A 360-degree view

A story I first told on 22 January 2009. I began exploring Indiana’s back highways in 1988 when I first had a car and often drove it from my South Bend home to Terre Haute, where I went to school. Using a state map, I plotted a course that left US 31 at Rochester, following State Road 25 to Lafayette and then a series of other roads to Terre Haute. I was not yet in touch with my inner road geek and I had never heard of the Michigan Road and knew very little about the Dixie Highway, both old names for this stretch of highway between Rochester and Logansport. I was only trying to find a more interesting route than boring old US 31. Fulton is the first town south of US 31 on State Road 25. It was once a railroad town, but the tracks that bisect it have long since been removed. One of the first times I entered Fulton southbound, a light rain had just started to fall. I had just passed the Speed Limit 35 sign on the edge of town, but had not yet slowed down, when a little old lady stepped…