October 19-20, 2017 Leesburg to Peru, Indiana

We drove down to another harvest host Tippy Winery in Leesburg, Indiana.

Tippy Creek comes from near by Tippecanoe Lake. Their sign, a sculpted stump with a wine barrel in the front, a frog in the lawn by the bus, sips for nips Tippy Winery breast cancer awareness, swirl, sniff, sip, savor signs on the way in. The bus at Tippy Winery. They have huge lawns in this part of the country. It is wet enough they don't need to water, they just have to mow.

There is also a brewery in Leesburg Hop Lore. Zippy the winery dog at Tippy, they have a wine named Zippy Tippy,under him is the brewery in an old historic mill, their logo and some mill stones from town and one of the posters for their beer. Downtown Leesburg has the original old brick pavers on their streets. 

John at Hop Lore with his Citra IPA. In the background is Joe the owner brewer. We had a nice conversation with him. He has a couple degrees in genetics and microbiology and he was talking way over my head about the chemistry and microbiology of his beers. They were very good. Evening light on a farm on the way back.

Sunset at the winery.

Today we are camped at the Grissom Air Museum. You can see us between the planes with a missile pointed at the bus. A view of part of the planes from the top of the fire tower.

John in the cockpit of an F4 I think. Lots of cool stuff inside too. John is standing in front of a BIG atomic bomb. 

I love the emblems the troops had. After the air museum we drove to the next town of Kokomo. There is the Kokomo glass factory. We missed the tour by a few hours, the next one is Tues at 10am. What a bummer, will have to come back here to see it another time.  Kokomo is the oldest glass company in the USA. They opened in 1888. Below the front of the factory is a crate of some of their opalescent glass. 

Glass signs out front, the warehouse of glass and blown items. They take the end pieces of the glass and grind them up and blow them into art work which is available in their gift shop. Orange maple leaves, a red ripper bomb, the largest sycamore stump in the world. It has a circumference of 50 feet. The wind blew the top off it. A fungus on a dead tree, a 17 inch metal praying mantis downtown and a bee sculpture. 

In the same park with the world record sycamore stump is this covered bridge. It was a beautiful day outside, 78 degrees was the high. Some trees in the park. 

Also in the same park is the worlds largest steer. He weighs 4,700 pounds. He is about as big as an elephant. He slipped on ice and broke his leg so they put him down, but then had him stuffed for display. After all that excitement we went to not one, but two breweries. that makes three in 24 hours. The Half Moon and The Tin man. John was happy.