The Adventures of Annie and Mitch: Indiana- My home and native land

Fort Wayne- our Eastern most destination and first stop in Indiana. I was born there and much of my mom’s family still lives there, so we stopped in for a few days to visit. We got to see my nearly 95 year old grandpa (and his naked cat and collection of naked statues), and lots more relatives. We had dinner, at Casa of course, with my grandpa and his wife, my uncle Jimmy and Aunt Maureen, Aunt Nancy (previously featured in Ranching adventures), cousin Katie and her husband and kids. And we stayed with my Uncle Pat and Deann and had dinner on other nights with my cousin Emily and her fiancé Joel and my cousin Sean. We also stopped by the old Fort (Wayne). I've never been, at least that I can remember. It wasn't open, so we looked around, confirmed it did indeed appear to be a fort, and left before the humidity killed us.

Highlights of Fort Wayne were obviously the abundance of naked statues and my Uncle Pat’s house. He has an indoor pool- which we enjoyed while floating in pool lounge chairs and watching TV. But the best part of his house is the brand new Jet bathtub. I’m not usually a big bath taker, but this tub was so deep and impressive I decided it try it out while Mitch caught up on sleep. I figured I’d put a little of the cheap $2 Suave body wash I had picked up at a drugstore along the trip in the water. Best decision ever. I filled the tub and the body wash did exactly what I expected- almost nothing. Then I turned on the jets. I did not anticipate that the jets would agitate the body wash into bubbles. But it did. And oh, the bubbles. Mariah Carey has nothing on these bubbles. If you’ve ever wondered how movie bathtub scenes always have tons of bubbles the key is jets. There was at least a 10-12 inch layer of bubbles covering the entire tub. I even woke Mitch up to come see the bubbles (he was thrilled…)

We topped off our Fort Wayne time with dinner, drinks, and Karaoke at “The Office Tavern”. Which is obviously a brilliant name for a bar! The secret to getting Mitch to sing karaoke is giving him several drams of good scotch before hand. In this case Johnnie Walker Platinum. The Office was nearly empty and we each got up for several songs before calling it a night. Sidetone: There are a lot of words to Men in Black.

Then we headed south to the Indianapolis area. We had lunch with Mitch’s friend Jenny from Purdue and browsed Indy Reads Books, the non-profit used bookstore she manages that promotes and benefits literacy education in Indianapolis (very worth a stop if you find yourself in Indy). Then went up to Fishers to have dinner and crash with my cousins Tony and Aleka and their kids- Giovanna and Josephine. Mitch was of course a big hit with Josephine (because every kid loves him) and he made a new friend- their cockatiel PeeWee. Giovanna assisted him with taking a “What Bird Is Right For Me” quiz, because he continues to insist he wants a bird (we have 9 chickens- those are birds, I have informed him), and his results were “Pigeon or Dove”, so if you have a pigeon needing a home, Mitch is your man.

Then we headed to southern Indiana for lunch and an evening with another rowing buddy, Alex. We stayed with Alex last year but he has since moved to a small town and two acres of beautiful land and a darling house with his dogs- Scotty and Watson. Mitch learned to chop wood and is now ready to become a farmer and/or lumberjack. We also got some sweet corn from the side of the road, but since no one was working the trailer of corn, we stuck a dollar bill in the box of bags and grabbed a few ears. Small towns have their pros for sure.

We capped off the evening by grilling some brats, eating our fresh corn, watching the fireflys and marveling at how weird daylight savings time is since it was still light out after 9pm.

Seriously, look at those bubbles!