Sunday, May 07, 2006

Indy Mini : Part 1, Getting to Indiana

Jason and I left for Indianapolis on Thursday, May 4th around 2:30 in the afternoon. We were having some car troubles which luckily was only a brake pad problem and I had to get some work done before we took off for the long weekend. This ended up being a good idea because I made some progress in my analysis and made my advisor happy which is always nice when you are taking the next day off.

Our first stop before we left the city was at a north side bakery called Dinkels. This place has been there since 1922 and I don't think that much has changed since they first opened. I remember going there as a kid and they have this huge window just filled with different cookies and other tasty treats. I am assuming as a child my dad would have to pull my tongue off the glass, but as an adult I can restrain myself (barely). We picked up some pastries to take to my Aunt Donna and Uncle Ken's house where we would be staying for the next few days. Everyone loves that I still live in Chicago and so can bring the good bakery stuff. After one more stop to grab a sandwich we were on our way.

We ended up getting off I-65 a bit south of Lafayette and driving on some smaller roads to get to my aunt and uncles' new lake house. We would be driving through some really really small towns and I honestly thought it was still 1955 in some of them. Just really old general stores or liquor stores and kids sitting out on park benches looking through magazines and what have you. We passed through all kind of farm land and at one point ended up on a gravel road. At one of the farms there were just cows standing there. We stopped so I could take some pictures and they all looked at us like...."Yes, you don't belong, can we help you?" As I kept taking pictures Jason laughed at me and said, "You know most people leave the country and go to the city as tourists and take pictures, but you leave Chicago and can't stop taking pictures of fields and corn and small towns"

We got to the house around 7pm and had some really tasty pizza. My dad and stepmom had already arrived and it was SO good to see them. Now that they live on their sailboat currently in the Florida area, I don't see them as often as I used to. The last time we go together was for the Christmas holidays and so it was a nice reunion.

We had a pretty laid back night just catching up with the family and went to bed earlyish because all of us had gotten up pretty early that morning. Unfortunatly I couldn't fall asleep that night. I was so worried about the race and my pace and so on that I layed awake and watched a bunch of Nick@Night. I think I probably got a few hours in and the next day it was on to the expo.

Stay tuned for the expo report where Leah meets a famous runner and our race report where we finish...well you'll just have to wait and see.

2 comments:

Joe said...

What kind of pastries did you bring? Do they make kringles there? I love those things but no one in Vancouver seems to make them.

LeahC said...

I usually will bring some coffee cakes but by the time we got there they were all out. So we got some danishes and then we got this flakey roll things that had almond flavors in one and apricot in the other....but I don't know what they were, but I do know that they were delicious!