Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Spring Mill State Park

It's a good thing that we did our weekend motorcycle ride last Saturday because the rains began on Sunday. Although we've not had as much as folks to the south of us, we've still had high water occasionally on many of the roads. 

Our weekend ride last Saturday took us to Spring Mill State Park near Mitchell, Indiana.  The park is home to the Gus Grissom Memorial.  He was from this small town and the second American to travel into space.  They've done a nice job honoring him with displays from his school days to his tragic death during training for Apollo 1. 


We found that the Inn at Spring Mill State Park has a wonderful buffet lunch.  Have you ever had Persimmon Pudding?  They are famous for it here and the plates of it were snatched up as soon as they hit the dessert table.  We weren't in that line though.  If I'm going to splurge on dessert, it won't be on persimmon pudding :)



After lunch we headed over to the Pioneer Village area of the park.  Here's the old grist mill and waterwheel in this restored 19th century village.  We watched as they used the water driven saw mill and then the grist mill where we bought a bag of freshly ground cornmeal.


This area of the park was filled with people and we soon discovered the reason. An annual event was being held later that afternoon so we took our time to browse through the many restored homes and shops so we could stay and check out the Tri-Kappa Candlelight Tour.  We didn't stay long enough to enjoy the candlelight but we did enjoy the many musicians and artisans in period costume throughout the village.


There were some wonderful bluegrass, folk, gospel and celtic musicians.  There was even a man making lace and we found out that he teaches classes at the Bedford College of Lace Making. Who knew there was a college devoted to just lace making!  Interesting.


We enjoyed our visit to Spring Mill State Park and will probably head that way again.  I'm sure it will be beautiful in a few weeks when the leaves change.  There are already a few here and there with just a little hint of color. 
Please don't think I've given up on my sewing projects. I've got several in the works and I'll try to post some pics of those that aren't "top secret" when I can. This purse was finished a few weeks ago using a pattern by Indygo Junction and fabric from the Sierra Collection by Anna Griffen. It went together pretty easily (in fact I made two just like this) except the cording enclosed handle. Next one will have a flat strap instead.



Thanks for stopping by again!  Hope you all have a great week!

3 comments:

Thimbleanna said...

I always forget to visit the state parks -- we have such nice ones here. Your visit sounds lovely. And such a pretty new bag -- I love those giant grommets!

Lori said...

We stayed in this park at the lodge a couple of years coming home from a bike trip to Tennessee. What a beautiful old lodge. We hade the supper buffet and breakfast the next morning there sitting by the fireplace. It was wonderful! I would love to go back and explore more there sometime. We've recommended it to a couple of folks. In fact, my sister & brother-in-law just stayed there a week ago. Indiana has some beautiful parks. We've camped at Turkey Run too.

Anonymous said...

When we were there this summer it was just so doggone hot and our room in the lodge did not have cool air, we gave up and came home to sleep on the second night but still had to pay for the room. I wish the Indiana parks had lots of money to refurbish the inns, we've had other visits to some of them with less than happy experiences, mostly due to the aging of the old lodges. I feel sure that the economy has hit them just like everything else.