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.