An Indiana Ride!

It had been since COVID-19 that Annie Jansen and I headed out for an overnight jaunt. We jumped when opportunity knocked to take an Indiana ride! Traveling through Danville, Indiana together we attended the Indiana Media Day at the Indianapolis Speedway. Hosted by Visit Indiana and Visit Hendricks County and Indiana Foodways Alliance at the Staybridge Suites in Plainfield, Indiana we had several fun stops to and from!

The Meet Up for our Indiana ride

Annie and I met up at 12:30 on a Tuesday in Tuscola. She parked at a relative’s and I picked her up. Before leaving, we decided to eat lunch. Much to our delight, we discovered Flesor’s Candy Kitchen! We were entranced the moment we walked in the door. First ordering lunch, then we had to have a piece of candy before heading out. We couldn’t believe it when Ann Beck took us back to the kitchen so we could see behind the scenes where they make the candy! Later I learned that the store originally opened in 1901. After closing in 1977 granddaughters Ann Flesor Beck and Devon Flesor Nau came back to open the store and they are still using the same candy making methods their Greek grandfather did!

Cool Excercise Stop

Excited to avoid the highway we trekked along Route 36. We saw one historic sign in Illinois that was a bit lame. In the town of Hume we made a stop. I remembered that there was a Hume tractor made here many years ago. Near a little park we saw a marker dedicated to Dr. Edward A. Doisy a native of Hume, Illinois. He received the Nobel Prize in 1943 for Physiology of the Chemical Nature of Vitamin K!

After passing into Indiana, we started looking for a place to stop and walk. In one of the small Indiana towns (sorry forget the name) we saw the coolest 1/3-mile loop park. It was Pointer Pathway, we had never seen this before! They had exercise equipment literally at stops along the way. It was a great scenic stop with just a long enough walk to stretch our legs before hitting the road again!

Staybridge Inn & Suites

We used WAZE in combination with Google directions to stay off the highway. We drove through beautiful downtown Danville, Indiana and I pointed out Hendrick’s County’s Mayberry Cafe where I had dined before to Annie. She was amazed by beautiful architecture in this lovely town! Soon we arrived at the comfortable Staybridge Suites. The best thing about this property is that there is an evening get together time and a hot breakfast. Besides the roomy suites with a kitchenette, the comfort level is sky high at this hotel! Best of all besides traveling with Annie I met up with my cousin Carrie Steinweg blogger of Chicago Foodie Sisters. This she does this along with my cousin Becky Clark!

Dinner at Brew Link Brewpub

A large group of bloggers all gathered and were chauffeured to the Brewpub. Located on the Oak Tree Golf Course, we had a room to ourselves and sampled some great appetizers while many of us tried out a sample of their brew options. I like light beer so I sampled a strawberry blonde beer, quite good I thought. Our favorite appetizer was the amazing pretzel sticks! I had a great burger with a Ceasar salad yum. Our hosts took good care of us.

Media Day and Museums!

The next day Annie and I got up and worked out in the exercise room another great perk at the hotel. I walked the treadmill and Annie did Pilates and strength training. After a hot breakfast, we headed to the Indianapolis Speedway! There we met in a conference room where several CVB’s were waiting to greet us. It was wonderful this was the first-time greeting others like this since the Pandemic. This event offers the opportunity for writers and destinations to meet and assess whether they are a fit for one another. They can see if the blogs we write will be a good story line for the destination and vice versa!

Indiana has amazing places to go with quite a variety geographically and culturally. I look forward to trying to visit many locations down the road!

Annie got lots of information for stops for she and her sisters in the future as well. We had a great lunch, then headed over to the exciting Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. We had fun looking at all the cars. The older ones were our favorites and we had great fun posing with the huge winner trophy. Hearing the story of how they create a mold of the winner and place it on this trophy was the highlight of our visit! Annie and I think we need our faces somewhere on the trophy too!

Shopping and Home

“Hit the road jack!” was our theme after the museum. We headed out again avoiding the highway with Route 36 our byway. We kept going until we found the picturesque town of Rockville. In 2020 my husband Keith and I stopped at a tractor show here and loved the town. Annie had previously been on a bus trip here as well. We parked and shopped. We both found several things. I got a bit of Christmas shopping done Hoosier style!

After this we scoobied on into Illinois and decided to give Joe’s Pizza a try for our supper in Tuscola. The food was great, rib sticking and filling.

We finished up dinner and the clouds turned dark. It was as if the sun was shining only in Indiana. Annie got in her car and we both drove the hours to our homes in falling rain and fog. Indiana was delightful, Illinois sadly not so much! It was a wonderful trip, now we just have to get out the calendars and the maps and plan, plan, plan!

Where is your next Hoosier destination, let me know, I’d like to hear!