Fighting Irish?

Yesterday, primarily, we travelled. From Aurora, Illinois to South Bend, Indiana, we followed the twists and turns and ups and downs of the old road. One thing that is different about this route than many of the later US routes we have followed, is that this route seldom goes through the heart of towns. US Route 50 and 66 were often the main drag of a town. In the case of the Lincoln Highway, it has often been replaced as the main thoroughfare of a town so that to find things we have to leave the route temporarily and wander a bit.

Today, we took in a lot of sights. Starting in South Bend, we spent time at Notre Dame University seeing one of the main administration buildings which housed undergraduate admissions reception and general counsel (Main Building) and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. What beauty! The relics of the saints on display were also quite intriguing.

Main Building

Front and steeple of the Basilica

From altar area forward

From altar area backward toward door

And for some reason the Goodyear Blimp was flying by.

While they haven't converted me to be a Fighting Irish basketball fan, I am in love with their campus! Just beautiful! Of course, that is on a balmy 80-degree day, not with 3 feet of snow. :-)

This morning as we were investigating sights to see, we discovered that Elkhart County has a garden quilt event each summer. They create quilt square patterns with flowers and have several displays in towns throughout the county. We stopped at 4 in Goshen. On our way to one of the quilt garden sights, we passed by the Old Bag Factory (no puns, please). No longer in use as a bag factory, there are speciality shops and restaurants. But what interested us most were the historical displays of the manufacturing equipment, old safes in which they kept dyes and perfumes for use in manufacturing and samples of bags they created. Many were feedbags or other industrial type bags, such as what you buy your onions in. They also did some printing work. One of the interesting items they printed was the little paper tags that go in Hersey's Kisses, called plumes. Here is a picture of a sheet that had been printed, but not cut.

Another of the quilt garden sites was at the courthouse. Indiana has courthouses with a lot of character! They are old enough to be interesting, but new enough not to have been replaced or remodelled so much that they look modern. The Elkhart County courthouse in Goshen.

And finally, an example of a quilt garden. Some of the patterns were known quilt patterns. This one is a pattern created by a couple of local people. It did not have a name. It was one of the simpler ones in terms of the flowers. It was all different kinds of begonias, except for the green square corners, which were parsley.

One last picture for the day...the last section of old Lincoln highway in Indiana that is still original brick.

A great day!