Named in honor of Kimsey and Louise Sample, Sample Gates mark the western entrance to campus at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Stained-glass windows adorn the Rose Well House, a limestone gazebo, on the Indiana University campus.
Indiana Memorial Union, on the campus of Indiana University, hosts a hotel, bookstore, coffee shop, study space and more.
Beck Chapel, which has stood on the Indiana University campus since 1956, is a non-denominational chapel.
An aging ginkgo is just one of the many varieties of trees on the campus of Indiana University.
While the main buildings on the campus of Indiana University are constructed in limestone, features and decorative accents vary.
Beautiful. Strong. Stately.
The buildings on the original main campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, are all constructed from limestone. Brick-paved paths link together building after building.
When my husband and I visited early one Saturday morning, we headed first to Sample Gates. Accentuated, like many other parts of campus, with crimson and cream blooms, the gates mark the western entrance to campus.
After crossing through the gates, we continued up the brick sidewalk until we reached the journalism building, where a statue of war correspondent Ernie Pyle commemorates the Indiana native. His likeness is seated, captured in front of a typewriter flanked by notebooks and a coffee mug. The imposing building behind him housed the media school.
Except for a lone jogger, we were the only two people in the area. Too numerous to count, squirrels scuttled about stuffing their cheeks with acorns. A lone deer, its head to the ground nibbling on the grass, inched up from the nearby woods.
A hearty, dense forest boasting a variety of trees borders the collection of academic buildings. Beautiful oaks, white oaks, redbuds, evergreens line the paths.
Just as we allowed ourselves to settle into the tranquility of our surroundings, the bells of a clocktower chimed to announce the quarter-hour mark. We imagined, on a school day, this sound would nudge the students on to class.
Noting the differences in the shapes, sizes and dimensions in the limestone, my husband and I continued to explore the paths.
While we were interested in doing so, we hadn’t entered any of the buildings until we came upon Indiana Memorial Union. Inside, we were surprised to find an eclectic mixture of features: a memorial room, a Starbucks and a spacious study room complete with a fire glowing in the fireplace.
As we continued to explore the campus, we stopped for a moment at a picturesque fountain just outside the Lilly Library.
Inside the library, we perused the cases housing rare collections of books. A Gutenberg Bible, Ian Fleming’s GoldFinger manuscript, complete with his red-pen remarks, edits and revisions, an early edition Huckleberry Finn novel inscribed by Mark Twain and more.
So much was to be seen and appreciated both inside and out of the beautiful, strong and stately structures.
(Note: Marjorie Appelman is an English, communications and journalism teacher at Mason County High School and co-founder of the travel blog, Tales from the Trip, which is on Instagram and Facebook. She can be reached at marj.appelman@gmail.com.)
