The mornings are getting chill, the days shorter, the trees are taking on vermillion hues, and like the swallows to Capistrano, Hoosiers in south-central Indiana make their annual trek to Brown County.
Well, we don’t live in Indiana, but Brown County is only about two hours away. So we decided to take a day off and signed up for a bus tour to go. Since neither of us can stand the way the other drives, a bus trip just makes the whole day go a lot smoother.
The bus left town, taking the new Lincoln bridge over the Ohio River. The Lincoln bridge is seen below on the left. The thousands of pesky pedestrians in the photo were cleared before we drove across.
The bus cruised north through Indiana until we reached our lunch spot, The Brown County Inn. It’s a cute place, with a rustic barn motif. We ate in the decidedly barn-like dining room.
Then we had our picture taken outside.
One reason to visit Brown County in the fall is to walk through the woods, admiring the hills and colors and commune with nature. The other reason, and the path we took today, was to go shopping. There are dozens of shops, some tourist traps, some not, and we took advantage of the beautiful weather to walk around and get an early start on Christmas shopping.
There was a mysterious buffalo in front of the town hall. It appears to be standing there while leaves fall on it.
And I believe that is the intention. It seems that, as part of the Indiana bicentennial this year, buffalo statues were erected and painted across the state. (Why buffalo? I don’t know. Perhaps because there is a buffalo on the Indiana state seal. But then why is there a buffalo on the state seal?)
But we were in no mood to ponder such recursive questions, we just went shopping. And we had ice cream at Miller’s.
We found some irresistible framed artwork and a friendly cat at one studio.
A nice vacation day. Took my mind off the first floor of our house.
