Barnstorming and Spelunking (Part Une)

Last Saturday, the Lady With the Red Hair, Scowl-Face, and I took a road trip to southern Indiana.  It was our barnstorming and spelunking adventure.  As always, click the images to bigify.

First we visited the Thomas Singleton round barn, located along state road 57 about four miles south of Washington, Indiana (in Daviess County).  This is how the road looked on Rand McNally's 1927 Indiana road atlas.  We chose that particular year's map because of its significance in bringing down the Ku Klux Klan's political influence in Indiana.  Well, the map didn't actually pull off the trick; it was Singleton's round barn.  More to the point, it was what was hidden inside the barn.  I'll let ol' Scowlly take up the tale from here.

Thomas Singleton (left) standing in front of his round barn (circa 1927)

(Photo copyright © 2013 by Charles D. Griffin.  Used by permission.)

Thomas Singleton built this beautiful barn in 1908.  It is featured in several Hoosier barn books (like this one).  The barn looks pretty much the same today.  Well, at least it did last Saturday.

 

 The Lady With the Red Hair in front of her

great-great uncle's barn

 Scowl-Face & Moi hanging out at the barn

The Lady With the Red Hair is Thomas Singleton's great-great niece.  Her father, whom we all call Gramps, used to spend summers living and working at his great uncle's farm.  There was a moo-cow there when we visited (at the extreme left in the photo below).  It was probably not the same as the moo-cows that lived there when Gramps visited during the 1930s, but it's a reasonable facsimile.  They all moo, don't they?

 

 Former Thomas Singleton farm

 (Moo-Cow at extreme left)

 

The Barn's southern exposure

(with the former Singleton farmhouse to the right)

After our barnstorming, we drove over to U.S. highway 41 (a dozen miles north of Evansville) to the Log Inn, where Abraham Lincoln once ate.  Not being a big dude (both historically and literally) like Lincoln, we didn't.  I blame Scowl-Face.  The restaurant didn't open until 4 p.m., and we were there at 1 p.m.  Ol' Scowlly didn't bother to search for the Log Inn's website.  If he had, we'd have known its public hours, and we also would have known to make reservations.  I was not a happy camper after missing my lunchtime din-dins, as you might well imagine.

The Log Inn

(drawing courtesy of WANE-TV)

So we drove eastward (along Interstate 64) to Lynnville, Indiana, where we lunched at a local cafe.  Then we walked half a block (pretty much the entire town, actually) to visit the Lynnville Public Library, a branch of the Boonville-Warrick County Public Library system.

 Lynnville Branch of

Boonville-Warrick County Public Library

 Your Feline Roving Reporter is

fast on the scene, ready with the story

 

 Just not our day, I guess

The Lynnville Public Library looked so inviting but so peaceful--I was truly disappointed that it was Saturday instead of Tuesday or Thursday.  I would have really enjoyed exploring inside.  Too bad it's not an Evergreen Indiana library.  The Lady With the Red Hair had her E.I. library card at the ready, just in case we passed any E.I. libraries on our adventure.

Honestly, this road trip was becoming a bummer, what with everything being closed.  But we still planned to do some spelunking, and for that, you will need to read our next installment.  (Okay, that was a lame cliffhanger, but, hey, they can't all be gems.)

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat

P.S.  The Pale Barn Ghosts seemed like a logical choice for our first musical closer.  Here's a live performance (March 30, 2013) at the Garryowen Irish Pub in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

P.P.S.   This song is no reflection upon Lynnville, which is quite a quiet, quaint, pleasant sort of village where a feline could enjoy open spaces and filled dumpsters (outside the restaurant at which we ate--well, I ate mine in the car.  Stupid human public health laws.)  I just happen to love "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville," by R.E.M., from the album Reckoning (1984).