92 County Tour: Marshall County

We didn't have a chance to do one of our county tours in the month of April, because our weekends were PACKED! So we decided to kick off our birthday weekend by doing another county visit! This time...we picked Marshall County, which is about an hour and a half north of where we live.

Marshall County was named for US Chief Justice John Marshall, who lived in the 1800's. There isn't a ton to do in this county {at least that I found in internet research and in asking friends who lived there}. Ryan was sorely disappointed that skydiving was not on our to-do list, as this IS the county where he did that prior to our marriage {and dating}.

But anyway. Back to our day. :)

Some friends of mine live in Culver, and they recommended a coffee shop to us. They had me at lakefront. :) We decided to leave home about 8 in the morning so we could get to Culver for a mid-morning breakfast at the Culver Coffee Shop.

 It's a cute little coffee shop across the street from a park that overlooks the lake. It's a coffee shop AND an ice cream shop AND they serve wine, as well.

Of all the coffee shops we've been to so far, this one had the most retail stuff for sale in the shop. In addition to being able to buy their coffee, they had everything from shirts to tea sets to peanuts and other food for sale. So much fun stuff!

 I got a white mocha and Ryan got a caramel mocha...and we ordered breakfast, too. Burrito for me and a breakfast sandwich for him. Fresh, hot, and yummy!

By the way, while we ate, Ryan got to watch the fish in the aquarium. :)

After we left the coffee shop, we did a quick photo shoot across the street at the park overlooking the lake.

 Not a very pretty day, but we didn't care. Overlooking water? YES PLEASE!!

 Ryan's favorite toy in the park. It was a scoop. He wanted to rearrange the entire landscaping job!

 Had to sit on it mostly because we have one just like it in Marion.

 Just hangin' around.

Our first lighthouse of the day. :)



Our next stop on our trip was the Barn Quilt Trail. Much like the Garfield Trail we did in Grant County, the Barn Quilt Trail is a way to travel the county and see what it has to offer. It's a HUGE trail. We only did one quarter of it - and it took a while! I won't show you all the pictures here, but I'll give you a couple of examples.

It was a fun trail - though hard, at times, to get the next address punched in the old GPS quickly enough. And in addition to that, some of them, like the picture above, were visible from the back side of the property, not the street where we punched in the address. But we managed to find them all {after backing up a few times to catch ones we shot past} and it was fun!

Also along the way around the countryside of rural northern Indiana...

...cows walking down the road...

 ...and then posing for you...

 ...sweet lambs...

 ...and sweet lambs that were literally JUST born...still sprawled out in the mud and some very questionable and disturbing placenta-esque objects hanging out of the mama...

We had a great time in Marshall County...safe on the GROUND!!!