DeKalb County Tour

Ryan was off work this past Saturday, and we didn't have to work on any pressing projects at home, so he suggested we squeeze in a county tour! (If you're new here, we are slowwwwwwly working our way through a project to visit every county in the state of Indiana. There are 92. We're going to be at this a while.)

Originally I had planned for a county that would take us to a really fun state park. But as the week went on, the temps went up, and they were advising that people not be outside for prolonged periods of time because of the high heat. So at the last minute, I switched up my plan and found us a county with mostly inside activities. It ended up being a really fun day! (It'll take me a couple of days to tell you about it, but we'll start today.)

The county we chose was DeKalb County, and it's in the northeastern portion of the state. (We've almost completed that entire corner, actually!) The county is named for a Revolutionary War hero, and it has some really interesting things hidden in it! :)

Clearly, you can see we started at the covered bridge. :) I love covered bridges, so if a county has one, I'm going to do my level best to find it!

This bridge was built back in 1873 and is 146 feet long. When I had looked it up online before going, it appeared it was still functional for traffic, but when we arrived, I got the feeling maybe that's not true anymore:

We did get to walk through it, though, and took some additional pictures. It's a beautiful bridge!

When we arrived, there were a whole bunch of kayakers gathered there, and clearly some event was about to take place. There was also a guy wandering around with a camera, and I saw him, but I didn't really pay attention. As Ryan and I were about to get back in our car, he came toward me and said, "Hey I know you!" And indeed he did! He went to my church (or did I go to his?) when I was a little girl! He had two sons that were among the kids I taught midweek classes to when I was in high school! I don't think I've seen him since I was in high school. It was great to see him! We were both in a hurry to get to our next adventure, so we didn't get to talk long (and I didn't get a picture with him) but that was the fun, most random sort of happening!

After we left the covered bridge, we headed to Sechler's Pickle Factory. It's located in St. Joe, Indiana, and here's a fun fact for you: there's actually a pickle festival, and it was this past weekend. Because of the heat, we didn't go to the festival, but we did check out the factory. It sits out in the country and offers free tours. (Our favorite word! Free!)

Sechler's has been in business for almost 100 years, and they have over 50 products on the market. I first learned about them several years ago when the church I attended did annual fundraises of pickles...but I'd never seen the factory. They were running tours every few minutes because of the festival, and the lady who talked to me on the phone the day before told me that the festival versions of the tours are a bit shorter than the standard tours, but I thought it was good!

Here's a diagram of the pickle process, in case you're curious how it works.

We got to see their warehouse (which took Ryan back to his distribution center days!) - pickles for days!

They have huge tanks where they cure the cucumbers - year round. In fact, they told us that the amount of salt in the water for the curing makes it four times as salty as the ocean!

We were able to see a part of the process from start to finish, including the filling of the jars and the labeling. So many pickles!

I forgot to tell you that we were able to wear some sweet, sweet hairnets for the tour!

We did a little shopping while we were there. They have a store with some of their own products in it - and other pickle fun, too!

 In addition to making all kinds of regular pickle varieties, they also make relish and pickle other foods too, like cauliflower and asparagus.

 Electronic yodeling pickle? I was so confused. But props for creativity!!

 The dress up pickle and the pickle stress ball. Is it still called a stress ball if it's not a ball? Is it a stress pickle?

We had a fun time at this stop. Free tour? Check. Free samples? Check. Learning and fun? Check. And we were surprised how many people were there for tours (from the festival) on such a hot day!

I'll tell you about one more stop and save the rest for tomorrow. We had to find our coffee shop, you know. There were about three options listed online, and we picked the one called The Cupbearer Café. We picked it because it had a ministry base to it, and we wanted to support that! (The name comes from the verse in Nehemiah, where Nehemiah declares he was the cupbearer to the king.)

Their website says they offer a free community meal every Thursday evening - and they have live music that night, too! They also have live music on the weekends, and all the shows are family friendly. The coffee shop is located on the square in a big building, and the front half is the gathering area for the music and other events. They have seating for 100 up there! There are tables around the perimeter for people who come in to have a meal or coffee - and they even have a little bookstore area in there! They also host a Celebrate Recovery group.

We. Loved. This. Coffee. Shop.

It reminded us of a bigger scale version of our dear Shaka Shack in Adams County. And since we had lunch there, we were able to enjoy both the food and coffee offerings.

Here's a peek at the building:

And here's the big gathering space at the front:

The ordering area was so cute, and oh my goodness, the barista was the nicest girl in the whole world. She helped us figure out what we wanted to order, and she was as sweet as she could be.

She told us one of their most popular drinks was the choco-freeze, which is basically a frozen hot chocolate. Unfortunately, it didn't have coffee in it, but she said she could add espresso for us. So we both got that (since it was SO hot outside) and it was absolutely amazing. I've had frozen hot chocolate before, and I love it just the way it is, but adding the espresso? Oh my.

I'm actually legitimately drooling, just looking at the pictures.

We got little paninis and chips for lunch and thoroughly enjoyed just sitting back and resting. We sat in the front window and overlooked the square while we ate.

And before we headed on to our next adventure, we walked around the square. As usual, Ryan made a place for himself in the city sculpture art. He never fails to crack me up!

I'll tell you about the rest of our day tomorrow! :)