92 County Tour: Grant

Ryan and I had such a busy March that we didn't really have time to go far away for one our Indiana county tours. So...we decided to tour from home! Good old Grant County! I admit to being a bit nervous...wasn't sure I would find anything new and different to do among the roads I drive every day. Boy was I ever WRONG! Our tour date took the WHOLE DAY!

Grant County is the biggest county we've toured so far - perhaps part of the reason it took so long! Random {probably useless} fact...Grant County borders 9 other counties. We have lots of neighbors! Grant County is named for Captains Samuel and Moses Grant...of Kentucky. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but hey...whatever!

Saturday was a gorgeous day and actually kind of warm! We were blessed!

The problem with living in the county is...finding a new coffee shop! We'd been to most of them. So we tried out the Midwest Coffee Company - which is housed in a character-laden old house. They're not open in the evenings or past noon on Saturday, so that's why we'd never been there. But it was a darling little atmosphere for a Saturday morning!

We ordered a breakfast casserole {they make them in muffin cups - EEEK! So cute!} and fresh brew and settled in at a little bistro table to enjoy our breakfast.

The house was so cute...they'd cleared out all the rooms and filled them with tables and chairs...so there were little nooks everywhere to hide and eat! I did think it was really cool that they have one room with a huge table for conferences and meetings!


AND! A chalkboard wall. Of course we had to leave our mark....

After we finished our breakfast, we headed out for our date. I think it ended up being a VERY cool date. So it turns out Grant County has a trail of Garfield statues. Seriously! Garfield's creator, Jim Davis, is from Fairmount, which is a little tiny town in Grant County. So to honor him, they made this trail of Garfield statues throughout the county. It really is a brilliant visitor-bureau move...because it gets people all through your county and gives them something fun to do in the process! Other counties: TAKE NOTE!


We started out looking for the "Fit for Life" Garfield, which was supposed to be at the beginning of the Riverwalk, in front of the YMCA. When we arrived at the location, we saw this:

He's so fit, he's invisible!! {I have done more digging since and wonder if maybe he's just not on the trail at all anymore.} I did read online that a few years back, someone hugged this statue too tightly and his head broke off, and they had to repair it. Whoopsie! So location #1 was a bust...and we moved on to the next one!

The next one was also in Marion - right in front of Marion General Hospital. It's the Marion Medical Professional Garfield. {All but one of the statues are made of hollow fiberglass, by the way.}

 

After that, we headed out to Arbor Trace Golf Course, which is just outside of Marion. The man who runs it used to go to church with me when I was little, and his daughter and I were friends. Haven't seen him in probably 25 years, so I reintroduced myself and caught up with him. At the golf course, we met "Duffer Garfield" - who was actually carved out of wood!

We even got to look through the photo album that showed the making of this Garfield - from the time he was just a tree trunk until now. It was really cool.




While we were there, we found out there was a NEW Garfield in town that wasn't on our map. He's called "Paws for Thought" and is apparently the new trailhead of the Garfield Trail. We went in search of him and found him inside a fenced park area that was locked. :( We couldn't get in to have our picture taken WITH him, so I took one from a distance.

We left Marion to visit the Garfields in the surrounding towns! We started out in the tiny town of Swayzee {the only Swayzee in the world!} where we had our picture taken with the Speedking Garfield. He represents the former Swayzee High School and his jersey number {9} represents the number of overtime periods played in the school's record setting game back in the 60's.

After that, we went to the little town of Sweetser, where we found "College Bound" Garfield on the Sweetser Switch Trail. I did notice this is the only Garfield without clothing. Kind of curious about what sort of college he's going to! HA! I read online that this one has been vandalized before too - so that might be why it's all locked up on the train!

{We love the Sweetser Switch Trail. It's an old railroad track that's been turned into a walking/running/biking trail. That's where we did a photo shoot while we were dating that ended up yielding the picture that we used for our cake topper at our wedding!}



After we left Sweetser, we drove quite a ways across the county to another tiny town: Van Buren. There's a big popcorn factory there, so this Garfield is eating popcorn and wearing the athletic uniform of the old Van Buren high school.

{For being a small town, the main road where this was located was kind of well-traveled, so I was a bit anxious to take our picture and GET OUT!!}

Next stop: tiny town of Matthews! Matthews has a covered bridge and an accompanying festival each year, so its statue is a fisherman, in honor of the river! This visit was the most uncomfortable. The statue was up by the town hall, and there were all kinds of signs around about the parking lot being for authorized vehicles only, and the statue being surrounded by cameras, so I pretty much figured we were going to get chased out taking our picture! So this was taken in the biggest hurry:

{We visited the covered bridge, too, but I'll come back to that.}

We stopped to visit the Garfield in Upland, which is ever so appropriately located in the yard of Ivanhoe's. And it is just WRONG to visit Ivanhoe's without visiting Ivanhoe's...so we went in for dinner and ice cream. mocha almond sundae = Heaven in a dish!!

Three more to go!

After our dinner treat, we drove through Gas City, where we saw the glass-blowing Garfield. Unfortunately this statue is on Main Street - which is a major highway. I was WAY too chicken to get out of the car for our photo shoot, so I took this picture from the passenger seat:

We traveled on to Gas City's "twin city" of Jonesboro...where we saw the fire-fighting Garfield. Jonesboro had the first organized fire department in the county...hence this statue.

We ended our visit to the trail of Garfields by visiting the very first one ever...the one in Fairmount, which is the "cool cat" - in honor of James Dean, who was also from Fairmount! {Grant County's other claim to fame.}

Good job, Grant County!! That was a fun way to see the whole county!

We did also stop by the Cumberland covered bridge in Matthews...this visit to a bridge was much easier than the one we had last month, where we had to hike through snow to get to the bridge.

This bridge is 181 feet long and you can actually drive through this one! The last one we visited was for foot traffic only.

I thought it was SO COOL that this bridge has its own guest register! Ryan found it in a little weather-proof box and saw that the last people to sign it {earlier the same day} actually GOT ENGAGED at the bridge. That very day!

We signed it too - and then we drove through...and away!

And one other thing we did during the day - which has nothing to do with tourism, but everything to do with us - was to visit my grandparents' grave. I had never shown Ryan where they were buried. Both of them died while I was in high school...and I know they would have adored Ryan if they could have met him. Miss those two so much. They were a big part of making me who I am today, and I miss them!

So that was our tour of our own county. What a fun day we had...and what a great thing to be able to spend time together after so much busyness!