Indiana

I love my state.  I cannot deny it. I have been in almost all the states except Hawaii and Rhode Island and while all the states have something to offer and many are simply beautiful, I am always glad to get back to Indiana.   It’s been my home all my life and I’ve had a great life in it. No, we don’t have mountains, but we have rolling hills and valleys. No, we don’t have an ocean, but we have rivers and great lakes.  We also have weather that changes on a dime.  Cold today?  Just wait. Tomorrow you will be turning the air conditioner on to freeze.

This weekend David and I drove through southern Indiana. We were going somewhere.

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A Beth Moore Bible conference in Evansville.   I went to Evansville with my youth group when I was a teen-ager to visit Evansville College where I was thinking of going and to see a football game there.   I didn’t remember much about the city.

So with my trusty chauffeur in the driver’s seat, off we went.

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He wasn’t sure about all of this. You see, Beth Moore conferences are mainly for women.  Very few men attend them, but since way back in January I bought two tickets thinking I would give one to a friend and because no one was free that particular weekend, David was going to attend.  I told him it was just like going to church and since we missed our church services this weekend, we would still be worshipping.  He agreed reluctantly.   But it was a weekend away and we had other things planned as well.  Shopping, antiquing, sight seeing.

I went to one other Beth Moore conference with some friends from church and we had a great time.  But I do remember the music being very loud.

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Travis Cottrell does all the music for her conferences.

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You do feel like you are among friends when you are there.

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When all the women got their seats there were five thousand women(and a few lonely men) waiting to worship.

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Then Beth came out.  Her study was about God’s feet.  I know, it sounds strange until you know the context of what she was talking about. How God came to earth and he was an innocent baby with tiny little feet. He grew to be a man and wore sandals that John the Baptist said he was not worthy to unlatch.  The sick, lame and blind were brought to His feet to be healed.  People fell at his feet.   So many passages about Jesus’ feet in the Bible. That God’s sits on his throne in heaven and the earth is His footstool.  That Adam and Eve heard God’s very footsteps in Eden.    I never thought about God like this.  And that one day His feet will stand in Jerusalem once more.   And one day every single person will bow at His feet and proclaim Him Lord.

Now, I love Beth Moore conferences, but I do have one complaint.  A complaint that probably most of the young women attending the conference don’t have. I think the music is way too loud.  It hurt my ears. I don’t listen to much music anyway since I think music went downhill after the sixties!    David held his ears the whole time and he said he still could feel the beat, beat, beat of the drums on his chest.   It probably is our generation, but I like worship services to be a little more quiet and reverential.    I wonder if we can hear God’s still, small voice through all the noise.    Please, don’t take this personally if this is how your church worships.   If it’s a true worshipful service and it’s not just about the music and being entertained, then go for it.  I don’t think I will be getting David to another Beth Moore conference in the near future, however.

I felt like I learned a lot and want to do some more studying on the subject of God’s feet.

We didn’t go to the Saturday morning conference as we wanted the day for traveling and taking our time and not rushing to get home.  So we got up the next morning and searched for a donut shop. Yes, more donuts.  We found a Krispy Kreme and when we walked in the store’s door, the girl behind the counter immediately handed each of us a donut warm from the oven. Oh, my, goodness.  What a way to start the day!   We ordered some donuts and a coffee for me to go and set off to find a place to eat them on the Ohio River.  Did I say it was 102 degrees outside that day?    We decided to sit in the air conditioned car to eat our breakfast and look at the river.

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While at our motel, I read about the town of Newburgh.  It has an interesting story.  During the American Civil War, Confederate soldiers were seen across the Ohio River on the Kentucky side.  The leader of the Confederates knew they could not take the city with the few men he had so they took burned logs and stove pipes and made them look like cannons and made a lot of noise as if it was a great army and wouldn’t you know?  The whole town surrendered.  The Confederates came into town and got all the food and munitions they could find and then left.  Not a shot was heard because there was none.

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The town seems to take some pride in this.  I guess it’s their claim to fame.  Funny.  But that is not all the town is known for.  It’s a place out of history with so many old houses.  When we first drove into town we immediately saw this little store(which turned out having three buildings with neat things to buy.)

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Yes, they were retiring Vera.

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It was chock full of all kinds of goodness. I bought a few things, of course.

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I almost bought him.  I could kick myself for abstaining.

Newburgh is so wonderful.  How could you not love a town that gives one whole side of a street to walking paths?

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Walkers on the left, cars on the right.  The way it should be everywhere!  And there were a lot of people out walking in the horrible heat. Carrying water bottles  Smart.

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River towns take pride in how they were settled.   And their homes reflect their pride.

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This little white house had lime green and pink painted windows.  Cute.

We drove by secret gardens.

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We kept seeing these bushes and found out they were Crepe Mertles.  I don’t know if we are a little too far north to grow these.  We were in the south, don’t you know!

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Up and down streets, always with the great Ohio River within view.

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On back streets most tourists never see.  We love exploring the towns we are in.  There is never enough time to see it all, no matter how small the town.  I think I could live in any of these little towns and be happy as long as I had a garden.

Down a back street and we saw this.

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Large rock formations and we wondered how they were formed and only formed in this place.

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Then we saw these stair going up the side of the rock, so we stopped. “You going up?” I asked David.  I knew with my short legs and the steps being about one foot apart, it would be a chore for me, so I knew I  I wasn’t going.  “Sure, I’ll try it,” David replied.

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So up he began.

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Up.

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Up.

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Almost there.

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“I made it and you didn’t!”  How I wish I was up there with him.

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Wait. Now it’s starting to scare me.  Where is he going?

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No, no that is enough!   When he turned around and came down I asked him what was up there. “Not a darn thing,” he answered.  Oh, well. It looked like there might have been a cave up there.

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Evidently there had been a cave because some man thought it was a great place to live.

On to other little river towns.

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On a back street where we were the only people, there was a little yellow swing so we sat ourselves down and looked at this.

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The Ohio River flowing by.  How I love it.

Behind us was this.

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A mural painted on the side of the walls to keep out the flood waters when the river rises.

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This shows how far the river rose in these particular years.

Well, it wasn’t going to rise today.  They were having a dry spell in southern Indiana while we have had lots of rain where we live and flooding in the northern part of the state.

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The River trail.  It’s a great drive if you want to take it one day.

It was time to hurry on down the road through more little towns and we saw some very old buildings.

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We managed to drive to Rome, but no coliseums to see there. Only this wonderful old building.

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Sat down in the middle of nowhere.

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Right on the corner of Main and Mulberry.

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It was Rome’s courthouse, but there were very few houses around.

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This old building use to house an antique store. There were still antiques inside, but it doesn’t look like it’s been open for years.

Across the street was this building.

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At one time a cotton mill.  Now it’s apartments.  If I had to live in an apartment, this would be a great place to live. I would have loved to have seen inside.

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They have rooms to rent if you are looking for some out of the way place to live.

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It was built one hundred years before I was born and appears to be in great shape.  Don’t think I would hold up that well in another hundred years!

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I always look for barn quilts when we travel, but this is the only one I photographed.

We ate our supper at the Overlook, a restaurant right on the Ohio River with wonderful views from every window. We were high up there with the birds.   Our meal was catfish and was it ever good.

We were almost home but wanted some hand dipped ice cream for dessert.  That is hard to find, but finally I saw a big sign on a building in Salem.  Six Scoops was the name of the ice cream shop.  We put it on Garmin and she led us right to the door.

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And look what was painted on the side walk right outside.

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So cute and the ice cream was so good and a wonderful ending to a perfect weekend.

Here’s to Indiana, it’s old river towns and ice cream. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

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