French Lick Train

Hello, and thanks for checking out the latest entry into the Hoosier Day Trip blog.  I once heard an old joke about what a messed up state Indiana was. You have South Bend up north, North Vernon way down south, and French Lick aint what you think it is. Recently I took my first trip in nearly 30 years back to French Lick, and I certainly found that it was NOT what I remembered. (I promise to keep this G rated from here on out).

So this whole excursion really started on the Friday night before the trip. I had Saturday off, (a rarity in and of itself) and my oldest daughter had cheer camp on the I.U. Campus. My wife had to take her there, and this presented the PERFECT chance for me to take a couple of my kids and head out for a research trip. But where should we go? A quick shout out on the Hoosier Day Trip face book page brought back a three word response. “French Lick Train”.

These three words were all I needed to remind me of my own trip on this train so many years ago. My parents had taken me and my two older sisters down for the train ride, and while I THOUGHT I had a good time, I could really only remember two distinct features of the tour. A tunnel, and going past Larry Birds house.  Both are still there, and both are much smaller than I remember, but I digress.

Of course anytime I have a day off after an extended period, the first thought I have is “SLEEP IN!”.  But when my son specifically ask me, “Can we take another Day Trip tomorrow?”….ummmm “YES?” was my response.

So I wake up at 6 am and Google “French Lick Train”. The results came back with a result for the Indiana Railway Museum. After checking out their website, and seeing that they should be having rides that day, I woke up my youngest two children and said “Wake up…were going on a train ride!”  They were perplexed to say the least.

After getting the kids dressed and getting in the car, we head towards French Lick. As we are driving south on S.R. 37, Elizabeth, my almost 6 year old, says, “Dad.. The only real train I have ever been on before is the one at Walt Disney World.” This sparked a 15 minute debate between her and my son (9) about whether the Walt Disney railroad is a REAL railroad. Music was eventually turned on.

Arriving in the town of French Lick, the train station is easy to spot. It is right next to one of the two (I think?) resorts in town. I have not been to French Lick since the resorts have been refurbished and this trip was STRICKTLY to ride the train, but the external beauty of the resorts has definitely piqued my interest in returning, maybe staying, and dare I say even gambling at the resorts. I am NOT a gambler at all, but I think maybe the resorts would like to meet my friends…Mr. Washington, and Mr. Lincoln. That’s how I roll!

So BACK to the train. Arriving at the Indiana Railway museum, we were about the 4^th car in the parking lot, but we did arrive about 45 minutes before the first departure of the day. I wanted to get there early enough to look around the museum. 45 minutes allowed me to look around it about 3 times. Not to be too critical of the museum, but there is not a lot in it. What they have is truly fascinating, but in my mind calling it a museum is a bit of a stretch.  I think it would be more accurately described as a really AWESOME historic train ride with a few REALLY AWESOME things to look at while you wait on the train.

The prices of the tickets when we visited were $16 for adults and $8 for children. The train ride itself last about an hour and fifteen minutes. It is very interesting , beautiful, and informative. I tried to use the voice memo function on my iPhone to record all of the information they were telling us about the area, but my old 3G just wasn’t up to the task. The day we went was just for a ride to Cuzco and back. Cuzco is a little burg that has a store with some soda machines, porta-potties, and …well…soda machines, and porta-potties.

For the $32 dollars I spent to take my two youngest children on the ride, I really think it was worth it. 

According to signage there, and information on their website, they have some sort of train robbery event on certain weekends. This is something we would be willing to pay to go back and see, but what really has my kids excited is the Halloween themed train that they do in October, and especially the Polar Express train they do in November and December. I have to admit, I can’t remember EVER looking forward to winter in Indiana, but this Polar Express has me pretty excited.

I am now a pretty big fan of the Indiana Railway Museum, and also the rest of French Lick that I have seen. I will absolutely be going back for the train and to check out the resorts.

Thanks for checking out the latest addition to the Hoosier Day Trip blog. Be sure to check out the photo page on the home page and PLEASE send me your Hoosier Day Trip pics to post. Thanks again, and I hope to see YOU on my next Hoosier Day Trip. 

                                          Andrew

Hoosier Day Trip update June, 13, 2011

Hey friends, and thanks for your patience since my last post. I have been without a secure internet connection for almost two weeks now, but things seem to be up and running once again. I have had internet over my phone and even with some wi-fi hotspots, but this in the first time in awhile that I have felt confident enough to blog.

The last post ( I think) that I made on HoosierDayTrip.com was touting my new photo link on there. I am going to pick up where that left off. I had a couple of readers ask if it were possible to give some details of the pics. This was my ultimate goal, and I am going to try to figure out how to do that. Great Idea. (FYI, the pics of the chair, table, and window, are looking out of my front window. Just cool pics of different seasons I wanted to test with)

Friends, with that, I bid you good evening. I will get back to the serious work of visiting cool places, and I hope to see YOU on my next Hoosier Day Trip.

                                                    Andrew

Virtual Vacations. How can you be some other place, when you really have to be exactly where you are.

Hello and thank you for checking out the latest update to the Hoosier Day Trip blog. If you are reading this blog entry then I will make the assumption that you someone who likes to travel and enjoys getting to places that take you out of your everyday routine.  For me personally, taking a trip anywhere is probably the SINGLE biggest stress reliever in my life. Be it a day trip, a small excursion that takes a couple of days, or a full blown Disney World vacation (my SUPER happy place), getting away from it all is literally GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL for me!

But what about those times when you just CAN’T go anywhere except where you are? I am currently going through such a situation, and I thought I would share some tips and tricks that help me through my travel “dry spells”.

Once again, I am making the assumption that if you are reading this, you have online access. The internet has changed our lives in many ways. Some ways are really good and others…not so much. One change I feel a lot of people have yet to realize is just how SMALL it has made our world (not an intentional Disney World reference).  By this, I am referencing the fact that I carry face book, twitter, 4square, and any other social media outlet you can imagine in a clip on my front pants pocket. I have made mention of social media in a previous post, but from talking to people, I REALLY wonder if most people move beyond simply “friending” people they already know on face book. Even if we only examine what face book can do for you in terms of what I will call “virtual vacationing” it truly becomes astonishing. Today, almost any destination you can imagine has an online presence letting you know what is happening at that particular destination that week, but often also post pictures that they had taken only seconds before the posted. How is THAT for a virtual vacation? 

So now our next stop on our virtual vacation is logically Twitter. I have heard from a lot of people who have no interest in twitter. Mostly because they have “no friends who tweet” , or they simply do not understand it. It is somewhat different for people who have learned to “social media” from face book. What I like about twitter is that I can use it as a feed from all of the people, places, and destinations that I enjoy. No commitment required. Just follow the tweeter you like, and you see what they post. They don’t even have to love (tweet) you back. I follow Kings Island, Holiday World, (of course a ton of Disney tweets) and even some news sites. It is a fairly one sided relationship that fulfills my need for info about places I would RATHER be. And honestly, I never really feel guilty after the fact. We all knew this was a one sided relationship from the beginning.

But what if you can’t take the time to look at pics, updates, tweets, post, etc, etc, etc?   One thing I have absolutely fallen in LOVE with it the “I heart radio” app.  To the best of my knowledge, this app is offered for both the iPhone and the Droid. With this app I can transport myself from where I am, to where I would like to be. It allows you to listen to LIVE online radio feeds from a TON of locations in the U.S. I am also of big fan of podcast. There are many that can be downloaded for free. Some of my favorites cover such topics as technology, travel, and pop culture. The one I most often listen to is WDW Radio. A blog about Walt Disney World. Who would have guessed? A blog I have found even more recently is called "Stuck in the 80's" and it allows virtual travel of a different sort. Virtual time travel. I find all of these sources great ways to help you escape where you physically HAVE to be, and transport you to where you WANT to be.

My friends, that is going to do it for this post into the Hoosier Day Trip Blog. Thanks SO much for checking it out. I really hope that this helped at least one reader out. I thank you for your time in reading this, and hope to see YOU on my next Hoosier Day Trip.

                                        Thanks,        

                                                      Andrew