Spring Mill Road photos

A few pictures from my walk along Spring Mill Road turned out all right.

I took this northbound photo at 103rd St., which is just beyond the I-465 overpass. I really like how the road ripples where the two cars are on it. The redbud with its purple-pink flowers is common throughout Indiana. There are tons of them along this part of Spring Mill Road.

Redbud along the roadway

Hard to believe, but this is considered city, since it’s within the Carmel city limits.

Abandoned segment

I wanted to stop to take photos at many places as I drove north from here, but Spring Mill Road is narrow and shoulderless, and I wasn’t sure the Carmel police would understand if I parked in the grass alongside some subdivision. This prevented me from getting a photo of a short abandoned segment of Spring Mill Road.

Update 13 May: I found this photo that shows that this segment of Spring Mill Road had already been rerouted in 1958! Look at the bottom edge of the photo.

Orignally, to stay on Spring Mill you had to jog right onto 116th St and then left onto Spring Mill again. The remnant of the original route follows the line of trees in the photo. I’m pretty sure I remember driving this jog a long time ago. The jog was probably fine when this was just a farm road. But as businesses began to locate in Carmel and people figured out they could avoid congested US 31 (the next road to the east) on Spring Mill, it probably got hellaciously congested. First the road curved to avoid this jog, creating a 4-way stop. Then a year or so ago roundabout-happy Carmel built a roundabout here. The aerial image is from before the roundabout, but the Google Maps label overlay shows it. I used to think that Carmel built roundabouts because they didn’t have enough to do with all their money, but now that I drive up here all the time I find that these things really do keep traffic flowing better.

Sorry, enough roadgeekery, back to the flowers. A couple miles north of 103rd St., in the 12600s, the road is lined with what I think are ornamental cherry trees. Their white flowers create real drama along the side of the road.

Are these cherry blossoms?

These trees’ powerful scent filled the air. I liked how the one in the photo below reaches the ground, just spilling over.

Covered in white flowers

I wished I had time to take more photos, but I was sort of playing hooky as it was. So back to work I went.


Comments

10 responses to “Spring Mill Road photos”

  1. EB Avatar
    EB

    Alas, the rain blew the redbud blossoms down….

  2. Dani Avatar
    Dani

    I look forward to the redbud blossoms every spring and would be delighted if they bloomed through summer. And today I spotted a butterfly; first time this season. Beautiful!

  3. Jim Avatar

    EB, they were still there on my drive this morning!

    Dani, I never noticed redbuds before I moved down here — can’t tell if they don’t have them in northern Indiana, or if I just never noticed them while I lived there.

  4. EB Avatar
    EB

    yes, but their best days were over after the storm.

    Redbuds don’t do as well further north. My dad likes them and tried to transplant one to our area, but while it survived, it never thrived.

  5. Jim Avatar

    The best of the color is definitely gone now.

  6. michianablogger Avatar
    michianablogger

    Do you know what the trees (in the first photo) with the purple flowers are called? I see them a lot around South Bend and Mishawaka. I’d love to know the name of them. I have one on my Rum Village entry.

  7. Jim Avatar

    They’re redbuds. Funny, I don’t remember seeing them when I lived in South Bend many years ago — but that was before I started paying any attention to such things.

  8. Lone Primate Avatar

    Oh, I love stuff like that. There are all kinds of dogleg intersections in my part of town that were “straightened” (by curved new paths) in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I love finding old aerial shots of what they used to look like.

  9. Jim Avatar

    LP, I’m with you on the old aerial shots. The local government here in Indy maintains a site that has aerial shots of the entire county going back in intervals all the way to 1937. It is a marvelous resource.

  10. Lone Primate Avatar

    Man, you’re lucky. Toronto City Archives has a photo search facility but hardly any of it is aerial. Mind you, it’s not hard to get down to where they have the actual 3’x4′ plates, and it’s free to shoot them, so I spend the odd Saturday down in the Annex researching what various parts of Metro used to look like. Nerdpanic! :)

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