RV travel

Historic 1930’s art deco building

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The historic building survives with a new use

This historic building in Shelbyville, Indiana was originally the bath house for what was for decades the town’s public swimming pool.  The William A. Porter Memorial Swimming Pool Bathhouse was built to honor the memory of the son of a Shelbyville family. This Art Deco building was dedicated in 1930.

Sometime in the 1960’s showing pool and back of the building

The pool was closed in 1998 and subsequently was demolished. The building is currently being used by the local Chamber of Commerce and serves as the Shelby County Tourism & Visitors’ Bureau. It is located on the north side of town and is one of the first structures that visitors see when they come into town.

A Bison-tennial statue in Decatur County

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Indiana’s Statehood Bicentennial was celebrated in 2016. The remnants of that celebration can be seen all over the state in the form of 5 feet tall fiberglass bisons. The in.gov website states:  “Indiana Association of United Ways was the proud sponsor of the statewide Bison-tennial Public Art Project. This legacy project helped celebrate Indiana’s 200th birthday by decorating and displaying 5-foot-tall fiberglass bison with an end goal of at least one – if not a herd – of bison on display in each of Indiana’s 92 counties.”

Courthouse with Tower Tree in background

This side says DECATUR

This side says COUNTY

 

 

 

 

 

This Bison-tennial beast has scenes from Decatur County painted on the hide. Most of the ones in counties around the state have some depictions of local places, schools or attractions. We’ve seen a few of these colorfully decorated statues around the state, as each of the 92 counties received one or more to custom decorate. This one we found at the center of Greensburg on the Decatur County Courthouse grounds, and is pictured above with its information sign. Note that the header photo show the bison in the raw as they were delivered back in 2016.

Greensburg Indiana’s unique tower tree

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In the early 1870’s in the then small town of Greensburg, Indiana, some citizens noticed some odd greenery on the roof of the Decatur County Courthouse Tower. As the years went on, the green tree seemed to thrive as it grew. Local officials began to be concerned that the tree could cause structural damage to the apex roof of the tower. Legend says that in 1888 a steeplejack was hired to “trim the tree”. He was said to have found not one, but two individual Large Tooth Aspen trees growing quite nicely on the roof.

Decatur County Courthouse and Clock Tower

Word spread rapidly that Greensburg had two trees growing out of the courthouse clock tower roof. The tree drops leaves seasonally like all deciduous trees. Mystery surrounds the origin of the first Aspen seed that sprouted in the roof. Large Tooth Aspens are not native to Central Indiana. Thus history and legend began to grow around this Indiana town.  For over 130 years trees have sprouted, grown and perished in a cycle that continues to this day. No, the tree you see today is not 130 years old. But Greensburg remains a National Treasure for its oddity known as the famous Tower Tree.

Greensburg is on I-74 between Indianapolis, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio. Oh, and by the way, do you know how the tree gets water?  Answer: From the spring in the clock.   (cue rimshot)

Those pesky New Year’s resolutions

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“Last year’s resolution was to lose 20 pounds by Christmas. Only 30 pounds to go.“ —Anonymous

Well it is time, so they say, for the making of New Year resolutions. You know, you think of something in your life you want to alter or improve upon, and thus the list is created. Just about anything can be made into a resolution, thus requiring a change of some kind. How about you? Any resolutions for 2022 you’d like to share? We won’t check up on your results later on, we promise!

We always have a ball on the road!

We sure want to travel more this year in our RV motorhome. We do miss the comfort and enjoyment of traveling together. It is a quick trip by air for sure, but in the RV you can see so much more. With the threat of the COVID still very much in play, by using our RV we have our own on board facilities. No public restrooms for us thankfully! In addition we can cook on board if we do not feel comfortable at restaurants.

“A new year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.” —Unknown

Roadtirement’s 2021 was one to remember

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January 2021 was the start of the second year of the pandemic. Now  we’re 12 months later and pandemic is still a word we see daily. Sigh…

January 2021 saw us waiting for COVID vaccines to become available for people our age. We did get our first dose of the COVID vaccine in February. With the pandemic raging, we did not go out much. Safer to stay close to home, enjoying our backyard and the occasional trip to a winery or brewery. We did discover the fun of working on those thousand piece jig saw puzzles!

Backyard bird watching

One of our sons got married in August in Columbus, Ohio. That was a fun party! All of our kids and grandkids were able to attend, the first time in a while when we all got together. We did decide that after we were fully vaccinated we would fly out to Seattle and down to Austin to see our long distant families. So we were off to Seattle for 3 weeks followed by a 3 week trip to Austin.

We did have most enjoyable times while we traveled and stayed with our families. Lots of neat restaurants, wineries, breweries and other local attractions. We did not use our RV for these trips not wanting to be on the road for that long a time. All in all, 2021 was a strange year. Hopefully 2022 will see less COVID problems. Maybe we’ll be able to get some more RV travel in!

Have a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2022

 

 

Roadtirement is going to take a break

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Pearly Gates morning glory

Sometimes you need to take a break from blogging. That’s what Sher and I have decided we are going to do for a while.

Not to worry, we are both doing fine. Our recent doctor visit resulted in good reports for each of us. We did have to get blood tests today after fasting, yuck. Maj’s diet is still going well, and his daily bike rides for exercise are slowly increasing in duration and distance.

And for those of you who caught our last post on Roadtirement know that we asked you to guess the destination of our next adventure. Today we’re giving the “reveal” as they say on the reality shows. Drumroll………….   We are going to Seattle and the state of Washington.  We’ve visited there before, and our daughter, son-in-law and grandson live near Seattle so fun visits coming! It is beautiful country with lots of things to see and do.

We are not leaving forever, just taking some time off. Thanks so much for your support and we’ll be back sometime.

 

Got our detectors out of storage

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Our metal detector gear, digging tools and headphones

A day or two ago I was trying to ride my bike, my legs gave out and I ended up with 2 scraped knees. Hmmm…. that’s when we pulled out the metal detectors.  Dusted them off, put in new batteries and much to our surprise – they still worked! So, about our  metal detectors, yes we have ’em.  Maj has a Garrett  GTP 1350  and I have a Whites  CoinMaster.  We bought them a few years ago when we were convinced we were going to find hidden treasure!  (smiling face)  Anyway Joshua  Gates , from Travel Channel’s Expedition Unknown really inspired us to do something with our detectors. Joshua uses metal detectors a lot in his searches for treasure and other artifacts. Doing a google search I found that metal detecting is a very good hobby for senior citizens.  

I don’t know if we’re going to find buried treasures, but we might find a few coins and maybe even a piece of jewelry.  We haven’t figured out how well we will be able to bend down and actually dig.  But, it is good exercise and we may just look for surface treasures.  

Why are we doing this? We are getting ready for our next big adventure.  We’re leaving it up to everyone to guess where we are going.  I’d give a prize but don’t have anything really to give that would be good.  Only thing is, you will know if you’ve guessed right.  

The first hint: it is west of our home state of Indiana…

~ Sher

Hot day at the track

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Last Wednesday we went out to the Indiana Grand Racing and Casino  to see what was going on with the day of the 27th running of the Indiana Derby. The Indiana Derby is touted as the premier thoroughbred race in the state. There was a full race card with 12 races and several high stakes races with purses totally nearing 1 million dollars.

The parade of entries

Ready to run…

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the parking lots and garage, it was obvious that there were tons of people at the facility. We parked in the garage, having to go to the top (5th) level to find a parking spot.

We went into the casino for a bit first. Complimentary drinks and the AC were a draw for sure! Not having a tremendous amount of luck at the slots, we headed to the track. The first floor was packed, with folks at the large bar and at the many tables looking at the screens with tracks from all over. Many were placing wagers with tellers or at pari-mutuel kiosks.

We sat out side for a while, at least there was shade from the building. We stayed for four races, and then decided it was too hot even in the shade. It wasn’t the best time we have had at the Indiana Grand, and headed home to the AC!

New home for an old bridge

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By 1870 Shelby County Indiana had 154 miles of new gravel roads. It was time for the county to start building bridges at principle crossings of rivers. By 1880 there were 10 “substantial and elegant” iron bridges  with additional bridges planned each year thereafter.

The bridge’s new home, seeing bicycles and pedestrian traffic only

The Clover Ford Bridge over Buck Creek was constructed in 1889 by the King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The cost of the bridge, Shelby County Bridge No. 13, was $3,384.50. The bridge served many years but was closed due to structural issues in 2011.

Beautiful and sound reconstruction

History board

 

 

 

 

 

Deemed historically important, it was refurbished in 2018 and moved to the Blue River Memorial Park in 2019. It is now part of the Blue River Trail that traverses Shelbyville. USI Consultants was the company that oversaw the relocation of the restored bridge, as well as designing the new Shelby County Bridge No. 219 which replaced the old Shelby County Bridge No. 13 over Buck Creek.