Indiana Wants Me...

Friday, 23 April, 2010

Indiana Wants Me...

Today starts just way too early for my usual sensibilities, somewhere around Still Too Damn Dark, and There Be A Cup Of Coffee, we roll out of bed, and I struggle to regain what passes for consciousness. As the coffee does it magic thing, and the sky starts to lighten, my mostest wonderous wife manages to put up with my grumblings and sputtering to life with her usual, loving sense of humor.

This fine morning, however unusual at it's arrival to my stream of consciousness we are getting up oh so achingly early to get on the road for our personal Spring Break! The aforementioned mostest wonderous wife in the world had chosen Nashville as our destination, with an overnight layover in Louisville.

So we trundle ourselves to the already mostly packed car, (thank gawd), make sure that Ace the DufusDog is in the back seat, and congratulate ourselves on our super human ability to commence the drive at 7:30 in the fracking morning! WOW! For me this is quite an achievement, no less than finding the Titanic, or winning the Lotto.

The drive down the coast of Michigan was easy, and quite beautiful in it's early Spring wardrobe. The further South we drove, the temperature would gently warm a bit, the sun would shine, and we decided that those items would be good omens of things to come.

A few potty breaks later, (one of the reasons we first new we were so right for each other is, that we seem to operate with the same calibration on our Bladder-O-Meters), and we're being welcomed to Hoosierland, hurray! But soon enough, hunger is approaching, and Ace thinks that he needs to stretch his fuurry feet as well. Hmmm... ok, well, we seem to specialize in wonderful, out of the way, Mom & Pop eateries. Nothing against the Applebee's and Cracker Barrels, but we just prefer honest, local fare. and the Food Gawdz usually smile on us in our eternal quest to avoid the chains. In this instance, that most certainly was true! If, for whatever odd reason, you manage to get to Argos, Indiana, then you simply must stop at The Log House Restaraunt.

Home made food, like you would find at GranMa's, friendly service, and a rustic decor all conspire to fill your tummy, without emptying your wallet. I dived, headfirst, into a piled-on Pulled Pork BBQ sanny, with perfectly greasy Onion rings (yes, Onion Rings do need a certain amount of grease to enhance the experience, but not so much as to be dripping, or soggy), while Barb fell in lust with her Grilled Turkey & Cheese on Walnut Cranberry bread. But the true discovery was the Cranberry Apple Chutney! Oh My Gawd... It was such heaven that we bought a bit extra for the road...

So, push on we did, and down the road we go. Our next break to stretch crampy leg muscles would involve our favorite pastime, Geocaching. We've been active in this little hobby cum addiction cum sport cum social network for somewhere around nine years now. We've done Geocaches that were ridiculously easy, to insanely difficult. We've managed to find, and even place caches in 4 countries, and almost every State that surrounds Lake Michigan, as well as many other lands. Yet, somehow, despite all our expertise and travels across that particular piece of land, finding a cache has always eluded us! We've tried "Park & Grabs" that refused to be grabbed, we've attempted mildly difficult caches that became imposserous, and even had thought to break our Susan Lucci style of always being nominated and never getting the prize with some downright absurd caches. Each time we came up as empty handed as the OJ Alibi Club. Ahhh... but this time, this was finally the charmer! At long last Susan Lucci wins the Emmy, and we find the cache! The song birds chirped merrily to each other, and the villagers all came out to the town square to dance in a spontaneous, yet precisely choreographed, Waltz. Yes, Indiana finally wanted us!

Back to car, with treats for Ace, and back "On The Road Again", a smooth sail the very long rest of the way thru Indiana, and at long las we pull into our hotel in Louisville. Unlike eateries, we do prefer the chains when it comes to having a clean and comfprtable room to crash for the night. Happily, at the Comfort Suites there, Dufusdog was welcomed, I got points, and we all enjoyed a great room. My wallet also enjoyed the price, so all was good.

There was a DECCA convention in town (13,000+ High Schoolers, with chaperones, who were there to compete in some Business competition). This means that Ace had a LOT of loving from all the girls, and made many new life long friends. We found dinner at another local establishment, authentic Mexican, yum! El Caperal served us some wonderful tummy stretchers, and Barb enjoyed a genuine Margarita, while sipped down a Modelo Especial.

Back to the hotel, have Ace take us for a walk, and then to soon bed, perchance to dream. first however, was the not inconsequential matter of removing a tic, that had successfully buried it's tiny, and yet quite disgusting head into Ace's shoulder. Apparently said tic didn't get the memo from two days prior, when Barb (being the good Mommy) has deposited Anti Flea & Tic on the dog. Well, ok, it must be a foreigner from Hoosierland, and thus didn't subscribe to our Michigander ways of life. After a fruitless search thru our room for tweezers (how can such a simple tool be missing from our always-be-prepared TDY Kit?) and upon inspection of the pliers in my Leatherman Multi Tool, I decide to Man Up, and do it like a primate. So I get our poor, furry hero in a one armed headlock, with beloved Barb wrestling to keep the rest of his body still, I fold a paper towel into an Orgami style envelope and proceed to treat the tic as a misbegotten pimple from an angst ridden teenager. In a remarkably short amount of time, I actually extracted Msr Tic-Tac-Toe, and give him a fitting burial at sea, a la commode.

We spent about 12 hours in the car, but it was a lovely start to our Spring Break Adventures!