Wandering Indiana

Yesterday was a wonderful day for Dave and I. We started out early and dropped "Scruffy" off at Irene's house in Monticello. He was scheduled to accompany us on this trip, but the weather man decided to spike up the temperature so we decided he could stay and keep Irene company for the day. From Monticello, IN we headed to Logansport and on to Peru, IN where we stopped for a trip through Cole Porter's time and space. Went to the Miami County Museum and saw Cole's refurbished automobile, his large couch to support his legs which were broken in a horse accident, and many other items of interest and videos capturing the history of the time. Also saw some stage coaches, US Mail stage coach, and many circus memorabilia items. Warren Beatty's costumes were among the collectibles. Then in the upstairs of this old beautiful "Sterns-Department Store" (similar in favor with the L.S.Ayres building in Indianapolis - although a much smaller scale of it) was a replica of the original stores in the town of Peru. Behind glass was each store from the drug store, candy store, law office, clothing store, dentist, hardware, taxidermist, to several others. Very impressive.
From the museum we walked through the town to the CIRCUS City Center. I took Jerra, my granddaughter, to a circus there some time ago and I really enjoyed it...think she did too but Dave had never been there. In the summer,the performers are all amatures ages 7 to 21 and all of them from Miami County. They have three rings and you almost feel like you are sitting in the rings with the performers. The season is over for this year and everything was awesomely quiet. We went in to the empty ring and just imagined all the 250 young people in beautiful costumes swinging on trapeze high in the air and performing live pyramids on high wires! Imagined many clowns in big shoes and funny noses waving to us! A tour guide went with us and told us of the magnificent horse that performed there with their young riders.
From there we went to a local restaurant which they suggested for a succulent lunch and great conversation! Our trip then took us through the beautiful Indiana country side through the towns of Converse, Sweetser, Marion and through Fairmount where James Dean (COOL) was born! Saw the museum building, but no time to stop this time. Saving that for another day! We headed on to Portland and then south through Winchester and a quick stop north of Fountain City to see the Levi Coffin State Historic Site...which is just an old brick house that Levi used to house the slaves on the way to the underground railroad. So simple, and so moving.
Next stop was at Northeaster High School football field in Fountain City (just a few miles north of Richmond Indiana. There we scouted the field of young men looking for one in particular. Humm.....they all look alike! Was looking for Cody, our grandson, and not sure of his size or stature covered in football equipment! Helmets all black, grey pants all dirty, jersey's with many numbers but names, and we don't know the number we are looking for! Saw a water boy (actually a player who said he had to sit this game out because he has two bad grades on his report card).
After "tutor" Dave talked to him about bringing his grades up and how important it was to get back on the team, the tutor asked him if he knew Cody Spitler's number. He said, "oh sure, Code-Man is number 66" !! Wow.....66 was taller than what we were looking for! Good game and the "knights" were ahead 14-6 at half time and we had great expectations! However by the end of the game the "knights" were pretty tired and the opponent's evened up the score 14-14 and then had the nerve to get one more touchdown in the last play of the game. Poor knights! But it was a good game. Code-man played on the line - not too aggressive, but did a lot of pushing and shoving - and played both ways for the entire game. He also was the punt kicker. He was one tired "knight".
After the game we took Cody and his grandfather, Gary, out for pizza and a nice visit. By now it is 9:00pm and we are headed back home to retrieve our other family member and shuffle on to Buffalo! Took a quicker route home....after all..it was dark now and couldn't see the country-side! Picked up Scruffy at midnight. Irene informed us that they had a lovely chicken dinner and some cookies for desert! She said she didn't watch that dumb TV all day since she had Scruffy to walk and play with! He certainly is good company for her (she is 82 years old) and we certainly appreciated the dog-sitting! Then home to Buffalo and went to bed within 5 minutes of arriving home. What a lovely day. We are thankful.