There's nothing to do in Terra Haute

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

October 4, 2022

After our day at Indiana's state capitol city, we drove southeast on I-70 to the smaller city of Terra Haute. We're staying at another Boondockers Welcome host, taking up most of their front driveway. We are amazed at hosts like this that inconvenience themselves to make this parking option available to complete strangers like us. Our hostess also brought us home-made chocolate chip cookies that were delicious. Her husband had left that morning for Florida, where they own a winter home. Their home was still standing after Hurricane Ian made land-fall. But he was taking a pickup load of repair supplies to help their Florida neighbors. This summer has certainly renewed our faith in the goodness of people across the country.

Even though our hostess has lived her entire life in this area, she didn't have any great ideas for something to do here. We certainly didn't know of any big-name attractions here either. Maybe there's nothing to do in Terra Haute?!? But we did find a couple bike trails to get a little exercise. The first was the Wabashiki Trail, that started at the Dewey Point County Park. This 6.8-mile loop winds its way through the trees of the wildlife management area.

It also leads to the kayak launch area. It looks like a first-rate kayak ramp and dock. The only problem is that there is no water in sight right now. The weeds have taken over the lake bottom that used to be a good kayaking site. This is more evidence of the drought that is affecting much of the United States.

As we looped back to the parking lot, the last mile was on a first-class just-finished causeway. We shudder to think how much it cost to build this mile of trail with overhead lights, water-proof decking, and wooden rails. It was very nice!

The only problem was its proximity to the highway. When Denisa panned the camera to the right, we could show how close all that traffic is to the bikers and hikers.

We loaded up our bikes, and drove the pickup ten miles to our second bike trail of the day. The trail head for the Jones National Road Heritage Trail was in East Glenn, Indiana. We found some nice fall foliage along the way.

The Heritage Trail is flat and paved--two of Denisa's favorite adjectives when describing bike trails. It was a six-mile ride to the campus of Indiana State University. We parked the bikes and walked around this compact campus. We found some six-foot-tall coke bottles, and had to do some research to find out why. In 1915, the Coca-Cola company sent out a challenge to glass companies to design a "bottle so distinct that you could recognize it by feeling it in the dark or lying broken on the ground." The Root Glass Company created the winning design, making Terra Haute the birthplace of this iconic shape. There are 39 of these painted bottles scattered around the city.

That bottle is painted blue, with sycamore leaves. That's because the unusual mascot of Indiana State is "Sycamore." We had no idea, but both our sons knew it when I sent the picture of the college football stadium and asked for the mascot name. They are both well-versed in sports trivia.

We made a 1.2-mile walking loop around Indiana State's campus, including eating lunch in the student union. The students here are lucky to have a local Greek cafe in the union. Then we started back on our bikes for the return ride to the pickup. Our bike ride took us by another football stadium. The crowds are smaller at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology stadium.

We had a few more miles in our pedaling legs, so we took the additional Maple Avenue Lake loop. Some of the maples are turning lovely fall colors.

We saw the lake . . .

and then headed back through the forest. This additional loop was hilly and rocky--two adjectives that Denisa does NOT like when describing a bike trail. But we rejoined the paved Heritage Trail and got back to the pickup about the time our legs wore out.

We biked 22.2 miles today, and hiked another couple miles. We had great weather and it was good exercise. While we started the day thinking that there was nothing to do in Terra Haute, we managed to keep ourselves busy and learned a little local history and trivia. It looks we found something to do in Terra Haute, after all.