SPRING 2022

A waterfall, a covered bridge, and a mill from the early 1800’s, it doesn’t get much more nostalgic than this. The Bridgeton Mill in Bridgeton, Indiana is the oldest continually operating mill west of the Allegheny Mountains. The mill was built in 1823 and is still in operation today.

The covered bridge next to the mill was also built in that timeframe but it burned down in 2005 and a replica was constructed in 2006. The bridge is 122’ long and 13’ wide.

This is the view from inside the covered bridge.

Covered bridges have very elaborate superstructures because they need to support their own weight.

Up north, April was know as “mud month”. It was a huge mess because that was when all the snow melted. Indianapolis is completely different. April in Indianapolis is when the red bud trees and flowering fruit trees burst into bloom. They only last a few weeks, but they put on quite a show.

In late February we visited Williamsport Falls which at 90’ tall are the highest falls in Indiana. Winter waterfalls are very cool because of the ice they form. You can see frozen stalagmites at the bottom of the falls that are well over thirty feet tall.

Barb’s brother Hubert and his wife Cindy just retired and have started coming on our adventures. All our dogs love to come exploring with us.

Thistlewaithe Falls is a man-made waterfall that was blasted into the White River to power several lumber mills in the 1800’s.

One of the places we stopped to eat was Nick’s Kitchen. Nick’s Kitchen claims they invented the Indiana breaded pork tenderloin in 1904. The story is that Nick Frienstein started frying breaded pork cutlets in 1904 to sell from a street cart in town. One winter his brother Jake suffered such severe frostbite that he lost the fingers off his hands. Jake, whose job it was to bread the slices of pork, found that his stumps made good tools for pounding the meat to make it tender. I suspect this story was pulling our leg….

I got a mini tenderloin. I was glad I got the mini because the full sized one overflows a dinner plate. Of course, Barb managed to get a picture of me with my mouth full.

On the wall they had a picture of a submarine. That seemed odd since there aren’t a lot of submarines in Indiana, so I asked what the story was. One of the guys on the sub had been to Nicks and he told the sub’s crew about it, and they had ordered enough pork tenderloins for the entire sub. As a thank you, the submarine crew sent the restaurant an autographed picture of the sub.

Nick’s sugar cream pie is also outstanding. I’d never tried sugar cream pie before. It is an Indiana thing, like cheese curds in Wisconsin.

In late March we visited Kissing Falls. Kissing Falls is a seasonal-falls with extremely low water volume, but the water drops from about forty feet and has a very shimmery quality.

On our way home from Kissing Falls we stopped to get gas in the town of Swayzee.

The gas station had a “Cracklin Shack” which unfortunately is closed on Sundays, so we didn’t get a chance to sample the menu.

After Swayzee, the next town up the road is “Aroma” which seems like a place you’d visit if you ate at the Cracklin Shack.

The Indy 500 Is a very big thing in Indianapolis. Gertrude already has her costume ready.

Hope all is well with everyone!