Midwest Adventure 2018, Part 11: Jeffersonville, Indiana

This is my eleventh post about our adventure traveling through Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana. You can find the first post from this trip here and links to all the other educational US travel our family has done here.

Because I blog about educational travel, I received free admission tickets, discounts, media rates, and other benefits for some of the hotels and attractions we visited throughout the trip. Many attractions we toured are free to everyone. I paid full price for the rest. This has no bearing on my reviews. Everything I'm sharing is something that I whole-heartedly recommend. If you notice any gaps in my narrative, it is because I didn't love a particular hotel, attraction, or restaurant enough to recommend it to you, regardless of how much I paid or didn't pay.

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Jeffersonville, Indiana

On Friday, I told you all about the fun we had in Louisville, Kentucky. During those three days, we also spent time exploring Louisville's neighbor just across the Ohio River, Jeffersonville, Indiana. The two cities are only about a mile apart, and while Jeffersonville is not nearly as well known as its neighbor, we found plenty there that is well worth a visit.

First and foremost is Falls of the Ohio State Park. It's a really neat place.

We started our visit at Falls of the Ohio at the Interpretive Center. We watched an introductory video, toured the exhibits, and learned a lot about the geography and history of the Ohio River and surrounding area. Many of the exhibits focused on the many Devonian Period fossils we'd see at Falls of the Ohio.

Then we spent some time enjoying the observation deck.

We walked down toward the water... 

... and found our first fossil almost immediately. 

Fossils are pretty much everywhere. 

  

We had a good time looking for fossils and enjoying the beauty of the area, though the rising temperature and humidity made me wish we'd done the outdoors stuff first and saved the air-conditioned interpretive center for midday. 

Our next destination was air-conditioned, thankfully. Schimpff's Confectionary has been operating in the same location continuously since 1891, making it one of the oldest, family-owned candy businesses in the US. 

  

We started our visit in the Candy Museum. It was very interesting, with antique candy wrappers, jars, dispensers, tins, candy-making equipment, and all sorts of other candy-related items. 

Why did I grow up in the era of Avon ladies coming to our door instead of traveling candy salesmen?

Neccos are one of my all-time favorite candies. 

This old-fashioned vending machine dispenses candy at the top instead of having it fall to the bottom. Nearby is the world's largest gummi bear. 

  

After the museum, we had a tour of the Candy Kitchen. We watched as they made 50 pounds of lemon drops.  

  

Check out some of the many molds Schmiff's uses to make their candies. 

The best part was tasting the warm lemon drops right after they were made. Perfection!

We watched chocolates being dipped. We saw workers piping royal icing that will be used to decorate holiday items. It was awesome. So was the ice cream we ordered from the soda fountain.   

Feeling refreshed, we headed out for our next Jeffersonville destination, the Big Four Pedestrian Bridge that connects Jeffersonville with Louisville. It was so hot out that Trevor and I carried umbrellas like parasols to keep the sun off us. 

It was the weirdest thing, but we hadn’t gone 100 steps before the clear blue sky turned black and rain started! It was insane. Literally, no clouds, then black clouds and a downpour. We were the only people around carrying umbrellas and thus the only people who weren’t immediately drenched. We only walked halfway across the bridge (since it was pouring and still hot out - though not nearly as bad with clouds blocking the sun). But we did stand with one foot in Indiana and the other in Kentucky. 

After the bridge, we walked partway down Jeffersonville’s Tree Walk. It's a 1.5 mile trail with interpretative signs marking the 70+ species of trees.

We had dinner at The Red Yeti.

The food was delicious. We highly recommend it!

You have to pose with the yeti. Obviously. 

We really enjoyed our visit to Jeffersonville and are glad we made the effort to cross the river and explore Louisville's northern neighbor.

Tomorrow I'll share the final stop on our midwest adventure, Indianapolis!