In Lafayette for Beers Across the Wabash on Sunday, August 25.

To begin a Sunday morning in Lafayette, venture out into the cool air before the sun's had a chance to become heated. Walk across the mostly deserted bridge, where the previous day the beer festival had been. Proceed to 731 Main Street and have breakfast at Serendipity (An Eclectic Eatery).

We then drove to Indianapolis and placed the Crown Vic adjacent to Brugge Brasserie in Broad Ripple, where the plan was to meet Joe and Kris for a light lunch. An hour pacing the Monon Trail was just the right prelude to multiple servings of Harvey (delectable sour ale), alongside frites and mussels.

After relaxation and catch-up, we made a final stop in the Indianapolis neighborhood called Irvington (astride Washington Street, a few blocks from I-465) at Black Acre Brewing Company. The staff was gracious and accommodating, given our arrival only moments before closing time. The beers are very good, and the owners unfathomably youthful. It was a fitting conclusion to the road trip.

In Lafayette for Beers Across the Wabash on Saturday, August 24.

Saturday began with the Lafayette Farmer Market, downtown. The variety of produce on sale seemed to be a bit more diverse than New Albany's, but Lafayette arguably has fewer total booths.

Set-up for the beer festival began early on the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge between Lafayette and West Lafayette, the latter lying beyond the trees in the photo. As a beer festival organized by veteran brewers, Beers Across the Wabash simply is nonpareil; only Hoosier breweries are present, and the crowd well-behaved and knowledgeable. Next year, the event will take place again, but not on the bridge itself, owing to renovation work. It will return to the bridge in 2015. No matter. We'll be there.

In Lafayette for Beers Across the Wabash on Friday, August 23.

Last summer during our visit to the inaugural Beers Across the Wabash, I was hoping for enough time to visit Tippecanoe Battlefield in the nearby town of Battleground. Alas, it was not to be, but this year we hit the road early and made the park just after it opened at 10:00 a.m. 19th-century military thinking is clearly on display; the triangular area upon which the 1811 clash took place is elevated, with a creek on one side and a depression on the other -- an ideal defensive position.

The Indians commanded by The Prophet (Tecumseh's younger brother) attacked, and William Henry Harrison's troops defended. The outcome was no rout, and casualties were considerable given the small numbers engaged, but the attackers ran out of steam and melted away. The War of 1812 followed, Harrison eventually became president, and a mighty phallic obelisk was erected.

Therein lies the point, at least to me. I purposefully referred to "Indians" in the paragraph above, and for the first 170 years or so following the Battle of Tippecanoe, the objective was to celebrate the inevitable triumph of whiteness over red-skinned savagery. Only during the last generation or so have we come to view such events in a more nuanced perspective; the excellent museum on site commences with an overview of Native American culture before proceeding to the arrival of the Europeans.

It had been a foggy Friday morning, and we found the indistinct, hazy solitude beneath the trees to be quite thought-provoking. For those so inclined, as we may be in the future, a Wabash walking path begins at Tippecanoe Battlefield and leads to Lafayette and West Lafayette, roughly seven miles south. It mostly follows tributaries and the river itself, and the trail head provides ample proof of what can be made from such waterways when the will exists to act (see Falling Run, New Albany -- NOT).

Lunch was taken at the always reliable Lafayette Brewing Company, and later our second annual evening meal at La Scala proved even better than the first time in 2012. It didn't hurt to occupy the restaurant's patio on a temperate August night and have a backdrop of the ornate county courthouse, but the food and drink are the lures.

What we did in 1907, we cannot do now.

In 1992, we drove to Indianapolis and took the train to Chicago just for the fun of it. I had an ill-fated job interview in the Windy City, and what I remember about the ride was that we went very slowly owing to tracks rated for freight, not passengers; the only beer on board was Budweiser; and in Lafayette, Indiana, the train halted right in the middle of a downtown street to let passengers on and off.

At some point since then, Lafayette redirected its train tracks to a corridor right alongside the Wabash River, and the eastern approach to the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge (site of Saturday's superb beer festival) is constructed to move walkers over the rails first, and then across the river itself. The station and plaza in front of it both gleam, local buses stop there, and there were people in the vicinity at most hours of the day.

It's a very urban, European tableau, at least until one realizes that only two passenger trains stop at the station each day, one going to Chicago and the other coming back, and then ... outside ... (sighhh) ... it's America, again.  

Bridging the craft beer gap in Lafayette.

The John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge connects Lafayette and West Lafayette, spanning the Wabash River. On Saturday, it was the site of the first Beers Across the Wabash craft beer festival. Above, the bridge is pictured in its everyday guise.

The Hilton Garden Inn lies on the West Lafayette side of the bridge (Lafayette's Amtrak station is on the other end), and on Saturday, the most familiar clue to a coming event was spotted on the street below our window, because where there are Port-a-Potties, there's going to be beer.

Early in the festival, the bridge was filling with samplers. Soon after I took this photo, there no longer was any time to take photos. First-time events are notoriously hard to stage, but the organizers had it mostly right, and it will take place again next August on the same weekend.

Meanwhile, we thoroughly enjoyed what's being offered on both sides of the Wabash. Two hours after the beer event ended, a jazz and blues festival revved up in downtown Lafayette. There was music, street food, and a few civilized pints of Bitter at the Lafayette Brewing Company.

online.com/article/20120825/NEWS/308250048/beers-across-the-wabash">A Beers Across the Wabash fest account in the Lafayette newspaper is here