Drive in the country today.

6/16/2014

Today we explored French Lick after breakfast.  It didn't take too long!  We found a very nice little arts and crafts shop with artwork by various artists and a lot of interesting and fun yard art and signs. Too bad we don't have room to carry anything home.  For lunch we were going to try Larry Bird's old restaurant, 33 Brick Street, but it was closed for lunch.  So, we ended up at Denny's!!  Larry Bird is from French Lick, it's main claim to fame.  And, the invention of tomato juice!  It was developed by the chef at the hotel restaurant!

Later in the day, we took a self-guided tour through  the country side to Mitchell, IN, the home of Gus Grissom, the astronaut.  There is a group dinner tonight at the Spring Mill Park Inn, which is just outside Mitchell, so we decided to go early and look around downtown Mitchell.  Well, there is not much to downtown Mitchell, and what few stores are there, are closed on Mondays.  It seems like almost everywhere in Indiana, the stores and many restaurants close on Monday.  There was a hardware store open and one antique store.  Turned out OK because one of our traveling companions started overheating and we spent what time we had in town working on his car so he could get home. The owner of the antique store was nice enough to give us a bucket of water to refill the radiator.  By the time we got we got the car ready to go, it was time to head to the park for dinner.

The "Prince of Darkness" strikes again.

An exciting time in Mitchell, IN

Spring Mill State Park is a very nice park.  It was very neat to see the entire parking deck at the Inn filled with MGs.  After dinner, we drove around the park to see an old Pioneer Village that was composed of about 10 turn-of-the-century buildings with a large grist mill as the center piece.  We also saw a raccoon in a creek washing his food.  (or going to the bathroom, we couldn't tell).

Parking lot full of MGs

Afterwards, we made out way back to French Lick.  After dark,  we took a shuttle to the very upscale West Baden Springs hotel about a mile away.  Along the way, we saw about 5 deer on the road and one in the parking lot where the shuttle turns around!   The hotel was built in 1903 and had the largest unsupported dome in the world until the Houston Astrodome was built.  At night, there are colored lights that shine on the inside of the dome in a kaleidoscopic fashion.  I took my camera to take pictures and found out my battery was dead!  So, we walked around the hotel a bit and then took the shuttle back to our hotel.