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| Monroe Reservoir |
Wednesday we headed further south, thru Bedford and located
the French Lick Resort in West Baden Springs.
The West Baden Springs Hotel was built in 1855 but burned down in just 2
hours in 1901. A year later it was
rebuilt with a 200 foot diameter central atrium encircled with 4 floors of
opulent rooms and suites, some having balconies that overlook all the
splendor. Down the road was the almost
as opulent French Lick Resort, built in 1845 with a front porch second only to
the porch on The Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island! Each of these magnificent resorts has had a troubled past but are
now owned by the same company and share the same name, a connecting trolley
line.
Bloomington is west of Nashville and is the home of the
bustling Indiana University. NW of
there is the Cataract Falls State Park.
Straddling the swollen Cataract River is also the 1938 restored red
covered bridge. The only thing that
kept the angry rushing waters within its boundaries was the large sandstone
boulders and slabs. On our way back to
Bloomington we used the state park pass we had purchased earlier to now enter
and explore the McCormick Creek State Park – also with a VERY raging water fall
that had, over the ages, dug it’s way down thru the rocks to form a deep gorge. The stately old lodge with tall white
pillars provided a tasty buffet in their dark wood paneled dining hall. We were seated out on a long narrow enclosed
porch with very large windows from end to end.
Each over sized window had a bird feeder hanging in the middle of it and
the selection of flitting, brightly colored finches, woodpeckers and cardinals
kept us entertained while we enjoyed our delicious meal!
Tropical Storm “Bill” had roared thru the campground all
night Friday and Sunday looked like more of the same was on the way so we chose
to pack up and head back north, towards home.
First, we needed to make one more stop at the Monroe Dam. We had been wondering how much water it
would take to affect the amount of water that was being released. The picture here is one that we took earlier
in the week. By Saturday afternoon, the
water level had risen to the darkened line that is half way up the stone
embankment. The tile was half way to
the top with gushing brown water and the retaining wall at the bottom of it was
no where to be seen.
An overnight stay in
Grand Lake St Mary’s State Park in St Mary’s, Ohio proved to be just as
soggy. If the fields in southern
Indiana were bad – western Ohio was even worse. Several small RV communities that sit on the edge of the Maumee
River had been evacuated. Their tiny
“homes on wheels” had been moved to higher ground just in time!
Maybe we should let the earth dry out for about month and
then return to wandering the back roads once more. In the meantime – I’ll go weed the garden!
