92 County Tour: Ripley County

Well my goodness - did we ever have a fun weekend! SO many stories are coming your way, but we'll start today with a county tour!

We left home Friday morning for a little weekend getaway to celebrate our birthdays! Yes. We're still in birthday mode. ;)

Our main goal for Friday was to tour Ripley County, which is about two hours southeast of where we live. Ripley County has nothing to do with the Believe it or Not people, but rather was named after General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, an officer in the War of 1812.

We started out in the county seat of Ripley County: Batesville. They are most well known for their casket manufacturing industry, but alas, we did not take any tours or anything.

The only coffee shop I found in the entire county was in Batesville, and it was called Amack's Well. It was a really cute little place!

It was a simple coffee shop that actually specialized mostly in coffee (go figure!) with a handful of little muffins and scones and such on the side. We just got fresh brew and blueberry muffins, but it made a tasty little breakfast!

We took our time and enjoyed ourselves and then got back on the road for the next stop in the county, Milan! (That's MY-lan, not Mil-AHN.)

Milan is a tiny little burg, but if you've ever seen the movie Hoosiers, you might know more about it than you think! The Hickory Huskers basketball team that won the state championship in the movie is actually based on the Milan Indians. There are some differences in the movie from real life, but it was all based on an actual game between Milan and Muncie back in 1954! There is a little museum there in Milan that has a lot of memorabilia both from the actual Milan team and from the movie! Here's a sampling:

An actual handwritten bracket from that school year with the list of all 700 schools on the left and Milan as the winner on the right. I made Ryan pose with it so you could fully appreciate the size of the bracket!

Jerseys from the movie (above) and lockers containing memorabilia from the real team members. Through a grant a few years ago, they were able to record interviews with all the team members who were still living, and I believe the lady told us only one had died. Ryan listened to one of the interviews:

Some other memorabilia from the movie:

They also showed the real game on a TV in a back room. It's been restored and audio dubbed in to match it.

A couple of commemorative shots, and that was our visit! If you like basketball and/or are a movie buff, this is a really fun stop. Even if you aren't either of those (hello, Bekah) it's a great peek into a pretty amazing story. And I do love story.

In my county research, I discovered a little BBQ restaurant just down the road from the museum, so we had lunch there! It was called Hog Rock BBQ, and it was fantastic food. The lady at the museum told us the restaurant was really busy in the evenings, but at lunch it was fairly empty, and we got our food quickly! Neither one of us even needed sauce, because the meat had such amazing flavor on its own!

After we left there, we headed over to the little town of Versailles to look for a covered bridge! (Fun Hoosier fact: we do not pronounce Versailles like they do in France. No ver-sigh over here. It's ver-sails.)

There is actually a state park there, but we didn't have time to tour it (plus it was a semi-rainy day) so we just went to the entrance to look at the bridge! I dearly love a covered bridge. This one is still open to cars!

I'd read there was also a church in Versailles with unique architectures, so we went in search of that. Found it!

I had one more covered bridge to find before we could leave the county, and this one was on a back country road with no real published address. But we found it! You can't drive this one anymore, but you can walk through it!

We declared it a very fun county tour! Thanks, Ripley County!!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Guess who forgot to DVR the wedding yesterday? (I had actually planned to get up at the actual time to watch it, but I forgot that too! Fail across the board.) Hopefully someone will show it again! I missed every single airing of it yesterday!

So while I lament my lack of princessing yesterday, here is a peek at our week!

* Last Sunday was Mother's Day, which for some reason now feels like it was 100 years ago! We hosted our fifth annual Mommapalooza and had a great time serving a taco bar to both sides of our family! (We always try to give it a specific theme each year.) After everyone left and we had the party cleaned up, we went on a lovely evening walk, which was the perfect way to close out my 30s!

* Monday was my 40th birthday, and it was such a perfect day. Ryan took it off work and we spent the whole day together, having a blast on our photo scavenger hunt, enjoying coffee, and visiting a new ministry in our town that we think is pretty spectacular!

* Tuesday was a busy day for me, since I had all my Monday and Tuesday chores to accomplish in one day! Whew! I made salads for us for lunch, since we had overloaded on birthday treats the day before. :) It rained so hard that day...my goodness! It felt like my office turned into a car wash! And that night we went to help our friends work on their newly purchased home. Sarah and I were on paint patrol. It was so fun!

* I had a date with the tire shop Wednesday morning for a tire rotation. I took my book to read but ended up getting sucked into the whole Laurel/Yanny thing on TV. I also had to admit my birthday roses had seen the end of their natural life span, and I pulled them all off the stems to dry them! I'm not a dried flower petal hoarder, but no WAY am I getting rid of my 40th birthday roses! Dry and save, baby! We ended our day at the ER, which was totally not planned. Everyone's okay! (The person we went to see hasn't really made that public knowledge, so I better not say. But all is well!)

* Another busy day Thursday, which required a lot of coffee (in the mug Ryan gave me for my birthday)! It was also mani/pedi day - at home, of course. And that night it was time to pack up, because we went on a quick getaway!

* Friday we toured Ripley County, which I'll have to tell you all about later! We had many fun adventures there, including getting to see a couple of covered bridges and visiting a basketball museum! We also garnered so many stories that you will not even believe. Seriously! You won't even
believe them! The podcast is going to be extra full this week, my friends.

* Yesterday we explored every nook and cranny of Madison, Indiana, which is a quaint little town full of more character than I can put into words OR pictures. It was so much fun. We were grateful the weather somewhat held. The forecast going into the day called for not just rain, but STORMS the entire day. It did rain, but only a few times, and we actually had sun the majority of the day. While we could have explored in the rain, it was just so much nicer in the sun! WE were so thankful.

The Saturday Six

One.

A beautiful post about the changing of seasons. Not just the seasons according to the trees outside, but life seasons, too. Sometimes they change faster than we can keep up with, don't they? Wise words from Jill Eileen Smith.

Two.

Quick note about some classes I'm teaching this summer! I will be doing a series of five classes at the Marion Public Library, and together they'll teach you how to write part or all of your life story for posterity purposes. The classes will meet the first Saturday of each month (from June-October) at 10:00 a.m. at the library. The intent of these classes is to teach those who may not feel like writers or even care about becoming published authors. But some people want to learn how to organize stories to pass down to their children and grandchildren, and this is for them! You can find more details here!

Three.

I adored this article by my friend Kate. I wish I would have thought to write something in this format! (But I love the content of what she says, too!)

Four.

Next weekend is Memorial Day, which means it's time to make a summer bucket list! Maybe not every item on this one speaks to you, but there are a TON of ideas!

Five.

While I don't have nearly as many tablescape pieces to store as Susan does, this is ONE IMPRESSIVE storage system. It makes my Type A heart so happy!!!

Six.

I'm still writing thank you notes for my birthday, so that meant I didn't get a book completely finished again this week. But that's okay, since some of you may not love books anyway! (WHAT?!) So I'll end today with this bit of news. If you ever watched the movie The Holiday and loved the big mansion that Cameron Diaz's character lived in here in the States, it can be yours! (If you have, you know, roughly twelve million to spare. 

Mommapalooza 5.0

Last Sunday, Ryan and I hosted our fifth annual Mommapalooza! My sister-in-law told me that she's come to really look forward to this tradition every year. We try to give all the moms a day off, and we do the work instead!

Though the forecast said it would be rainy/stormy all day, we were blessed with a perfectly warm and sunny day that allowed us to use our garage/party space with the door open and the breeze blowing in!

This year we went with a taco bar/Mexican theme, and it seemed to be a hit! (We also used leftover 40th birthday decorations. No need to waste them, right?)

We were missing a few people, but we still had thirteen, I believe, in attendance, and it was a fun day of celebration. (We threw in a couple of birthdays and an anniversary along with our Mother's Day fun.

 (Ryan's brother and his wife gifted me the "Cogsworth" clock from my party. Apparently I was supposed to have taken it home with me and I didn't know that, so they regifted it to me. LOL!)

 Money? Okay!

Backyard fun. :)

 Ryan and his mama.

We managed to squeeze in a picture!

 Ryan and the mamas.

 Ryan and the siblings. :)  (They are minus one sister in this picture...she was with her kiddos that day.)

 And forty years later with my own Mom!

It was all over far too soon, but everyone had to get on to their next adventure, so Ryan and I cleaned up the party and ended up going on a nice, leisurely walk through the neighborhood. The perfect way to end a decade!

Mommapalooza 5.0 = a success!

Dinner with the Parents!

A few years ago, my parents started a tradition of taking us out to eat to celebrate both our birthdays. Usually we try to arrange it kind of in the middle of our two birthdays, but this year it came right before mine, because I guess we were all busier than we thought! :)

And since I was the one with the "big" birthday this year, I picked the spot, and I chose the Gaither Restaurant, because it is one of my most favorite places to eat. I guess Wednesday night isn't their most popular, because it was pretty quiet while we were there. YAY!!!!!! (I like having places all to myself.)

Ryan and I loved the coffee  mugs!!

My parents are always good to pose for the required scrapbook photo:

And she said the fruit was as good as it looks. :)

Ryan and I got some delicious dinners. (If you heard the podcast, you'll know the salad saved me...I was the only one who went home NOT miserably stuffed that night!)

And of course, we had dessert. Choosing a dessert at this place ranks among life's toughest choices. They're all good! Ryan talked me into the ice cream. :) Salted caramel, you know.

He had pie.

I squeezed in a little shopping before we had to leave, and on our way to the car, I asked Ryan to take my pictures with this sign of the lyrics to Because He Lives. Though I have no memory of it, I have heard this song was sung at my baby dedication, and it seemed appropriate to document that as I stood on the edge of 40!

And just for fun...a peek at that day, forty years ago. (Plus a close up of the dress. Because it's cute!)