After a few days at Top of the Rock, we headed for the lake house rental, utilizing the smaller roads for the 85’ish-mile drive. You know, the little ones wiggling their way through the countryside. Just beautiful in the spring!
Lo and behold, much to our surprise, we drove right past a ROUND barn. Who knew! The well-kept and preserved, Stuckwish Round Barn, one of just 36 in Indiana. Hey, does your state have a round barn? Ever seen one? But 36!?! Oh, these crazy folks! Ha!
Well, not to be outdone, the navigator spots, in tiny print in the road atlas (thanks, Michael!), “Covered Bridge.” Intrigued and calculating the distance at only four miles, or so… (distances not being her strongest skillset) out of the way, we went for it. After all, that’s why we’re out here – in search of the elusive, roadside “world’s largest ball of twine” and all that, right? Heck, we just saw a round barn!
Utilizing some even smaller roads, we managed to find The Medora Covered Bridge, the longest historical covered bridge in the nation. Built in 1875, it spans 431 feet between abutments plus another 16-foot weather protection extension on each end. The impressively built bridge carried local traffic across the East Fork of the White River until 1972. What’s funny is that there is an argument as to whether this one is the longest. Apparently, the claim is important when you are a covered bridge. Todd researched the argument and thinks it’s silly, so we’re sticking with this one.
After walking all 431 + 16×2 feet, we’d checked out the whole bridge structure. The size of the timbers was amazing.
It was time to move on, so we took one last look at the bridge through our fancy digital rear view mirror and headed to the lake.
Prince’s Lakes, incorporated in 1956 in central Indiana, is credited to one stately Howard Prince (1896-1962), who named them all Prince something (Prince’s North Lake, Prince’s West Lake, etc.)
We are staying on Prince’s East Lake in a very well done “lake house.”
To add to the homey feel, the property includes a friendly cat, Jasper. And for entertainment, a groundhog we’ve dubbed “Prince.” (We know, not very original. But look at him!)
Now that we’ve caught up with the blog, we’re ready to get back to that relaxing-playing games-exploring thing, and oh yeah, the ever-important planning of the next destination. Vagabonds must plan…
Our Travels 