Rend Lake bike trail; Evansville

 Day 4

I slept better today.  I missed the sunrise but it wasn't much of one anyway with the cloud cover.  I had hoped to get up early, walk a bit around Crab Orchard Lake at sunrise, and then continue my drive north and into Indiana.  I like the Carbondale area and had hoped to spend more time there, but weather was not cooperating.  I had to move on.

I stopped for a two-mile walk around Crab Orchard Pond, a separate area for anglers.  The sun poked through storm clouds, but she held back rain.  We walked part of the perimeter but the trails were all overgrown as this place was meant for fishermen and not hikers.  At least the dogs got a quick jaunt out of this.

My phone, sadly, was no longer holding a charge and died completely by the time I got to the pond. No working phone also meant no quick glance at the clock.

I didn't know when my next stop would be as more rain was forecasted.  So I took the opportunity to stop at the Rend Lake bike/hike trail off I-57.  It's a three-mile paved trail that runs along a canal and bog.  This makes for a nice leg stretcher for long-distance travelers.  The parking lot is large so there would always be room for vehicles.

I let the dogs off leash when we were far from other people.  They followed me well.  They brought the smell of effluent back to me after dipping into the water.

There were few people on this trail the farther away from the parking area I got.  Perhaps people were staying close to their cars because the rain clouds were moving in.  Sure enough, I was barely back in the car when the second storm of the morning rolled through.  I don't like driving in the rain but at least we had daylight.

When I got to the I-64 intersection, I decided to change my route of travel and go east for a while, toward Evansville, IN, and walk its famed riverwalk.  I have never been in that town before.  I wanted to see the Ohio River from the riverwalk.

Evansville is Indiana's third-largest city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.  Its population is 117,429 as per the 2010 census, but it didn't look very large to me.  The main throughway in town, the Veterans Memorial Parkway, only showed a very short section of scenic city before turning grimy again. West of the downtown area and I was back into the down-trodden part of town.  I learned later that Evansville has a high crime rate and ranks #1 in obesity rates for adults.

I parked at the Visitor's Center with its Vietnam War Memorial and went straight to the riverwalk and headed west.  I noticed many German street names here, and even a German American Bank.  I'll have to research the German influence of this city sometime.

The scenic part of the riverwalk is perhaps three miles long.  The river bends here dramatically, showing off its massive width. I'm sure in its frontier days, the port was busy with trade.

The city noises made the pups nervous so we only walked a mile on it, bypassing many of the historical plaques that summarized the many events in town over recorded history, from the first Americans and European settlers, to visits by US presidents, natural disasters, and natural events.  I would have enjoyed reading them all, but the pups were restless.

Other than the wide Ohio River and the modern riverwalk, not much else struck my fancy.  A brewpub showed up on my Google Maps so I stopped in there, at the Myriad Brewing, and enjoyed two beers on the small patio with the dogs.  This was a pleasant stop.  My server was a courteous and helpful young man who suggested I continued walking east toward the historic district of Riverside where there were more bars to explore.  I thanked him for his helpfulness, but didn't tell him that bars are not what I came here to see.

My stay in town was a mere two hours.  I still had the length of Indiana to drive through before I could say I "made it home" and more rain clouds were looming to my north.  I got on US41 and took that road all the way into Crown Point.  I didn't even stop in Vincennes or Terre Haute, both towns with frontier history. I got in by 10:30pm but by then I was too exhausted to get a meal and parked in a hotel complex just off I-65.