Clouds alternated with brilliant sun yesterday as I tooled around the tiny, dipping, winding roads of East Central Indiana ostensibly for the Covered Bridge Festival. Indiana has a plethora of these outdated monuments to horse-and-buggy days and Parke County alone has over 30. Every year for ten days from the second Friday in October the area is scene of traffic jams and cornfields turn to giant parking lots as cars and SUVS stream in from goodness-knows-where attracted to the lore of olden days, new-looking old, red covered bridges, modern-day Amish buggies, glorious weather and down-home Hoosier treats like elephant ears, corn on the cob, pork-cutlet sandwiches, and interestingly enough, homemade chicharones!
Not having been there in two decades, I drove my friends to Parke County on slips of memories. My friends, John and Dottie now both deceased, were the reason I went back then and I remembered we got maps of the location of the most scenic bridges from Rockville. So that's where we went, finding parking in a side street instead of paying $2 to $4 by the main street, U.S. 36.
Not having been there in two decades, I drove my friends to Parke County on slips of memories. My friends, John and Dottie now both deceased, were the reason I went back then and I remembered we got maps of the location of the most scenic bridges from Rockville. So that's where we went, finding parking in a side street instead of paying $2 to $4 by the main street, U.S. 36. I was most struck by the dozens of tents run by Ecuadorians with PCs playing Peruvian flute music and that run their VISA and Mastercard credit card machines! In the Hoosier heartland we find inexpensive, authentic wool parkas, silk scarves and hand-carved other trinkets along with Nepalese Buddhist drums, Gothic iron necklaces and beaded, woven bracelets. In Manhattan Koreans band together to give financial starts to new immigrants to start greengrocer stores on avenue corners. Are Ecuadorians doing the same? In recession-stricken America we may need to learn old lessons from new entrepreneurs!
The best landscape images seemed to be at winding roads where there was no way of stopping to take pictures. With all the visitors (there will be thousands more today with its crystal-blue skies) there was always a procession of vehicles behind us which made stopping impossible. I didn't take out my camera until we had parked and eaten at the Rockville town square, behind their mammoth courthouse.
The best landscape images seemed to be at winding roads where there was no way of stopping to take pictures. With all the visitors (there will be thousands more today with its crystal-blue skies) there was always a procession of vehicles behind us which made stopping impossible. I didn't take out my camera until we had parked and eaten at the Rockville town square, behind their mammoth courthouse.
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