Indiana
This past weekend was my first time in Indiana. vergence invited me to go with him to visit his family in Fort Wayne, and we had a great time. We stayed at his father's house, and they were very gracious hosts. They took us to dinner Friday at Eddie Merlot's, an upscale restaurant with giant portions. The menu was kind of meat-heavy, but then most places we went to were as well, this being the Midwest. It had a good wine list as well. I ended up with a fried Calamari starter that could feed four people, then had grilled lamb chops. A Midwestern version of Red Velvet Cake for dessert was more brown velvet cake, but the flavor was pretty consistent.
On Saturday I dropped Mikey at his Mom's and went on an excursion to Kokomo, about an hour and a half away. This is where my grandfather was born, and apparently where the original Winch immigrant family eventually settled 120 years ago. I found the grave of the original immigrant, my great-great-grandfather Peter Winch (1843-1908, and graves of other assorted Winch family members. I walked around the town square and had lunch, then headed further east to Tippecanoe, near Lafayette. This is where William Henry Harrison defeated an Indian force led by Tecumseh's brother, the Prophet in 1811. This was an important battle, in that it effectively crushed an attempt by Native American tribes north of the Ohio River to form a confederacy to oppose further European expansion into their lands. Harrison later won the Presidency in 1840 on the slogan Tippecanoe and Tyler too. He caught pneumonia during his inauguration speech and died a month later, the shortest presidency in history. Tyler became the first Vice President to become President on the death of a President in office. This was the beginning of what was supposed to be a curse by the Prophet on Harrison, whereas all Presidents elected in a year ending in 0 have died in office, up until 1980 with Reagan. If only the curse would pick back up again ;-)
Afterward I headed back to Fort Wayne through lots of farmland and small towns, the heartland as they call it. Mikey's Mom took us to dinner at another meat-centric restaurant, Chops, where I had Scallops in a delicious saffron-tomato-cream sauce. The portions again were gigantic, I don't think I have ever been stuffed by scallops before. Mikey and his Mom both had an appetizer portion of crab cakes, which was plenty. We shared a bottle of Stag's Leap Cabernet from a very good wine list. Later we went to a dance club, which was pretty nice, except for the cigarette smoke. The music was pretty decent, kind of an odd mix at times, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Certainly not any worse than Atlanta, but that is not saying much.
On Sunday we went to H&M at a mall. It is odd that the only H&M locations in the US are in NYC, Chicago, and, um, Fort Wayne. What's up with that? Hopefully this means they are preparing to expand into more "Middle America" markets, this being a test store. After hanging out with one of Mikey's friends we headed back to his Mom's to visit with his 13 year old sister, who had just returned from a horse show. His Mom runs a horse stable and gives riding lessons, so it was really cool to see all the horses and a working stable. They actually got me on a horse for the first time in my life, and it was a lot of fun! :-) We stayed for dinner with the family and some friends that had come over and grilled out steaks.
After I got back last night I got into a big argument with my Dad. Basically he was complaining about the price of gas, and said how Bush is going to release some oil reserves, as though he is going to be some savior. I told him it would have no effect, that the high prices are due to the enormous increase in demand in developing countries, particularly China. He then said I probably thought the prices were caused by the Iraq war. This degenerated into his parroting the Republican party line, and I decided I was not going to roll over and ignore it. The problem is that he refuses to accept any facts that do not support his narrow right wing ideology. It has always been this way and I am sick of it.
On Saturday I dropped Mikey at his Mom's and went on an excursion to Kokomo, about an hour and a half away. This is where my grandfather was born, and apparently where the original Winch immigrant family eventually settled 120 years ago. I found the grave of the original immigrant, my great-great-grandfather Peter Winch (1843-1908, and graves of other assorted Winch family members. I walked around the town square and had lunch, then headed further east to Tippecanoe, near Lafayette. This is where William Henry Harrison defeated an Indian force led by Tecumseh's brother, the Prophet in 1811. This was an important battle, in that it effectively crushed an attempt by Native American tribes north of the Ohio River to form a confederacy to oppose further European expansion into their lands. Harrison later won the Presidency in 1840 on the slogan Tippecanoe and Tyler too. He caught pneumonia during his inauguration speech and died a month later, the shortest presidency in history. Tyler became the first Vice President to become President on the death of a President in office. This was the beginning of what was supposed to be a curse by the Prophet on Harrison, whereas all Presidents elected in a year ending in 0 have died in office, up until 1980 with Reagan. If only the curse would pick back up again ;-)
Afterward I headed back to Fort Wayne through lots of farmland and small towns, the heartland as they call it. Mikey's Mom took us to dinner at another meat-centric restaurant, Chops, where I had Scallops in a delicious saffron-tomato-cream sauce. The portions again were gigantic, I don't think I have ever been stuffed by scallops before. Mikey and his Mom both had an appetizer portion of crab cakes, which was plenty. We shared a bottle of Stag's Leap Cabernet from a very good wine list. Later we went to a dance club, which was pretty nice, except for the cigarette smoke. The music was pretty decent, kind of an odd mix at times, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Certainly not any worse than Atlanta, but that is not saying much.
On Sunday we went to H&M at a mall. It is odd that the only H&M locations in the US are in NYC, Chicago, and, um, Fort Wayne. What's up with that? Hopefully this means they are preparing to expand into more "Middle America" markets, this being a test store. After hanging out with one of Mikey's friends we headed back to his Mom's to visit with his 13 year old sister, who had just returned from a horse show. His Mom runs a horse stable and gives riding lessons, so it was really cool to see all the horses and a working stable. They actually got me on a horse for the first time in my life, and it was a lot of fun! :-) We stayed for dinner with the family and some friends that had come over and grilled out steaks.
After I got back last night I got into a big argument with my Dad. Basically he was complaining about the price of gas, and said how Bush is going to release some oil reserves, as though he is going to be some savior. I told him it would have no effect, that the high prices are due to the enormous increase in demand in developing countries, particularly China. He then said I probably thought the prices were caused by the Iraq war. This degenerated into his parroting the Republican party line, and I decided I was not going to roll over and ignore it. The problem is that he refuses to accept any facts that do not support his narrow right wing ideology. It has always been this way and I am sick of it.