On the road

Where haunted meets quirky

Bakers Junction
Smithville, Ind.
3.8 miles from Bloomington
Open: Whenever anyone’s home.

“There’s lots of weird stories about us, but I don’t care as long as they’re still talking about us,” Johnny Baker says.

Baker owns Bakers Junction, a railroad museum, haunted house, and his home. The horseshoe-shaped enclosure is formed by 40-ton cabooses. Old rusting farming equipment and railroad antiques bought at auctions are tacked to the sides of sheds Baker made himself, or sit on shelves and in cases inside his haunted house. There’s a greenhouse with multiple broken windows and stray gourds and melons.

The place feels a bit like a historian’s utopia, a horror movie director’s dream, and a child’s ideal playground. If you’re looking for a short trip to one of Southern Indiana’s most surreal and unpolished jewels, don’t skip this one.

A few things you should know:

• Baker purchased headstones from a friend who was swapping out the old ones in a nearby cemetery for new ones. Baker says people think there are bodies under them.
• Inside the museum, look for a bulletproof glass case with a small glass orb on a key chain. Inside that orb is the tip of Baker’s pointer finger. He sliced it off while cutting stone. He’s interested in selling the key chain.
• Baker was in multiple court battles with the Monroe County Planning and Zoning Department. In 1995, the county wanted Baker, his railcars, museum, and haunted house gone unless he updated his permits. After paying more than $100,000 in legal fees and acquiring multiple binders full of laminated permits, he says he will stay until he’s dead.  
• Baker made a guillotine out of the old wooden seats from Memorial Stadium. It’s eerily close to his front door.

A Short Jaunt

Split the gas and get away
Story, Ind.
26 miles from Bloomington

Blink and you’ll miss this adorable Southern-Indiana town. Stay at Story Inn, which smirks with the slogan, “One inconvenient location since 1851.” Check in with your sweetheart to the Blue Lady room for $129 and turn on the blue light next to the bed. You may be visited by the inn’s friendly ghost. A cozy front porch features a checkerboard with beer cap pieces and the door to one of Indiana’s most delicious down-home restaurants. No more Cracker Barrel, this is true country comfort.

Over the river, through the woods, and across the country

Forget a flight. This winter break, junior Kara Robinson plans to drive her Ford Explorer home to San Diego. She will leave the Gamma Phi Beta house on Jordan Avenue Friday, Dec. 18 and arrive home that Sunday.

The adventure will take her mostly along Interstate 70 and through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada before warming up in sunny California.

Along her 2,131-mile trek, there’s one place she says she won’t miss: Zion National Park.

Utah’s first national park has mild weather, towering cliffs that look like sandcastles against the huge blue sky, hiking trails, and 288 species of birds.

Spinning their wheels

In May, two IU students—senior Julie Bembenista and junior Caitlin Van Kooten— who ride for the Teter Little 500 team joined three friends and set out on a 1,400-mile bike trip. They hopped a train to Colorado with their bikes, then crossed five states before reaching Bloomington. The friends busted a few tires, ate tin-foil dinners, and slept in tents just off the road. Fifteen days later, they rode through a human tunnel of friends who awaited the riders. The greeting party popped streamers outside the courthouse downtown.

Here are a few things the riders encountered between Colorado and Indiana, Van Kooten says:

1. A guy named Washboard Willy. He lives off the grid in Kansas, and wore a baseball cap with tea bags stapled onto it. They ran into him three times in less than 24 hours.

2. Friendly pastors willing to let them sleep in church homes.

3. A racecar track. The riders jumped in a car and rode a couple laps at 120 mph.

4. A group of bike evangelists willing to barter for needed bike parts. They were nice, but hesitant to shake hands.

And don’t forget these essential items, Bembenista says, to take on a long-distance bike trip:

1. Gold Bond powder. You’re in Spandex for the majority of the day. Ouch.

2. Bike tools and parts, especially spare intertubes.

3. Speakers and an mp3 player for listening to music on the road and at camp.

4. A real knife and a real fork because plastic utensils aren’t good for chopping meat. They also melt in campfires.

5. A spare can of baked beans for when you can’t find dinner.