Indiana sanctuary and other places and memories from a long-ago road trip in Daydreaming on the Porch

I picked up an old photo album I hadn’t looked through in quite some time tonight, and was transported back to a trip across the country and through the Midwest in the Spring of 1985.

The album started off with a picture of Lower Yellowstone Falls and other views of Yellowstone Park, and then took me back along the awe-inspiring Yellowstone Highway through the Wapiti Valley. I visited Old Trail Town in Cody, and later, Thermopolis Hot Springs and the Wind River Canyon. All those places were new to my eyes and wonders beyond belief to someone with time to see a bit of the country and a dependable car.

In coming days, I would stand on the banks of the Laramie River at Ft. Laramie National Historic Site in the far eastern part of Wyoming and imagine what it was like for pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail in the mid-19th century. I saw a lot of other Oregon Trail sites, including Chimney Rock and Scottsbluff in western Nebraska, where the West actually begins. I saw ruts in the ground from the hundreds of covered wagons that had passed that way, and marveled at the stamina and sheer willpower it must have taken to make that grueling and dangerous trip west from Independence, Missouri across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.

At Minden, Nebraska, I wandered for hours around the exhibit houses and buildings at Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village, looking at hundreds of items from everyday life in the Cornhusker State during the pioneer settlement period and through the early decades of the 20th century. Fascinating to look at toys, sleighs, wagons, kitchen utensils, furniture, clothing, and every other imaginable artifact and ingenious invention from life in those days long gone. I had wanted to visit those types of local history museums all my life, and when I had the chance, I was like the proverbial kid let loose in a candy shop. I couldn’t soak up enough. It didn’t hurt, either, that I’d had an interest in history all through my years of school.

In Iowa I toured the Living History Farms near Des Moines and stepped back into the 19th century at the realistically restored and furnished general store in the Walnut Grove community. I saw the covered bridges in and around the town of Winterset, and had blueberry pie for dessert at a cafe on Main Street one night. The next day, in Illinois, I visited Abraham Lincoln’s New Salem State Park, full of restored log cabins and other structures from the village and surrounding areas where Lincoln spent his youth and formative years. Steamboats once traveled up the Sangamon River near the village, and again, I found myself traveling through time and history.

A lot of memories of those days on the road are coming back to me now as I flip through the pages of the thick photo album in front of me. Of course, when you’re young and out of work and drifting through life trying to find some anchor for your rootlessness, there’s no better way to forestall the inevitable responsibilities of settling down than being on the road, seeing one new town and historic site after another; traveling through countryside so different from what you’re accustomed to that it’s positively exotic. One seems to be floating on air, giddy and happy with the prospect of endless adventures and discoveries around each bend in the road, visiting places you’ve never been before, and likely will never see again. It does something to you.

There came a time on that trip, as I was driving along country roads in southern Indiana when I just became tired and exhausted by all that stimuli for the senses. My car didn’t sound quite right. I had driven 2,000 miles, and I was longing for a place to stop for a while one afternoon to rest. I found just what I was looking for in a little state park south of Bloomington called Spring Mill. It was a pioneer village, restored, with a huge three-story limestone gristmill that spanned one of the loveliest little creeks I had ever seen.

I pulled in at the entrance to the park and knew immediately that this was the place I had been looking for. Everything about it was restful, and my gaze at every turn alighted on scenes so picture-perfect I couldn’t believe my eyes. I sat on a picnic bench beside the creek and let the road strain and dust of travel wash away down that stream. When I left I felt renewed, ready to rusume my journey to that night’s destination.

I closed the album after looking at some pictures of the Shaker town at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, another spot to treasure and remember.

There’s so much out there to see in this beautiful and boundless country. All you need is the determination to make your own adventures, along with a good car, Google maps, paper atlases camera, snacks, guidebooks, an Internet connection and an insatiable curiosity to learn about and experience this vast land.

That was 40 years ago. It’s never too late to set out again on country roads that head west, if not literally, then through countless memories, writing and photographs, online travel journals, Web sites and countless YouTube videos. I’m sure I can find all the places I visited, even the most remote, online. At my ag, another 3,000-mile solo road trip is not likely, In the Age of the Internet, we can leave the known and familiar world behind for a while any time we want to.

Spring Mill State Park in Indiana

http://www.southernin.com/Pages/archives/october_99/spring_mill.html

A small-town main street in Indiana on a long road trip in 2002. My car is the white Nissan Sentain h lower right of the photo.

https://flic.kr/p/2q4mHfi

Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, one of her most fascinating places I’ve ever visited.

https://pioneervillage.com/

Fort Laramie National Historic Site

https://www.cyark.org/projects/fort-laramie/in-depth

Living History Farms, Des Moines, Iowa

https://www.lhf.org