjoyed herself. We stopped at one last covered bridge at the edge of the park, and it was well worth doing so, as it is a double bridge, longer and wider than any others we saw. We marveled at the construction. We then drove home, stopping in Lafayette for Subway sandwiches. We saw a lot of harvesting of corn and soybeans along the highway on our trip. On the way back, I was surprised to discover that they harvest in the dark with lights on their machinery.
We will definitely go back to these two parks for more hiking. We also want to go back and see more of the covered bridges, but we will NEVER again go during festival time, which seems to be coordinated with fall breaks for all schools, and where there is nothing to interest us. The antique stores will be there year around, as will the bridges. (The graffiti on the bridges was also disappointing. Too many vandals and too many kids who think it is cool.) We had heard that over two million people come, but we thought the weekday would be less crowded. I was hoping to pick up some fresh produce, as it is farming country, but what we saw for sale was pumpkin after pumpkin. There was one farm stand on the way out of town, but no one was there, and the property had no trespassing signs all over the place. Unable to figure out the mixed message, we did not stop.
So, I am left with apples in the local grocery store, from Washington State, which are older, and some occasional bags of Michigan apples. The grocery store in the larger town north of us has a better selection, so I'll look there next time we shop. I will not, sadly, be canning any apple pie filling this year.
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