NASCAR and Chocolate Port in Indy

Sheik and Zelda

Earlier this year, my brother told me that he and his family would be moving from Indianapolis to Canada at the end of summer.  Since my first, and only, experience of Indianapolis was in the dead of winter (insert hyperlink), I thought it would be nice to go back in the summer before they left.  Since I had planned an extended weekend away from work, I had even more time to enjoy the city and my fam.  I ended up flying into the airport on Friday afternoon.  I remembered how good the popcorn was the last time I was there, so I was sure to pick up two bags (buffalo ranch and smores, yum yum!) before meeting my sister-in-law at passenger pickup.  We drove to their home in Carmel to relax for a bit and play with their dogs before dinner.   That evening, she took me to Drakes, a local restaurant that served both pub food and sushi.  This concept confused me and for a few seconds I considered ordering both fried pickles and sashimi, but ended up sticking to the Japanese portion of the menu with some edamame, fried dumplings, and a crag Rangoon roll.  The dumplings were delicious, but everything else was just ok.  I guess it goes without saying that you shouldn’t order sushi when you aren’t near the sea…  at least all my fish was cooked.

My brother got in from his business trip that evening and the next day was dedicated to exploring the Indy Wine Trail!  For my birthday this year, I was gifted a couple bottles of wine from their local wineries.  I really enjoyed them and was looking forward to spending the sunny day outside.  From my research, I learned that there were 7 wineries on this path not far from Indianapolis.  Our goal for the day was to explore 3 of them:  Cedar Creek Winery, Mallow Run Winery, and Chateau Thomas Winery.  We got to Cedar Creek in the early afternoon when it wasn’t very busy yet.  Other than a bachelorette party (or maybe birthday party?), we had the tasting room to ourselves.  It was a very cute setup with a decent size tasting room and lots of little trinkets to peruse.  I have an interest in wine and was prepared to ask lots of questions around where they get their grapes and what types of wine they make, but was quickly shot down because the woman who was helping us said she was new and had no idea how to answer my first few questions.  I spent an hour or so tasting a few of their wines, but ended up only buying two bottles of the same chocolate raspberry port I had on my birthday.

All suited up

Our next stop was Mallow Run Winery.  The tasting room there appeared to be the same size, but it was a lot busier.  We ended up sharing a bottle of the Picnic White with a small cheese platter on the deck until the crowd cleared enough that we could get a spot at the tasting counter.  This definitely seemed like a more popular spot and I believe they have concerts and other events there as well.  Aside from the one white wine, I was not impressed with their selection either.  I think it’s important to note that neither of the two wineries at this point charged for their tastings.  It was only the last spot, Chateau Thomas Winery that charged a $5 tasting fee; however the employees working the tasting counter there seemed much more knowledgeable and engaging.  Their shop was also the nicest and had the largest selection of wine trinkets to look explore.  In appearance, they were less vineyard-y and more warehouse, but still a nice stop along the way.  After a full day of tasting, we got dinner that evening at Boombozz Pizza and Taphouse. They had a fun ambiance and pizza hit the spot after drinking all that wine.  The only thing that made the day better (or worse depending on your opinion) was going to see Magic Mike XXL that night with my sister-in-law and her friend.

Sunday was the highlight of my trip.  I came across an internet coupon deal for a NASCAR style racing experience at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  I purchased three coupons for all of us and we arrived around 11:30 am to check in.  The check-in line was about 6 people deep and the two girls processing the paperwork were moving very slowly.  About 20 minutes later, we were ready to go.  Because of the rain the night before, we could not use the tunnel under the track.  This meant they had to wait for all the cars to finish their racing experience from the time slot before opening the gates and letting us all across.  Fortunately, we only had to wait about 5 minutes.  As part of the ride-along experience (I was not going to drive!), I had to suit up in a fireproof jumpsuit and put on a helmet.  They had freshly-washed little cloth beanies to wear under our helmets to prevent lice/other germs.  Once we were all suited up, we took turns in the 2 ride-along cars going around the track.  One of the best parts was trying to jump into the car through the window with my short legs.  I got in eventually and a guy game by to buckle me up before my 5 laps around the track began.  It was so exhilarating!  We passed by several of the other drivers and by the end of lap 2, my head felt like it was going to vibrate off my neck, haha.  I felt completely safe and really enjoyed the whole  experience, as did my family.  Later that day, my brother picked up their dogs and we all went to the river walk area downtown to walk along the canal before going to dinner.  It was a very nice set-up; I’m only surprised there weren’t more bars and restaurants similar to San Antonio. 

Getting in the car

My flight left in the early afternoon on Monday, so I only had time to get brunch and pack.  After sitting on the outdoor deck at Bub’s Café for approximately 15 minutes, I had 4-5 mosquito bites and I  really bad drink (who puts beer in a bloody mary?).  We moved inside for the rest of the meal and I thoroughly enjoyed my Elk Sausage and Biscuits as my last meal in Indy.  I’m very glad I had a chance to experience the area in the summer, it was way better than freezing in the winter. 

Indianapolis in the Snow

This post is very much delayed, and I wanted to get it up before my next trip, but that did not happen.  A few months ago, my brother and sister-in-law moved to Indianapolis.  I was starting to itch for a trip, so I decided to fly out for a quick weekend getaway.  Being from Boston, I decided that it could not possibly be any colder out there than it has been here.  For the most part, I was right, but I still had to bundle up all weekend and try to scurry from one place to the next in the shortest amount of time possible to avoid the frigid cold.

 

After a layover in Philadelphia, I landed in Indianapolis in time for a late dinner on Friday evening.  My brother drove us from the airport out to his place in Carmel to drop off my bags and play with his two shiba puppies, Zelda and Sheik, for an hour before we ate.   That night we had dinner reservations at The Northside Social.  I’m not entirely sure if reservations were needed; by the time we got there around 9, there were a lot of empty tables.  The service was good and our waiter was patient and friendly.  We all ordered cocktails to start and shared the calamari app.  I love places that serve drinks in funky glasses, so this place was right up my alley.  My brother ordered the Moscow Mule, and it came in a tin cup.  For dinner, I ordered the gourmet mac and cheese.  It was delicious, but too big of a portion for me to finish in one sitting.

 

Our plans for Saturday were somewhat thought out beforehand, but not entirely.  One of my to-do’s for the area was visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Unfortunately, there are no grounds tours scheduled during January and we were only able to drive by and snap a quick picture before moving on.  This alone is enough of a reason for me to come back when there is nicer weather.  It looked like a huge venue from the outside.  Around noon, we made our way over to the Museum of Art.  Though I could have stayed much longer, my stomach reminded me that we had not eaten lunch yet.  Going to the museum of any kind on an empty stomach is a bad decision.  Amazingly, admittance is free, so I did not feel so bad after only stay a couple hours.  You can easily spend multiple days exploring the exhibit halls and looking at the art.  This is a huge museum and a great way to spend a few hours!

 

We headed downtown to a wine and tapas bar called Tastings for lunch and a drink (I was on vacation after all).  Upon entering Tastings, I noticed two things.  #1 was the wine “vending machines” located throughout the restaurant, and #2 was the incredible art hung up on the walls.  Since there weren’t many people there, we chose to sit at one of the high tables over the lounge chairs.  Within moments, our server came over and explained the menu and the vending machines.   After perusing the price of a tasting per bottle (easily averaging $8), I decided to just order a glass of the sparking Shiraz.  It was delicious and the perfect accompaniment to the many apps and flatbreads we devoured.  The food was great, but a meal here is not cheap.  Our lunch was expensive!  Fortunately, a bottle of sparkling wine and dessert were free because my roaming eyes would not leave one of the prints up on the wall, and I ended up buying it.  The artist, Leanne Laine, has an amazing talent for wine inspired works.  They are incredible!  My print is proudly displayed in my living room right now.

 

After lunch, we worked off the calories by strolling around the mall and hitting a book sale at one of the shops going out of business.  The cold weather kept us from doing too much and we headed back home to relax before a late dinner at Harry and Izzy’s.  I heard from multiple people that I needed to eat the shrimp cocktail at St. Elmos while I was in town.  Harry and Izzy’s is a sister restaurant of St. Elmos and they also had the famous appetizer on their menu.  We ordered a round of martinis to accompany our meals and I bit into the most ground horseradish I’ve ever had in my life.  I am not usually a fan of shrimp, but the sauce was so overwhelming, I did not actually taste the shrimp itself.  If you like horseradish, you will definitely enjoy this dish.  All of our food came out in a reasonable amount of time and was good.  This is a high quality restaurant and the food (and bill) reflect it.  Post- dinner drinks were had nearby before calling it a night.

 

Because the cold weather continued all weekend, Sunday morning was spent drinking coffee and playing with the puppies.  After unsuccessfully searching for a brunch place, we headed out to Kilroys for lunch and a Bloody Mary.  The drinks were good and cheap, but the food was just average pub food.  This would be a good place to watch a game and eat some nachos.  My flight was scheduled to leave at 4:50, but I wanted to get out earlier because another storm was moving in. 

 

I’ve decided that since the weather forced us indoors for most of the weekend, I will have to make a return trip in the summer and give Indy a second chance.

A Quick Look at St Paul and The Mall of America

I had high hopes for this post and this trip in general, but I knew going in my schedule was going to be tight, and mostly likely I wouldn't see everything I wanted to see.  As expected, my original "2 Days in the Twin Cities" post got nixed and instead I get to write about a very brief visit to St. Paul and the Mall of America.

After a quick layover in Milwaukee, I arrived in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport Saturday morning around 10 AM.  I went to The Mall of America in Bloomington, MN directly from the airport.  Conveniently it is right next door.  It probably took me longer to find a parking spot at the mall than it did to drive there from the airport.  There appeared to be 4 floors and a basement in the mall, but the basement is the aquarium and the top floor looked like it was mostly the movie theater and some bars.  That leaves 3 floors of shopping, excluding the space in the center dedicated to the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park (I'll get to that in a second).  As far as shopping goes, I must be spoiled living in Boston.  I was not wow'd with the selection.  There were multiples of many of the stores and there were no high end stores at all.  My go-to store for work clothes, Brooks Brothers, was no where to be found.  Most of the stores catered to working class families, which makes sense considering where the mall is located.  Having worked in retail during high school, I keep thinking about how awful it must be walking around that mall in December, haha.

Nickelodeon Universe

The definite cool factor to the mall in the indoor amusement park. It is geared towards younger kids, but there are plenty of big kid rides too, including an inverted roller coaster.  I glanced at the prices, and if I remember correctly, a day pass is $30.  That is not bad at all considering you could spend all day riding rides.  One word of advice... Do not buy toys in the toy shops in the center of the mall.  You are paying amusement park prices when you can go to the Target down the street and get the same things for half the price.  They really try to rip you off in these stores, and if you decide you want to return something because you did find it for a cheaper price, they make you wait forever for a manager to come by because they typically don't do returns.  I guess that makes sense if you think of it as an amusement park, but it doesn't make sense if you think of it as a toy store.  Also flanking the center part of the mall is a lego store (super cool!) and a giant American Girl Doll store.  My little cousins would have loved this!

On a riverboat floating down the Mississippi

Part of Day 2 was spent in St. Paul.  Knowing that I only had a little time in the city, I looked to my trusted trip planning sources and booked a 1.5 hour sight-seeing tour along the Mississippi river with Paddelford Riverboats.  I love historic things and I figured this would be a good way to see some highlights of the area; boy was I wrong.  The "tour" was a pre-recorded narration of the exact same words as what was listed on the paper map.  In addition, there were long periods with no narration at all, including the entire second half of the trip.  Most of the people were not paying attention and it was hard to hear the sound coming out of the sparsely placed speakers.  To top it all off, there was really nothing much to see on this sigh-seeing tour.

If you are ever in the area, I'd say to pass on this experience. The rest of my day including driving around the city and trying to find the Como Park Zoo (no parking anywhere so I didn't go).  I left St. Paul feeling very underwhelmed.  Based on this trip, I'm not sure Minnesota is the place for me.  I did enjoy all of the lakes though.

2012 Recap: Chicago for St Patrick's Day

View from The Metropolitan Club at Willis Tower

I sometimes get myself into trouble for trying to retroactively post information from a trip I took a while ago, but one of my goals for this blog is to have information from every trip I took in 2012.  I typically keep all my old itineraries and until very recently, I wrote in a journal about my day-to-day life, including vacations. I will try my best to remember what happened, and hopefully my friends can correct me if my memory is not 100%.

Over St. Patrick's Day weekend, I went to Chicago to visit some friends living nearby and join in one of the bigger celebrations of the holiday in the U.S.  Coming from Boston, I didn't have high expectations for Chicago's Irish festivities, but I was pleasantly surprised!  I arrived at Midway on Friday morning via Southwest Airlines.  It was a short trip from Boston, and I didn't have any layovers, but the airport is a good distance from the city and I was sitting in traffic for about 40 minutes until arriving downtown.  I stayed 2 nights at the Westin on Michigan Avenue.  The location was perfect for sightseeing and shopping on the Magnificent Mile!  There was not too much noise, and the building and room was really modern.   As expected when a woman is surrounded by shops, my morning consisted of a lot of walking and shopping.   At lunchtime, I made my way over to Willis Tower (better known as Sears Tower) and ate at the Metropolitan Club in the 67th floor.  The views were great, but the food was lacking.  I did not make it to The Sky Deck on the 102nd floor, but I definitely want to do that next time!  Has anyone done this?  Is it awesome or a tourist trap?

The Bean in Millenium Park

That afternoon I walked around Millenium Park and took photos with the bean.  It really is a nice break in the middle of the city, but there isn't a lot going on as far as a central park type of respite.  If I got the right impression, most of the locals end up walking through the park on the way to and from work, but they don't really hang out there.  From the park, I walked over to the Navy Pier.  Unfortunately, coming in the winter meant that a lot of the typical summer attractions were not yet open, but I enjoyed the general vibe of the area.  My friends and I sat down at Margaritaville for some drinks and people watching.  Because we snacked so much at the Navy Pier, we decided to go straight out that night for drinks and apps instead of a proper dinner.  One of the things I was most looking forward to was going to a Champagne bar.  Why don't we have these in Boston?  Pops For Champagne was pretty close to our hotel, where we ordered a plate of cheeses and a bottle of champagne. It was a lot of fun, but super busy and we were waiting a while before we got a table. I'd suggest arriving early if possible (we got there around 9), or making making a reservation if you have a group bigger than 4 people. 

Green Jello River

The next morning, we all headed down to the river to watch it get dyed green - a Chicago St Patty's Day tradition!  It seemed as though everyone else had the same plan because there was no where to stand.  In the end, that idea was abandoned and we decided to get breakfast at a nearby restaurant, The West Egg, instead.  Conveniently, The West Egg is right next to Timothy O'Tooles, a popular Irish pub.   Even more conveniently, it just so happens to share a restroom with the West Egg and we were able to pop in for a Irish Car Bomb after breakfast.  Shortly after breakfast, the parade started.

Attempting to watch the parade was failed attempt #2 of the day.  Chicago needs to do a better job of providing a way for people to watch these festivities if they want them to keep coming back.  We walked up and down the parade route trying to look for a spot to stand, but found none. We abandoned that idea as well for drinks on the roof deck at The Wit hotel.  If you are looking for a place with awesome views, this is it!  We did eventually make it back to the river, and it was a crazy green jello shade of green.  Very cool and an awesome backdrop for pictures!

Dinner that night was supposed to be a traditional Chicago style deep dish pizza.  I will admit that on occasion, Yelp (my trusted go-to source for all things in a new city) lets me down.  Unfortunately, this was one of those times.  We waited for close to 1.5 hours for a pizza at Giordanos.  In the meantime, we just sat around and chatted.  Once we were finally seated, our pizza came out fairly quickly.  It ended up being a thin layer of crust, two inches of solid cheese mass, and a dash of sauce; definitely not good.  I was really hungry too, so that just made me mad.  I also was made that my tummy hurt the entire rest of the night.  Skip Giordanos if this isn't what you are looking for in a pizza.  Next time, I'm trying Ginos East.

That was pretty much the end of my trip.  The next morning I had an early flight and made my way back home.  I think I need to come back to Chicago to see more of the city before I can really get a grasp for what it's about.  It probably won't be for St Patrick's day though. 

Pop-up Trip: Twin Cities Minneapolis/St. Paul

From time to time, the forces at be line up the stars in a way that causes me to go on an unexpected trip.  This is usually how my weekend trips happen.  Not the long weekend, preplanned trips, but the regular 2 day affairs here and there.

Two days is not nearly enough time, but I will take what I can get!  The constraints of a real job make it impossible to spend "enough" time at most of the places I go to.  Now I get to use the next week or so to try and see what I can pack in to two days in Minneapolis...  I wonder what the minimal amount of time needed while still seeing everything at the Mall of America is?

Suggestions are welcome!