Shades

 

May 28, 2022

Shades

Parke County, Indiana is located about 50 miles west of Indianapolis and it is home to two of the most interesting and cool state parks in Indiana. For the past few years when I have visited, I have gone to the more famous and popular of the two parks, Turkey Run State Park. This year, I opted to take a visit to the lesser known, but equally amazing park located just a few miles away, Shades State Park.

Shades is known for the steep sandstone cliffs that are found throughout the park that were formed hundfreds of millions of years ago when the state was covered by ocean. Fossils are often found along the sandbars of the Sugar Creek, which runs through the park as well as through Turkey Run about five miles away.

The two parks share other similar features as well, including the steep ravines, slate and sandstone valleys, and small waterfalls. There is also a small pond at Shades. It certainly feels miles away from most of the flat central Indiana area that surrounds the park and is a beautiful step into nature that is worth a visit. As opposed to the crowds that are generally at Turkey Run, I did not see a single person while visiting Shades.

Back in Indianapolis, I stopped by an old high school buddy of my father, writer Dan Wakefield. Dan attended Shortridge High at the same time as my father and recently celebrated his 90^th birthday. His classic coming of age novel, “Going All the Way” is set in Indianapolis and features many characters based on his high school classmates. He still lives in the South Broad Ripple neighborhood and I stopped in to say hello and wish him well.

As race weekend approached, my guests from out of town began arriving beginning with my lovely wife, Kathy who flew in from Key West on Tuesday. Our nephew James was next to arrive on Wednesday afternoon and the non-stop activities that I had planned for race weekend began in earnest.

We started by taking James into downtown Indianapolis for a meal at Harry & Izzy’s restaurant where he could try the world-famous shrimp cocktail that they serve along with their sister restaurant, St. Elmo’s Steakhouse. After lunch we toured the circle and a bit oof downtown before taking James to get settled in.

Thursday was another busy day as we headed south to Nashville, Indiana and Brown County to have lunch with our friends Reverend and Breezy Peyton of Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band fame. We arrived early enough to visit the Bean Blossom covered bridge and walk around a bit in downtown Nashville before meeting them for lunch at Hard Truths Brewery and Distillery.

The fairly new place is situated on 325 wooded acres just east of downtown Nashville and is really impressive in size and scope and is just beautiful. It is hard to believe that it is in Nashville. After a fun lunch, we followed Rev. & Breezy back to their new, beautiful lakefront home. They just recently acquired the house and moved and we were fortunate to catch them on a rare break from touring so we could see their new place. 

It is totally perfect for them and the basement space has been transformed into a performance and practice space that they did not have in their former home. We had to head back to Indianapolis in the late afternoon to meet our friends Matt and Deb, who were driving in from Key West to join us for the race activities beginning that evening at the Last Row Party at the Speedway.

The Last Row party is put on by the Press club of Indiana to raise funds for Journalism students and features the drivers starting in the last row of the Indy 500 which this year were Stephen Wilson, Jack Harvey and Christian Luundgarde. No driver wants to be celebrated in this way but they are all good sports as they receive checks for 31, 32 and 33 cents respectively.

This year the party was held in the Hulman Suites on the outside of the track coming out of turn four and it was the first chance for our visitors James, Matt and Deb to experience the speedway in any capacity and I think they enjoyed themselves completely as they got to meet the drivers and take in the massive facility.

https://www.visithardtruth.com/