Travel Tuesday

OMGosh! There's so much to tell. I'm going to try to condense it, but you know me...best intentions...we'll see how it goes.

First I have to say, I want to SEE and DO everything I possibly can!!

We left last Monday to meet up with Walter and Chris for a little festive trip to Santa Claus, Indiana.
We met up in Evansville to tour the LST 325 (Landing Ship Tank). Timing was perfect as W & C pulled up about 10 minute after us. Timing for touring the ship was not so good! Turns out, it's closed on Monday. Sheesh. What a way to start.

Next stop:

The guys were excited about this, but, alas, it wasn't meant to be! It's only open on weekends---contradicting the information on the website.

Not a great way to start this trip---but at least the weather was great! Chilly, but sunny and beautiful.

We skipped ahead to what we were supposed to do after lunch.

 We went to Bosse Field---the third oldest ball park in the country--behind Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Next was a drive by of this tv house. Do you recognize it? It's the house featured on the opening credits of Rosanne. She never actually lived here, but it was the home of her cousin who she visited now and then. Anyway, only the outside is used on the show.

 Next, we stopped here for lunch.

 Butch surprised us with this restaurant--the Gerst House. The original was here in Nashville. It's gone now, but this one remains. It's the only one. The food was fabulous! We're always looking for a good German restaurant---none in Nashville unless you count the big touristy one at Opry Mills.

After lunch, we decided to go to the Abe Lincoln memorial and museum. We had that planned for Wednesday, but found ourselves with all of this extra time.

We walked the one mile loop to see the what remains of one of the houses on the property. Lincoln lived here from the age of 7 to 20.

This was the third house on the property and was to be the biggest. It was never completed. This is all that remains.

That evening, we had dinner reservations at The Patio Restaurant---the number one restaurant in Tell City (where we were staying) and supposed to be a great steak place. Nothing could have been further from the truth! It was a buffet with the types of food you would find at any country style buffets. There were steaks on the menu, but we weren't confident enough to try them. It seemed more like a Golden Coral without so many buffet choices. We went with the buffet. The salad was good. The buffet was about what you'd expect for a $12.00 meal. On the bight side, Walter and Butch had some very good Maker's Mark Manhattan's for only $5.00! That just about made it worthwhile.

Day 2.
Today we went to Ferdinand, Indiana to visit The Monastery of the Immaculate Conception.

 It was gorgeous and we ended up having a private tour. We love that!

What we couldn't understand is how this little town in the middle of nowhere could require such a grand facility. It's still a convent.

We then went on to visit St. Meinrad's Archabbey.

 This place was also very beautiful, but the church itself wasn't as pretty as the first one.

Again, we were baffled that this little German town could support both of these places. St. Meinrad's is still a seminary.

After touring both of these, we went to Freig's Cafe. It was in an old building---we like that---but it was pretty rundown and grubby inside. Butch does a lot of research to find only the best places for us to eat!! LOL!!

The decor was "kitschy." Old ceramic Christmas trees from the 1970's took centerstage in the dining room. By the time we got there--12:30, they were just about out of everything. The fried chicken is the specialty, but all they had left were thighs. They had prepared 90 servings and were sold out by 12:30! Walter ordered the turtle soup. When the waiter (a very friendly retired guy who pulled up a chair and sat down with us a few times) delivered it, he said, "mock turtle soup. You know it's against the law to kill turtles."  After he walked away, Walter said, "It would have been nice to know that the turtle soup would not actually have any turtle in it before I ordered it!"

Then, Butch asked for a tea refill. He got this:

The retired guy put the jug on the table. Butch looked at him funny, so the guy said, "I can put it on another table" thinking we didn't want it here. Butch said it was fine to leave it. The tea wasn't even this---just the jug they used to put their tea in. It was awful tea anyway, but the water was worse. We ended up getting burgers that were supposed to be the freshest of meat. They were okay, nothing to write home about. But the entertainment factor made it all worthwhile!

Okay, I'll stop here as this post is getting way too long! I'm just not good at keeping things brief!

Next Tuesday will be part 2!