More Research

 I wrote about doing research for the third Crochet and Crumpet mystery by playing mini golf.  I took even further this past weekend by actually going to the Indiana town that is the model for the one in the book.  Since the book takes place right about now, seeing the how the trees looked with their bright colored leaves refreshed my memory and reminded me why fall was my favorite season when I lived in Chicago and why it when I like to go back.

The fall weather is gentler than the ups and downs of spring, the hot humidity of summer and bleak coldness of winter.  While I was in Chicago and Indiana, the sky was blue and the temperature warm enough to not need a jacket.  The bustle of the street in my Chicago neighborhood was a nice change from the few dog walkers and joggers I see go by my San Fernando Valley house.  I  got to see the Obama library, though only from the outside as we didn't have tickets to go inside.  Next time.  Now that it is finished with  gardens around it and all the construction stuff gone, the design is growing on me.  It is definitely distinctive.  It is in a spot that I passed everyday when I walked to high school.  

The trip to Indiana gave me fresh insight for the book and reconfirmed  some things that I had written.  I did pass cornfields with dried out stalks just the way I had described in the manuscript.  I stopped at the school house that is the model for the one in the book.  There is a little cemetery across the road from it.  This time I noticed a bench in it I hadn't seen before.  

We stopped to see my property or really my forest since the cottage is long gone and the area has been filled in with trees.  The only hint that there was a house is the outhouse which after all these years is still standing.  Just being there and looking at the acreage brought up all the happy times I spent there.  It was always a big trip to get there.  Before we had a car, we had to walk to the train in Chicago carrying shopping bags of food for the weekend.  We got a ride from the train in Indiana and then we were at the cottage for the weekend.  On the way, we had to pick up a block of ice for the ice box.  

It's so different now.  We drove out there for the afternoon and went around the area going to Michigan City and Valparaiso as if it was no big deal.  It still makes me happy to just be there.