Finally, Indiana!!
(This blog should ["should" being the operative word here] be
brief. We were only in the Hoosier state
for 3 days.
Minnesota,
Michigan, and Ohio were all wonderful, but they were exhausting, what with
seeing families, friends, 2 reunions, and dominating the Senior Olympics
Over-60 Softball competition while playing most of our games during the
graveyard shifts. Indiana was going to
be our three-day respite, a time to recoup our strength and recharge our
batteries.
So after a
hard day of travel getting to Elkhart, IN, we relaxed that evening ... a good
three hours ... well, that was more than enough. On to more adventures.
Monday, July
29, was an incredibly strange concoction of religion and chocolate. No, it was not some weird cult
initiation. We took the day to drive to
the University of Notre Dame and take their campus tour. That was followed by yet another tour, this
time tromping through the factory of the South Bend Chocolate Company.
A nice young
Notre Dame junior gave about 15 of us the campus tour. The buildings were old but sparkling clean,
as if they had all just recently been power-washed. We wanted to see the theatre building, but
that wasn't part of the tour. Instead,
we were treated to an inside look at the school's Basilica. It was immense, full of incredibly old and
quite valuable religious paintings, sculptures, and equipment used for their
masses. A lot of the pieces were gold plated,
including one fairly weird old priest. 
At the end of
the tour, they took us to the football stadium, the main point of my taking the
tour. Incredibly, we were not allowed
inside this most holy structure; the gates were securely padlocked. Sure, they were willing to allow us 15 boobs
to wander and touch priceless relics in the Basilica, but when it came to the
football stadium, a place where 300-pound behemoths could not do any damage to
the building structure, we were barred from the insides. After all, there's no telling what kind of
destruction can be rained down on a football stadium by an 83-year old
grandmother from Paducah, Kentucky.
Sadly, I settled for photos outside the pigskin arena with Knute Rockne
and Touchdown Jesus. 
Moving on.
From there, we raced over to the South Bend Chocolate Company factory where I could vicariously re-live my pre-diabetes days through the sheer joy of having someone tell me about chocolate ... yeah, right.
Chocolate
comes from the cacao (ka-cow') tree. Its
Latin name is "theobroma" meaning "food of the gods."
I knew it!
The Mayans and
the Aztecs were the first to discover the benefits of ingesting chocolate; they
believed it contained divine properties.
Once again ...
I knew it!
As the tour
wound down to its inevitable end, the gods of chocolate looked upon my poor,
chocolate-free countenance and took pity on my wretched soul: in an almost
miraculous act, they deigned to offer a reasonably good variety of sugar-free
chocolates in their gift shop, just for my salvation, I'm sure. After throwing myself prostrate in front of
their candy counters and offering up the diabetics' prayer (Lord, grant me the
strength to avoid real chocolate, the patience to wait for the sugar-free
stuff, and the wisdom to know the difference) I walked out of there a happier
(although a marginally rotunder) man.
Religion and
chocolate!! What a day!
It became even
more of a great day when we got word that night that Walt Pedano, Arizona good
friend and actor par extraordinaire (he even had the guts to play me in my 1st
play, "Buzzard Ball," back in 2004), had been nominated for a
"Zoni," the Arizona equivalent of Broadway's "Tony"
awards. Well done, Walt.
The next day
it was now Diedre's turn to lead the band, so to speak; she chose for us to
tour the Forest River RV Factory, makers of our beloved "Air Barty
1," a Georgetown model RV. During
the tour, I deduced that my lovely bride would have made a great shop foreman
there; everything about the vehicle-assembly process fascinated her. The only job I would be able to get there
would be "couch-tester-in-front-of-the-big-screen-TV." Actually, my main interest during the tour
while Diedre was peppering our guide with pertinent questions was what was on
the workers' T-shirts. There was quite a
variety: Superman, Wrigley Field, I'm With Stupid >>. My favorite one was on a shirt worn by a
particularly swarthy and very dirty grease-monkey that read, "No
Autographs, Please. I'm Very Busy."
Near the end,
Diedre bubbled enthusiastically about all she had learned, while I, on the
other hand, could only whine: "IS THIS ALMOST OVER?!"
That tour was
followed by a wander (singular) of the RV Museum; Diedre wandered while I opted
to complete my 3-mile walk out in the hayfields of Northern Indiana. I was all toured out.
On Wednesday,
July 31, our last day in Indiana, Diedre realized an almost lifelong dream when
we visited the Amish-Mennonite community of Shipshewana, IN. Shipshewana is Amish for "Will that be
cash or credit card?"
Shipshewana is
home to what must be the largest flea market in the world. Just imagine, if you can, if they put all the
flea markets you've ever been to end to end ... well, that wouldn't be a very
pretty sight, now would it? The place
was selling or auctioning everything, animal, vegetable, or mineral. Amazingly, they were selling sugar-free
kettle corn. Is that even legal? These guys are certified geniuses for doing
that.
We later had
dinner in the local Mennonite restaurant.
The food was good, hearty, real middle-America grub. Diedre had the pheasant-under-glass while I
went with the Amish meat-loaf with extra lard.
Their gift shop was selling signs with typical Mennonite humor: "I'd Agree With You, But Then We'd Both
Be Wrong" or "Flying Is The Second Greatest Thrill a Man Can
Experience; The First Is Landing."
And now for
one of the greatest thrills our blog readers can experience: the end of today's
blog.
On to
Wisconsin!
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