About Benton County, IN

I gave myself a holiday present this year, and drove (with my younger sister) to have lunch with my other younger sister in Indianapolis.

That's right... she lives in Columbus and we drove out from Chicago to meet her "bout" halfway.

Lunch was nothing fancy, just a triad of siblings sitting, laughing, eating (it wouldn't be a May event, without some eating), and a little driving our waitress at Applebee's (on 421 North) a little crazy, sitting way too long, laughing way too loud and overstaying our Applebee's welcome.

Along the way, we drove through a field of Wind Turbines which were impressive enough for me to drag out the i-phone, and see what I could learn about them.

And, yes, these photos were taken on my iphone, through the windshield of my sisters VW Bug (she was driving) going 70 miles per hour (or so)... so cut me some slack.

I learned that what we were passing through on Interstate 65 was called the Fowler wind farm and was part of three wind farms in the area, amounting to almost 900 of the turbines you see in the photo, spinning happily along with a mild breeze. They were an impressive site.

To give you some idea of their stature... the "stem" averages about 250 feet to the turbine itself and the propeller blades have a "wingspan" of 250-313 feet themselves.. (adding an impressive 125-156 feet in height to the already gigantic stems).

Fowler wind farms call themselves the largest wind farm in the U.S., perhaps the world, and have enough turbines to produce 600-800 MW of power. Just how much power is that, you may ask, and what does that mean to the real world?

Well, I'm glad you asked... Wikipedia says that 600-800 MW (which I believe is Mega Watts) of power is enough to power 200,000 average American Households! (I don't know if that's per day, or per year... it was very unclear...anyone who can answer that, I'll update this story).

It was almost as impressive driving back home at night, as each of these turbines has a little red blinking light atop it's turbine, and they all blink in unison... as far as they eye can see.

Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, blinky, blinky, blinky, blinky, blinky

... well you get the idea. Fun, huh?

Oh, and lunch was grand!