So it’s now Wednesday morning and I’m sitting in the Affiliate Council meeting at Indiana Uni (IU). I’ve got two days to catch you up on, but a lot of it was driving.
So after my last post I headed off south towards Peoria. I planned the drive with a stop along the way and made it to my hotel – nothing really interesting to report. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of this hotel room. It was nice, it included a fridge & microwave, although no coffee machine. There was some noise at night but it wasn’t a real problem. The hotel really didn’t need to be much, it was just a place to sleep while in an area where I could catch up with Keith & Sandy.
After checking in to the hotel I headed out to Keith & Sandy’s place in Metamora. It was great to see their house, where Tyler grew up and to meet his sister and nephew’s. It’s your typical smallish mid western town and it reminded my quite a lot of Dalwallinu. After spending some time at their house Keith and I went out for dinner. On the way he drove me round and showed my some of the town and where he used to work. Then we went to Blue Magaritas for dinner – it was yummy Mexican. As is the case with most US meals it was too much, so the leftovers were boxed up to take home. Keith told me I had to try the Dairy Queen experience, so we stopped off on the way home and got Mini Blizzards, they’re similar to McFlurry’s but more American. After that we went back to the house, spent a bit more time there and watched the sunset before I headed back to the hotel to sleep.
(Update- it’s now Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting in Starbucks. I’ve fallen quite a bit behind, but that’s not surprising as IC is busy)
In the morning, I got up, checked out and went to meet Keith & Sandy for a late breakfast / brunch. I had a very yummy omelette, but as usual had left overs. It seems that hash browns are a little different in the US. It came with a side of hash browns which appeared to be cooked (maybe fried) grated potato. It was yummy, jut not the way I’m used to hash browns.
It was really great to see Keith & Sandy, it’s lovely to be able to visit people when you’re travelling so I’m glad I had the time an opportunity to do that. Then it was off to Indiana Uni for IC, the reason I can do this trip! Keith suggested that on the way I stop at Turkey Run State Park as it has some nice scenery and good hiking trails. I didn’t have a lot of time, but long enough that I could spend an hour or so there. After a bit of confusion as to where the entrance was and my phone failing me with no signal I made it. It would have been nice to spend longer there but I had limited time, so I just did a couple of the shorter trails.
They were fun hikes, but it was surprisingly hot and also fairly sticky. I saw one the hikers wearing their bathing suit which felt like would have been more appropriate attire, though sturdy enclosed shoes were definitely necessary. After that I arrived at Indiana Uni and that will be a new post.
But two things I forgot to mention I saw fireflies in real life at Keith & Sandy’s place. Sadly I didn’t think to take any photos but they were cool. What I did take a photo of was one of those tank stand thngy’s because I finally saw them in real life. I’ve seen them in lots of TV shows and it was cool to finally see one in person in the US.
