July 30-Aug 13 - Columbus, Indiana

Columbus, IN, is an interesting city. About 40 miles south of Indianapolis, it's a manufacturing town, but without the look of a rust-belt factory town. Industry is diversified, but the largest is the Cummins Corporation. They make all those diesel truck and RV engines, plus Onan generators and related things. Other factories in the area seem to be largely connected to the transportation industry. But what sets Columbus apart is architecture.

It's probably the most architected city of its size in the country. There are over 40 buildings on the architectural tour, representing the work of some of the most respected architects in the world. The spill-over is also appealing - lots of public sculptures scattered about, lots of civic pride in how things look. Even the big box stores look a little less boxy than they do elsewhere.

We visit Columbus because our good friends Linda and Luther Pierson moved there from Reedsport 5 or 6 years ago. We had an extra reason this year - we needed to repair the damage inflicted upon the PT Cruiser by an inconsiderate power pole in Wyoming. Since putting a car into a body shop is usually a multi-week project, we planned a two-week stay. As it turned out, it took just over 3 days to repair the car. If you ever need body work in Columbus, IN, talk to Ronnie's Body Shop.

Just before getting to Columbus, the ice maker in our refrigerator stopped working and water started leaking onto the floor. Turned out to be a plastic water line behind the refrigerator that had disintegrated. Took about $10 worth of parts to fix it. Took several hundred dollars worth of labor to install those $10 worth of parts. Would have been much easier (and much less expensive) if we could have removed the refrigerator to do the work, but fortunately Steve, the RV Medic, was slender enough and limber enough to crawl up through the vent and work behind the unit. Yes, we took pictures.

We got to Columbus a couple hours before most of the Piersons returned from vacation (Brian came home a few days later). We spent part of almost every day with the Piersons. We toured the town's architecture, and viewed many of the public art works. We had several fun outings . . . a visit to nearby Nashville (Ind, not Tenn) got us a good pizza, some even better ice cream, and a look at some neat touristy shops and a group of old-timey musicians playing old-timey music on old-timey instruments. We spent most of one day at a great state park with a restored pioneer village, where we got a corn milling demonstration and a log sawing demonstration, and a relaxing time in and around a cool stream. The Piersons like ice cream and pizza as well as we do, and we sampled both several times before we had to say goodbye. Luther, Linda, Brian and Laura send their best to you all.

We've posted pictures, of course. There are about 100 images in the slide show for this leg of our adventure. You'll find them here.