On the fifth day of our summer road trip across North Dakota, we took a road trip inside a road trip inside a road trip. Starting at Bismarck, we drove to Mandan. We left the interstate at Mandan and continued west on the Old Red Old Ten Scenic Byway. At Gladstone we detoured south onto the Enchanted Highway, then headed back north to continue on the Old Red Old Ten to its end at Dickinson. Read more
It wasn’t long after automobiles became the mainstay of American society that people began converting them into recreational vehicles or pulling camping trailers behind them. Both the first motorhome and the first travel trailers made their debuts in 1910. Last summer we visited the RV-MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, where campers dating as far back as the 1916 are on display in the museum, including some once owned by well-known people. Read more
I had never touched watercolors in my life—besides the eight-color Crayola® trays that I used in kindergarten. Yet, in only two hours, I created a watercolor painting that I was proud of, during the inaugural session of the Goldmoor Inn Artists in Residence program. The luxury bed-and-breakfast Goldmoor Inn, located in Galena, Illinois, is sponsoring the program for four consecutive weeks during January. Award-winning Chicago watercolor painter Carol Luc taught me and several others basic watercolor techniques during this past weekend’s session. Read more
At Midwest Wanderer we write about a variety of article topics. We like to include a mix of restaurants, attractions, festivals, and accommodations. So I was pleasantly surprised when I ran the list of the Midwest Wanderer 2016 Top 10 (most viewed) posts and the top four were a bakery, an attraction, a hotel, and a festival. Apparently you, our readers, like a variety of topics, too. Here is the list of Midwest Wanderer 2016 Top 10 posts: Read more
In 1867 four Sisters of St. Benedict arrived in Ferdinand, Indiana, from a monastery in Kentucky to teach in the parish school. By the 1870s, with over 70 sisters working at a boarding school they had started for girls in Ferdinand, the group became independent of the Kentucky monastery. Today the Monastery Immaculate Conception is one of the largest communities of Benedictine sisters in the United States, and the Romanesque-style domed monastery they live in is celebrating its 150th anniversary. We recently visited the Monastery Immaculate Conception, where Sister Christine gave us a brief history of the monastery and took us on a tour of what some call the “castle on the hill.” Read more
As field superintendent in Indiana’s new natural gas industry, Elwood Haynes needed a way to get from gas field to gas field. So he invented a horseless carriage. There were several automobiles being developed around the country at the same time, but Haynes called his vehicle “America’s first,” and the title stuck. Haynes also invented Stellite in the early 1900s. Stellite was world’s strongest known metal alloy. The Elwood Haynes Museum in Kokomo, Indiana, tells the story of Haynes, his inventions and his contribution to history. Read more
