New Harmony to Louisville
So just running through the rest of this stuff with photographs and limited yapping. New Harmony was a little disappointing in that embourgoisement has its hooks into the place. A Disneyfied locale for celebrities to get their R & R. Willie Nelson and John Schneider (Dukes of Hazzard hearthrob turned right wing culture warrior) were mentioned. The staff at the 'convention center' where I stayed the night remarked ruefully that millionaires turn up here all the time. For 'retreats'. They have a museum – I'm sorry, another Atheneum – designed by Pritzker Prize winner Richard Meier. They've got the old opera house and all of the rest of it, but this is now the essence of the place.
Headed to the Evansville library, which is an impressive site indeed. Clowned around with the ladies at several different antique stores. The heat is so oppressive, back to air conditioned consumerism. No more trips in the dead of summer in this country anymore. It sucks! Anyway, this is the library.
Eating was also sparse and intermittant on this trip. But that was remedied in Jasper, IN, a charming German-ish town in the rolling foothills of southern Indiana. Got off the highway from exhaustion and got the recommendation at the Ferdinand, IN library, where a German woman named Anja – my aunt's namesake – is in charge of a basement of used books. She was gone and it was nearing the end of the day, so no books from that joint. You can't do everything, it turns out.
The Schnitzelbank restaurant was out of control. They have an attached catering service with a fleet of trucks. Another one of these little German Empires in these towns nobody's ever heard of. The kids at the gift shop and the waitresses – donning obligatory revealing dirndls of course – were so nice and, wait for it, efficient. Smart kids, a sister and brother pair, in particular.
Had the soup and salad buffet, which just that was sumptuous, as I can take or leave Schnitzel-fare. Besides, it encourages sleep when you're stuffed to the gills, and I had to make Louisville by dawn. You know, for the pictures.
