Bloomington, IN

I was up early.  It was 4:45am when I walked the dogs around the Miller-Showers park off Walnut Avenue, a block from the old Big Wheel restaurant.  This is a new park. Lights from the street lighted the path well enough.  This park is now in the old median between Walnut and College Avenue.  Back in the 80s it was a mere median.  The loop around the two storm ponds in the middle is just a mile.  This was enough to get the dogs warmed up before their breakfast.

I stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and to recharge my phone. Then I headed ten miles south of town to hike the 6.3- mile Pate Hollow trail. This was a ridge walk up and down into three ravines and a dip of Lake Monroe. There is a gnome house in a tree near the trailhead.

The dogs enjoyed this hike. The dogs chased each other and every chipmunk that dared to cross their paths. Despite the high humidity, the canopied forest kept us cool, although I was drenched by the time I was done. There was also plenty of water in each ravine.

I only came across two people, one at the start and the second one at the end. There were no annoying insects, either.

I stopped in Bloomington for lunch at the Upland Brewery. This place is popular, with a large outdoor patio. I had hummus with a pint of "Breaking Away", summer ale with lemon and ginger (ABV 4.5).  I only had one beer because I had a long drive ahead of me.

I wanted to make it to Jonesboro, AR but the heat quickly slowed me down as soon as I got on I-69 south of Bloomington.  I kept nodding off and didn't want to cause an accident, so I pulled off a country road which took me instead to US41, past Evansville and eventually into Kentucky.

I stopped again in Henderson to walk the dogs along the riverwalk, but the humidity was still too intense.  I let them dip in the river, walked 1.5 miles and then continued.

Kentucky wasn't in the original route but I enjoyed this drive along rolling lush hillsides, horses and old buildings.  I was on US60 now going west and stopped in Paducah for a meal and a beer at the Grounded Brewery.  It was created out of an old Coca-Cola Bottling company, with a spacious outdoor seating.  I kept the dogs in the car parked in the shade while I sampled two light lagers and a shittake pizza from the Mellow Mushroom pizzeria next door.  

Paducah has an interesting history.  It's home to a prison and also flooded old town that disappeared with the creating of the nearby r.eservoir.  My first husband's dad was from this town (he moved to northern Indiana for a job in the steel mills)  and my first husband would spend summers here as a kid with his paternal grandparents. He told me that whenever a prisoner was executed, the lights in town would all dim for a few seconds.

I will have to leave Paducah for another time.  I wanted to get to Jonesboro but it was a slow-go.  The bugs were biting hard.  I kept pulling over to nap for 10 minutes, then drive on.  The route I was following on Google Maps kept taking me on country roads.  I pulled over in a school parking lot at 3:13am and by 3:30am a polite young police officer told me I could not park there, but that he didn't want me driving tired and suggested a nearby parking area.  "those are some polite dogs!" he commented about my two tired pups, who didn't even bark when the man approached the Honda.