spring broke

Our companions were NOT very psyched for a spring break roadtrip through southern Indiana.



After two hours of driving toward Bloomington, we made a pit stop at DQ and it was perfect. I recommend the cherry chocolate Blizzard.

We spent a night in Bloomington with our awesome hosts, who will soon be moving to Chicago. We will miss them!! L had a blast playing with D and A and their 3 cats.

On Sunday we drove the twenty minutes or so to Nashville, IN and browsed the little shops and stuff for awhile to take advantage of the fine weather. No fudge for us, and this coffee was inexplicably nasty (we actually threw it out, so you know it had to be bad), but the adults did some wine tasting and I personally enjoyed window shopping.

Nashville was pretty dead. Honestly, there's not much to do there unless you want to buy expensive crafts (some of it seems ok; most of it seems ridiculously overpriced stuff you can find elsewhere). We weren't tempted by the quaint little restaurants. You couldn't even pan for gold in off-season.

But that's ok. The Comfort Inn was awesome and also dead and it had a great indoor pool.

The next day we returned to Bloomington and spent a lovely early afternoon at Oliver Winery. The winery is really nice, with a pond in the back with a huge patio, lots of picnic tables, etc. We bought a bottle of wine and had a civilized picnic in the mud with hummus and a baguette that we brought from Bloomingfoods. V was totally into playing in the gravel by the pond. We literally found rocks in her diaper the next day after multiple diaper and clothing changes, which was mysterious.

Nice rock formations in the front, but the giant goldfish were nowhere to be seen in the little pools.

Then we started the inevitable drive home. We decided to stop at West Baden on the way. West Baden is awesome. We hadn't been in something like 5 years, when one could tour the crumbling ruin. It has since been restored and reopened as a fancy hotel with spa. Here are M and L with Sprudel in front of the beautiful fireplace.

I won't bore you with details (it use to be the largest domed structure in the universe or something) but it is very nice. The public bathrooms were amazing; even L was impressed by the gilded mirrors, lotion, and perfectly white hand towels. The towns of West Baden and French Lick have improved a bit since last we were there, but it's still pretty depressing to observe trailers and other crumbling buildings from the perspective of the manicured gardens.

Then we proceeded to Jasper on the way home. I was convinced that the girls would be hideous on the ride, and suggested we stop to eat and tire them out at the Schnitzelbank. I've been wanting to go there for some time; M, not so much. We've driven through Jasper before, but never by the Schnitzelbank, so we stopped to get gas and M asked the woman in front of us where we would find it. She said to drive up the street and look for the glockenspiel. I'm serious.





And there it was. Dinner was ok; needless to say, they don't specialize in vegetarian fare. But the "bountiful" salad bar was pretty good, and V ate some potato pancake. I got a beer, and L and I enjoyed the apple strudel with cinnamon ice cream. My plan worked: they both slept pretty much the rest of the way home.

And that was our spring break.