Friday night my friend Christy asked me if I wanted to accompany her and her son Eli to the Cumberland Covered Bridge Festival in Matthews, Indiana. Since I have a really weird goal of wanting to eventually attend every festival in Indiana, I said yes. Obviously, I took some pictures (there are also some pictures from the day on Instagram -- like the awesome ice cream we got!).

When we first arrived, it was raining a bit. We went to some of the garage sales in Matthews. I didn't buy anything, but Eli spent the dollar he had gotten from the Tooth Fairy to buy a stuffed dog, which he named Lucky.

Lucky the dog

We were hungry, so we stopped by the mini donut stand for food. Though the mini donuts (and the fried apple slices!) sounded amazing, we were planning on stopping by a local ice cream place before heading home, so I just got a pretzel. Christy got a tenderloin, which is pretty much the state food of Indiana, and Eli got a deep-fried cheeseburger, which was...interesting.

Annie's Mini Donuts

By the time we finished eating, the skies were clearing up.

a flag blowing in the wind on the streets of Matthews

We headed on down to the actual festival, which was on the other side of the Cumberland Covered Bridge.

Cumberland Covered Bridge

There were a lot of food stands and vendor stalls, as well as several vintage tractors.

dreamcatchers for sale

John Deere tractors

After leaving the festival, we headed to Ivanhoe's. Ivanhoe's is an ice cream place in Upland, Indiana (home of Taylor University) that is pretty legendary throughout the state, because they have 100 flavors of shakes and sundaes. Though I grew up a county away, I had never been before, so I was excited to go. I got an almond joy sundae (vanilla soft serve, hot fudge, almonds, and coconut), and it was really good (there was a lot of hot fudge, which is never a bad thing). Since Garfield creator Jim Davis is from Fairmount (not far from Matthews and Upland), Garfield is all over east central Indiana. There's even a Garfield Trail you can follow to see all of the Garfields! There was one outside of Ivanhoe's, and I almost missed it.

Scream for Ice Cream, the Garfield statue outside of Ivanhoe's

Though the festival itself wasn't terribly exciting, I still had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get to spend the day with Christy and Eli!

And ice cream happened, which is never a bad thing.