Our destination this day was Elkhart, Indiana – home of a collection of ‘Quilt Gardens’ and ‘Quilt Murals’. But first a quick stop at the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond.
Hammond is in Lake County, which is a mix of industrial, suburban and farming set along the south shore of Lake Michigan. Their welcome center is built to represent the waves, silos and steel mills of the county.
The movie A Christmas Story was set in Hammond (although filmed in Cleveland and Toronto). One of the famous scenes is where a little kid is talked into sticking his tongue on a freezing cold flag pole, thus getting stuck. It is recreated here in a statue.
Once we arrived in Elkhart we saw our first mural.
As well as the quilt garden. To us the gardens were somewhat of a bust – they are difficult to see because they are too flat to the ground, and just appear as a mix of flowers (albeit nice flowers)
The entire county did have a collection of decorated elk though.
We spent an hour at the Wellfield Arboretum, which has a nice collection of sculptures, plants and flowers.
A steel rodent?
There were also some water features along with a number of painted ‘sticks’.
The arboretum was well kept.
In nearby Middlebury is the ‘World’s Fair Gardens’. These gardens were first presented in the Chicago Century of Progress fair in the 1930s.
They were later moved to Middlebury where they have existed ever since.
The Middlebury site had a quilt gardens that was easier to see as it was on a small hill.
RDZ Photography 