Our Dixie Highway adventure brought us to Bloomington soon enough. I’m pretty sure the Dixie passed through town on Walnut St. Given that Walnut is one way northbound to just south of downtown today, we jogged over one block to the west and followed College Ave. instead.
There’s a ton to do and see in Bloomington, including touring the absolutely gorgeous campus of Indiana University. Downtown Bloomington benefits greatly from the nearby university, as students walk over to spend their money. Downtowns in so many medium-sized Indiana cities suffer, with plenty of vacant and deteriorating buildings. Bloomington is a wonderful exception.
Like so many Indiana towns and small cities, Bloomington boasts a courthouse square.

These figures stand watch over the justice meted out within these walls.

This being a college town, you are likely to come upon anything. So I should not have been surprised by this sculpture of a brain on the courthouse lawn. Same goes for this fellow.

Maybe it was because Dawn and I were hungry – it was lunchtime, after all – but I failed to get shots of the road through Bloomington other than this northbound shot from the courthouse’s northeast corner.

Bloomington was hopping this Saturday. Lots of people were out walking downtown; many milled around the courthouse for some sort of early autumn festival. A bunch of kids were tossing a football around on the courthouse lawn. Somehow that felt all kinds of like America.
I found another busy downtown on US 50. North Vernon is soon to be bypassed, though. See it now!
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