Bloomington

Saturday, July 30 - It's late, and I'm tired, but we're going to the Brickyard tomorrow, and I know I'll have lots of new material, so I want to get this one posted tonight (and it's now 11:00 p.m.).   Correction to earlier blog about the blue buses -- they don't transport people in them, they use them like wagons to transport the melons.  They have removed the seats and windows, and the buses go faster than they can pull the wagons.  Joe straightened me out on these facts (he got behind in his blog editing.)

Joe M. had a couple of appointments this morning, so after Cathy fixed us a delicious bacon/egg casserole for breakfast, she and I drove over to the Farmer's Market.  It is noteworthy that we drove (it's only a couple of blocks) because I got a parking ticket there.  Although we parked directly in front of the sign "Pay to Park," neither of us saw it, so she and I are going to split the $20 fine.  Welcome to Bloomington!  Me and Collins now have common experiences with parking tickets!

Anyhow, the Farmer's Market was a happening event.  There were 5 or 6 rows of vendors, and they really were farmer's produce.  A lot of Amish were merchants at this Market.

We bought a few things, including a bag of freshly popped kettle corn for tomorrow's race.  Cathy didn't remember if they sold it at the track.  Brenda and I always have to have kettle corn at NASCAR in Phoenix. 

We stopped by a local butcher shop because Joe M. is grilling steaks tonight, dropped them off at the house, and then headed out to Monroe Lake, which is where we would have camped if we couldn't get our rig in here.  This is a beautiful reservoir with 152 miles of shoreline.  It is 19 miles long and 2 miles wide at the widest point, with several boat ramps, multiple marinas and a very nice resort.  We even saw some people fishing -- should have been us!

We stopped at the Scenic View restaurant for lunch, and we did enjoy a scenic view.  Joe and I posed for the front side of the statute -- a tender moment.

Here's the senior version of this statute -- in living color!

We drove around more of the lake, and down to the spillway and dam.

 This is Salt Creek coming out of the spillway.

Joe M. is busy with his camera too (and he has a much better camera than I do, plus he's much better at it than I am).

The lake was very busy, with lots of boats and swimmers.  We saw a string of boats all tied together partying and enjoying this beautiful summer day.

Joe thought it was time for me to stick my toe in the water again -- it had been a while, and he told Joe M. my toe was famous because it had been in the Arctic Ocean.  So we drove down to the beach, and Cathy and I got our feet wet.  But the water was bathtub warm, so not very refreshing.

Finally, we headed over to the Fourwinds Resort and Marina, and had a drink.  This is a very nice resort, with a wonderful view from the deck, and a good-sized swimming pool.  Maybe not quite on par with some of the big lodges we saw last year at the national parks, but a nice surprise in this area, which is off the beaten path.

Our final stop was this little business we had passed earlier that had outside on display huge fiberglass animals, as well as some cement yard ornaments.  I really wanted the bear, and Joe's personal favorite was the hippo with the pink mouth.  But the fish was also really nice, and there was an elephant bench that was quite unique.  And the horses and wagon was quite nice.  But I need to figure out how to get that bear in the RV.

We got back to the house about 6:30, hot and tired.  I came out to the RV and did yesterday's blog, then Joe and I watched the Nationwide race.  Cathy had run out to Kohl's to get a pair of shorts to wear tomorrow, and Joe M. started making the peach pie.  We had a great steak dinner (at 10:00 p.m., a half-hour earlier than last night, so we're doing better), but the pie was too hot for tonight, so we can look forward to that when we get back from Indianapolis tomorrow.  We are leaving at 6:30 a.m. (Yikes!), so it sounds like it will be another long day.  We just hope it is not too hot (yes, Arizona, I know its hotter there). 

On the Road Again

Friday, July 29 - Before we could leave this morning, we had a couple of errands.  Lucille wanted peaches, so I drove down to the peach farm before Joe even got out of bed.  But Indiana peaches are certainly a thing of beauty!  (Now it's Saturday evening and we haven't even eaten one yet, but Joe Myers MAY make a peach pie, so we are holding out for that.)

On the way to get the peaches, I passed several fields of watermelon pickers. Indiana is very busy right now, and is very green and pretty -- looking good!

And this (along with cantaloupes) is a very familiar sight on the road, as the melons roll off the wagons on the way back to the packing sheds.  (Made me wish I had a fork with me)

Back at the ranch, I happened to be outside when one of the watermelon semis went down the road -- this goes on 24/7 right now, and I bet there are 50 trucks a day on this road.  Lucille likes to watch them go by -- I'm sure it reminds her of days gone by, although there was never the volume of truck traffic back then.

Next, I got Joe up and we ran to town to get his morning soda, and to stop at Brad's again for some watermelons and cantaloupes for the road (we took one each to Cathy and Joe).  So, when we got back, Lucille had decided to defrost the refrigerator on the back porch (?), so Joe got out the hairdryer to move that process along.  We finished that up, and "decamped," and got on the road about 10:45.  It was 83 degrees, but heading toward 95.

We headed to French Lick to meet up with Cathy and Joe at the casino, down a very windy, but scenic highway.

We got to French Lick at 12:05 (5 minutes late, but Joe and Cathy were another 10 minutes later, so that was ok) -- 72 miles for us.

Just before we got to French Lick, we came past the West Baden Springs Hotel, which has been renovated in the last few years and is really beautiful.  I'll get back to this.  The Belterra Casino & Resort has also had an uplift, and so I got to spend a couple hours (and a couple dollars) there -- in fact, Joe, Joe and Cathy left me there alone while they went to lunch!  This resort even had a croquet course (and Joe really wanted to play it, so we may have to come back here).

When they all returned from lunch, Joe M. toured us through this resort.  He grew up in this area, and has been here on business (and he and Cathy even stayed here), so he was very knowledgeable.  Then we drove around town to locate the house that Larry Bird built for his mother with his first NBA paycheck.  We didn't find it on this round, but did find it later.

Next up was a tour of the West Baden Resort.  The towns of West Baden and French Lick sort of run together.  We could smell the hot springs here (called Pluto Water), and this resort has a giant atrium that is absolutely beautiful.  We had a drink here, and relaxed for a while.  One another one of these chaise lounge chairs were an older couple who had fallen asleep.  I actually wondered if they were statutes, or live people, so Joe M. went over with his camera.  He is going to e-mail me the photo, so I'll try to post it tomorrow.

 The dome ceiling. 

 Beautiful fireplace.  This is sculpted, not just a painting.

 We toured these grounds as well (it was pretty hot by now), then made a few more passes through town trying to find Larry Bird's house.  Finally, we were successful (it was actually on the first road we tried earlier, we just didn't go far enough.)

 Basketball court

 Relatively modest house, but this was probably in the early 80's, so quite a splash in this little town.

This property is for sale, so here's the info for anyone interested.

Back to the casino to get the RV, then we stopped for fuel (it was 21 cents cheaper here than 5 miles down the road).  We stopped again at Spring Mill State Park to dump our tanks, since we have been at Lucille's for 8 days.  This is a really nice park, one I would like to come back to.  While Joe was dumping the tanks, a tractor/wagon went by with a bunch of kids on a hayride.  Now that certainly brought back good memories for me!

We still had some miles to go, so on we went.  We did see a deer just before dark, but it was after 9:00 by the time we got to Cathy and Joe's, and we still had to park.  Joe mentioned that this was probably the tightest place he's parked, but, there was never any doubt that he could get it in there.  And he did it just before a little thunderstorm passed through.

(He did have to readjust it the next day because we were pushing against this roof.)

We went into Cathy and Joe's for a little while, but we had not had dinner yet, so we ate White Castle hamburgers at 10:30 p.m.  A long day, 130 miles.