Road Trip to Indianapolis - Day 2

After a restful night, Kate and I set forth to find Bloomington's Farmers' Market. We stumbled upon a small Arts fair at first, but found the Market just two streets away. The fruits, vegetables, and flowers were all beautiful and there were many people milling around despite the cloudy sky showing signs of rain. For breakfast, we had delicious tamales (Kate had mango chicken and I had black bean/goat cheese). They were wrapped in corn husks that we found out were used for steaming and were not supposed to be eaten. The portion seemed deceiving small but turned out to be very satisfying. After breakfast, we set out on the ~40 minute drive to Indianapolis.

Sometimes traveling to other cities is useful just to be able to check off a place where you never want to live. Indianapolis sports several skyscrapers, a cute canal where families were enjoying paddle boats and kayaks, and a great mall that resembles the one in Vernon Hills (same shops, but better architecture), but it came out to be quite boring and unattractive as a place to live. Kate and I first visited the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial, which was unapproachable due to construction, but was very beautiful (and only a tiny bit shorter than the Statue of Liberty). Then we visited the mall, followed by a long walk in the heat past the Capitol building (great architecture) and some other interesting buildings to get to the canal. By then, we were very hot and tired, so we sat under a tree in the shade by the canal and watched families paddling by. THEN we walked all the way back to the mall, and I headed to the car to put more coins in the parking meter while Kate went into the Italian restaraunt 'Buca' to rest. It turned out to be a very long walk to the car and back to the restaraunt, but I could tell that it was going to have a great impact on my legs ;) Kate ordered some spicy pasta and I orderded stuffed pasta (two long rolls filled with different cheeses, including one of my favorites, ricotta). Though I was full, I couldn't help buying Praline ice cream at a Chocoloate Cafe after lunch.

On the way back to the car, we stopped by at an adorable, tiny little shop called TeaPots n Treasures. It was stuffed with shelves along the walls and as stand-up islands, and everything was covered in little antique figurines (mostly of tea and teapots) and hundreds of little packets of tea. There was almost no room to maneuver between the walls, shelf islands, and customers! There were several teapots of brewed tea offered as complimentary tasting, and the ones I tried were delicious. I ended up buying a little bag of tea after a joking dispute with one of the sales girl's about the pronunciation of the word 'lemon,' which she said as 'limon.'

As we exited the shop and started for the car, I realized that my ice cream was melting through the bottom of the cone and was dripping everywhere: on my skirt, through the napkin, on the boutique's brochure, the ground, everywhere! I asked Kate to stop by at the nearest cafe to get me napkins, and turned around to throw out the one that was soaking through on the bottom of my cone. As I turned back, Kate pointed at the cafe and mouthed "It's closed." With no other options, I plugged the bottom of the cone with my fingers and we ran to the CVS pharmacy down the street. While I stood outside looking ridiculous and quickly creating a pool of ice cream on the ground, Kate ran in to get me paper napkins. We managed to wrap them around the cone enough that I could gobble dessert down, and there was a bit left over for me to wipe my sticky, ice cream covered hands off. As the ice cream crisis came to an end, we finally got to the car, and both of us just burst out laughing at what had just happened.

Done with Indianapolis, Kate and I filled up the gas for just $3.59/gal (yes, it was amazing) and started for Indiana Dunes. On the way, we stopped by for a quick dinner at a cheap chinese restaraunt. As we finished our food, Kate got up to throw out her garbage and dropped the leftover red, sweet and sour sauce all over the tiled floor! We were so appologetic, and I said to Kate that I was going to be extra careful with my garbage. About 30 seconds later, my bag of unwanted crispy Chinese crackers was all over the floor! We broke out into laughter, appologized profusely, and ran out in embarassment. Neither one of us could stop laughing for the next two minutes. With our moods brightened after dull Indianapolis, we made it to the Indiana Dunes beach half a Phantom of the Opera soundtrack CD later. At the beach, we discovered that the water was way too cold for swimming (big disappointment for me) and that the free astronomy star-gazing event that was going to be held at the beach was canceled because of the cloudy sky. The beautiful sunset that we were looking forward to was hilariously anticlimactic as we had come a bit too late, the clouds were obscuring everything, and the weather had turned from 90 degrees to around 60 with a cold wind blowing. Kate and I took shelter under my blanket and amused ourselves by listnening to the Lake Michigan waves and watching the comical seagulls squawking at each other. It turned out to be quite restful and made the rest of the car ride home much easier. By 8:30 pm Chicago time we left the beach, and by 10 pm we were back in our sweet, wonderful, pristine bubble of Vernon Hills. All in all, we were thankful that a potentially disastrous road trip sans parental units had ended successfully and safely.

~Lisa