Last weekend was my yearly trip back to Indianapolis to see Pip. As in previous years, I headed out on Friday afternoon and drove across “corn corridor”. I had a couple of conference calls to take in the afternoon and luckily my boss was kind enough to let me do them from the road so I got out to an early start. The weather sucked ass coming out of Cleveland but after about an hour or so the rains cleared and it was smooth sailing.
Just like I did last year, I took the “northern route” which while it’s still flat as hell, it’s not nearly as boring of a drive. Not to mention the fact that I had my Twitter followers to keep me company (voice activated tweeting… I don’t tweet & drive). After the rain cleared and I was well on my way, I quickly realized that I’d forgotten to eat lunch.
Rather than eat and “ruin my dinner”, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and grab a couple of snacks during a pit stop for gas. I can honestly tell you that I don’t remember the last time I’ve had either Pringles or a Slim Jim. I can also honestly tell you that I really enjoyed them both. Finally, I can honestly tell you that it’ll be a long damn time before I try either one of them again. Luckily, I had a gas station attendant to remind me that it wasn’t the healthiest choice. That interaction led to this tweet as I pulled away from the rest area:
“Thank you Mrs. gas station attendant. I know my Pringles and Slim Jim is not a nutritious snack. I’m not here for nutrition advice. Bitch.”
I’m glad I chose for just a snack, because just as in years past, Lauren had an awesome dinner made for us. After dinner, Matt and I tried to put together some sort of a plan and that landed us (initially) at a joint called Casler’s to see one of our favorite college bands Dave & Rae. The place was crazy busy, so we opted instead for the Britton Tavern across the street.
There was a sweet little cover band playing and we spent the rest of the night catching up, drinking Cider & Guiness, and chatting up “creepy old lady” who was sitting at the bar next to Pip. I bring this up only because Lauren had specifically said to, “Watch out for cougars,” that night. The fact that Pip was wearing a Star Wars shirt and I was donning Voltron meant there wasn’t much concern about the cougar issue. In fact, at one point, Pip said, “You know what… It would be pretty hard to get laid in this shirt.”
As I said before, the band was pretty damn good, and included an OUTSTANDING cover of the Digital Underground classic The Humpty Dance. That was certainly a first for me as was the following Boys II Men classic End Of The Road. Seriously. In any case, after jamming to the Humpty, and Pip uttering the classic, “I wish this creepy old lady would leave. I feel like she’s waiting for me to get down on her,” we took off and went home for the evening. In true college fashion, now that we were home it was time to chow down. Which inspired this conversation:
Pip: “Are you hungry?”
Chewie: “I could eat.”
Pip: “How hungry are you?”
Chewie: “I could eat.”
Pip: “Are you hungry enough to get back in the car and go to Taco Bell?”
Naturally… my response was a resounding “yes” and off we went.
Saturday, we were back at it. We’d planned on going to Fat Dan’s for lunch on Broadripple, but when we got there they were closed. Luckily, right across the street was a little taste of Bloomington… Kilroy’s. After an outstanding lunch at Kilroy’s, we were off the local Sun King Brewery for a tasting tour. Beers included Oktoberfest, Indian’s Lager, Wee Mac Scottish Ale, Osiris Pale Ale, Sunlight Cream Ale and one other which I can’t for the life of me remember. WOW. Love me some local breweries. If I could have gotten it home cold, I definitely would have brought some with me.
After our tasting tour (and a quick nap) it was off to BW3 for an evening of wings, beer and college football. In a true testament to the power of social media, our friends Jenny and Brian had seen that we’d checked in on Facebook and decided to come to the bar and hang out with us for the evening. It was awesome to see them and I was so glad that they came!
And just like that it was Sunday morning and time to drive home. Huge thanks to Pip & Lauren for their hospitality. Love you guys. Can’t wait for next year. Never fear. You won’t have to wait too terribly long for some more Chewie / Pip goodness here on the blog… The Beeramid will return on April 7th, 2013 during WrestleMania 29!
