8-5-2026 Marion to Converse Cardinal Trail Ride

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

We drove to Marion, Indiana, parked by the 31 Club, and rode the Cardinal Trail out toward Swayzee, Sweetser, and Converse before turning around and coming back.

The ride was about 28.1 miles, with a mix of tree-lined trail, old railroad bridges, small-town stops, and a few oddball roadside details. Afterward we met Jennie and friends at the 31 Club and stopped by Ed and Jennie’s on the way home.

Photo log

Rolling out from Marion for our Cardinal Trail ride toward Swayzee and Converse.

A lot of the trail was tree lined which was super nice on a hot day

Lots of nice bridges

I always wonder about needed to fence overpasses so people can't throw stuff at cars?

The trail used to be a railroad track so they tried to minimize the road crossings.

just an example pic of our ride

This is a nice access point for the trail

The trail bordered farmland along a lot of it's run

The Cardinal Trail between Marion and Converse, with the small-town Indiana feel that made this ride memorable. This is Sweetser Indiana.

There was a little covered bridge with some nice tables

Converse Junction

Converse made a good destination point for the Marion-to-Converse out-and-back. This is one of those simple trail-log photos that helps show what the day actually felt like.

The other really cool thing about rails to trails rides on old Railroad tracks is that you see a lot of old buildings and stuff

This guy had built a solar powered chicken coop

moo

Sweetser had a little park and it paid tribute to the old Railroad that was this trail

The bridge had a cool design

Riding through Marion, Indiana. We saw several old cars.

We ended up meeting our cousin at the 31 club!

Ride notes

Route: Marion → Swayzee/Sweetser area → Converse → Marion on the Cardinal Trail.

Draft status: unpublished Wix draft created by Travel Hermes from Eric/Cara photo-review form selections. Images were resized to 1200px wide at JPEG quality 80 and uploaded into Wix Media Manager.