Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Our Kokomo/Peru adventure

For our second adventure we decided to head up North to Kokomo, Logansport and Peru, IN.  We started out on Friday to come back on Sunday.  We were a little better prepared this time.  Joe had gone out and purchased a GPS for the car.  Up until now we have always used the one on our phones, but on our last trip out to Brazil, IN, we came across miles of road with no signal and so our phones turned out being useless.  I had also written down the places we wanted to see and put them in some sort of order so we wouldn't be going back and forth so much.

We had hoped to have a nice spooky weekend.  Turned out we were pretty scared but not for the reasons we had thought.  As I have mentioned before, we have been in Indianapolis for 13 1/2 years and we ended up picking the weekend those terrible tornadoes hit to make our first trip up to Kokomo.  We had decided to take a ride out to Cutler, IN on our way home Sunday to visit Adam's Mill.  It is said that if you go past the mill and over the bridge and stop and get out of your car, you can see ghosts of people walking down the river.  We never did make it out to Adam's Mill.  About half way out there on 26 West we had to pull over in Russiaville and take shelter in the men's room of a Subway Restaurant.  The wind and rain were tremendous.  The tornado siren was going off for over 1/2 an hour.  One of the girls that worked there was on the phone with her grandmother who lived on the outskirts of Russiaville had seen the twister touch down.  We spent about an hour in that Subway.  When things seemed to have calmed down we decided to head home.  Less than 2 miles from where we were, we started seeing the destruction that the tornado left behind.  Houses, garages, barns and trees were demolished.  It was a terrible thing to see.  We made it back to Kokomo and headed down 31 South towards home.  For a little while it seemed like the worse was behind us.  Wrong!  The wind and rain picked up again and I will tell you it was the strangest thing.  You could look out the front windshield and see this:






And then you would look out the side window and see this:






Finally the rain stopped and the wind died down and clouds broke and it was a glorious day as if nothing had happened.





When we got home and watched the news, we saw pictures of the destruction left in Kokomo by the tornado.  Places we had seen and been inside of just that morning were destroyed.  Makes you stop and think and thank your lucky stars.




Day 2 of our first adventure

On Sunday we decided to go over the places we went to the night before and see what else we could find.  The drive during the day is completely different than the drive at night.  There is a beautiful countryside and wide open skies to enjoy.

After we went to the places we were last night and took pictures, we decided to head up north some more and check out the Old Bellmore Schoolhouse Ruins in Bellmore, the Old Mansfield Village in Mansfield, and The Crying Baby Cemetery in Rockville.

We didn't find the schoolhouse.  We drove all the way out to Rockville only to find out that almost every town has a "Crying Baby Bridge or Cemetery" so that is most likely a dud.  We spent the majority of our time in Rockville at the Burger King parking lot using their WiFi trying to find the correct cemetery, which we never did.  We did however find a friendly cow:



On our way back we stopped at the Old Mansfield Village.  You can see this village from 59 North.  The story is that late at night you are supposed to see ghostly figures walking through the village and hear the mill as if it were operating.  Well we went during the day so we saw nothing of that nature, but it was a pretty place.  Here are some pictures of the mill:




Here are some pictures of a few covered bridges we came across:




All in all we must have driven about 7 hours that day and that doesn't include the ride home.  We didn't see any ghosts or experience anything scary, but we did have a great time.  Not only did we get to see beautiful landscapes and foliage, we got to spend some quality family time together. 

Next time we will head up North to Kokomo and Peru.  Can't wait to find out what awaits us there.......