NORTH VERNON IN
Apr. 8 2024
PART 1
The entire population of the world descended on North Vernon to see the total solar eclipse and accompanying bee attack. This outing also yielded a batch of road photos that will make you bip.
Every time I think of Lawrenceburg, I think of how there were two sibs in elementary school who lived there. I don't know why kids from Indiana attended a not-so-great school in Kentucky, but I guess I'm just weird.
We start on I-275 in Kentucky! The Graves Road exit had just opened in 2020. As that was 2020, TV interviews with highway officials were through a telescreen that sounded like a transistor radio with sand in the speaker. The road also became KY 495 in 2020. The old exit 8 - for KY 237 - became exit 6.
I-275 crosses the Ohio River to Indiana using the Carroll Lee Cropper Bridge. This shows the traffic jam created by the eclipse. The bridge was named for a Boone County, Ky., official who criticized the overdevelopment that was menacing the area: "It spoils the nature of the county." The span's construction lasted from 1968-77.
Not a road, but another transport feature: the flooded Ohio River. The Great Miami River flows into it here. I think this shows an island called Flannery Island that is split by Ohio and Indiana. The power plant is in Ohio.
Now we're in Indiana, and this is a usually dry floodplain.
The official Indiana welcome on I-275.
This sign warns against using IN 1. When I lived in Highland Heights, if we wanted to go somewhere like Indianapolis, we sometimes took I-275 here and IN 1 to I-74. If you think that's weird, we did it because I-275 has a strange shape.
US 50 has this unusual crossing of Tanners Creek in Lawrenceburg. Going west, US 50 rises onto this viaduct, but US 50 east meets streets at grade.
Buckeye Street crosses the Muscatatuck River into North Vernon. This used to be US 50.
Buckeye Street - old US 50 - in North Vernon. North Vernon is not the county seat of Jennings County. That honor goes to nearby Vernon - though the 2020 census shows North Vernon beats Vernon in population 6,608 to 236, a factor of 28. Best all, 6,608 is divisible by 236, so that's convenient. Vernon is also said to be the only Indiana town with an elected marshal and the site of the state's first public playground.
Buckeye, 5th, Madison, Walnut, and a rail line all come together in the heart of North Vernon.
Southwest on Walnut - old US 50 still.
The eclipse is already starting to darken the sky at this park in North Vernon. This is looking northwest on IN 3/7 (State Street). See the McDonald's and Wendy's signs? Pay close attention to those. This park is also where a monstrous bee chased us and I fell while eluding it.
The restaurant signs were lit up at the height of the eclipse, just after 3 PM.
Zooming back out at the Ron McDon and Wendy's.
You can see the McDon and Wendy's again as we head northwest on IN 3/7. The eclipse was still making the sky darker than normal.