Happy Tuesday! Hard to believe we have crossed the halfway mark of our time in Indianapolis. Time sure is flying. I'm very happy to report that I am now on a 43-day streak of closing all my rings. Woot Woot. It looks like we are headed for a little snow this week. WHAT? SNOW? Let's see how we survive that!
Indianapolis is a really cool little city. There is a lot to do here both in outdoor activities, indoor activities and food/drink.
Here are some fun highlights from our week!
Jazzy's Birthday!
Happy birthday to the mini prin (aka mini princess, aka velociraptor, aka jazza bean, aka little gremlin). Jasmine turned 12 last Friday. 12! And still just as much energy as ever. We celebrated by making Jazzy a steak lunch, going on a 2-mile walk around the city and stopping at the Dugout for chicken dinner. To say she enjoyed herself would be a major understatement. The people in Indy LOVE Jazzy. She gets a lot of attention on our walks that she can't even pretend not to like.
Biking the Culture Trail
When I first started researching things to do in Indy, riding bikes on the Indianapolis Culture Trail was on the top of the list, and it did not disappoint. The culture trail is an 8-mile trail and linear park in central Indianapolis. You can walk, bike, roller skate the trail, etc. Pretty much anything except drive your car on it, though since it runs along the road you can drive your car next to it if you so desire. We chose to bike using the Pacers Bikeshare which has access to over 500 bikes at 50 bike stations throughout the city. You pay a very small fee by the minute to access the bikes and can pick them up and return them from any location. It was really very convenient, relatively comfortable and we have used them for other things as well!
The culture trail is really easy to follow with signs and arrows as well as the fact that the brick for the trail is different than the regular sidewalk (see picture on the right above). We were not only able to see many of the Indy sights but we were also able to get some exercise on what turned out to be a beautiful day. Highly recommend. Below are just a few of the pictures we were able to snap along the way!
And!! Guess what!! There was a really cool orange bridge for us to bike over; clearly a huge win. Zooming in on my face in the picture below will show my extreme excitement that Eric was able to snap just in time.
Under the bridge are some really beautiful canals that you can walk as well. The plan is to do that this week with the pupperoons!
Strange Zen
Usually, I'm all for the strange and quirky. However, The Idle wasn't really my thing. Maybe it's because I am not good at being "idle", whatever that is supposed to be. It was created to be a traffic viewing park where you can spend time doing nothing. We went; we saw; we smelled pee; we gave it a chance; we moved on. I would imagine this is one of those things that was really popular when it first opened, and then drifted out of mind for most people. With that said, there have been people down there most days when we have walked by so maybe I just don't get it. Overall, it's maybe worth walking down if you are walking past it anyway, not sure I'd go out of my way to get there though.
Food and Drinks!
Dugout Bar
We walk by the Dugout Out often and outside of baseball being the best sport, there is so much great outside space we knew it would be a great place to bring Jazzy on her birthday. Voted Indiana's #1 Dive Bar, it's a great place to hang out with your pup while enjoying some drinks and food at great prices. With everything from wings to pizza to wraps, they have it all. And you cannot beat the prices, a huge Truly Lemonade for $5.50? Yes, please. I decided to order the veggie wrap on our first trip and I've now had to eat it multiple times since. A soft wrap loaded with lettuce, diced veggies and ranch, it's the perfect light and relatively healthy dinner. Great, now my mouth is watering, I know what I'm going to make Eric get for dinner tonight!
Salt On Mass
Salt On Mass has a focus on wild and sustainable seafood, steaks and handcrafted cocktails. Their decor is beachy while not being either too casual or too fancy. With entrees around $30, they are one of the more expensive places we have gone to in Indy so far. We ordered the shrimp cocktail and lobster bisque as our appetizers. Two hints - don't use all of the horseradish they bring you for the cocktail sauce, it will be inedible even for those that LOVE spicy. And, get your own lobster bisque. Whatever you do, do not share! It's silky and is bursting with flavor.
All entrees come with one side and a sauce for your fish. Eric got scallops with citrus chili and I got mahi-mahi with orange blossom honey & smoked sea salt. We also ordered an extra side of mac and cheese because we heard it was incredible. The meals were good but heavy on the sauce, next time we would both have gotten that on the side. Tip - whatever side you get will be under your entree, so it will also have your sauce on it. Not sure if that normally happens with the mac and cheese since that was our extra side.
The mac and cheese was very creamy and had a lot of cheesy flavor. There is a lobster mac and cheese entree that I'm sure is incredible. Overall, a solid choice as a side as well.
Ash and Elm
Ash & Elm is a cidery in Indy, and we think the only cidery in Indy that is still open. I don't know what it is with Indy but every place we go in has an amazing ceiling! Ash & Elm is attached to a coffee shop, with the only thing separating them being some white curtains. When we were there, it was relatively empty so we didn't have any issues with either noise or it being too crowded on either side.
We were able to get a flight, our favorite! They have a variety of flavors from extra dry (the ESD - Extra Special Dry) to the creative (the Mango Lassi). I was incredibly disappointed that the Strawberry Lemonade cider is only available in July and the Blueberry Lavendar is only available in February. Bummer. Our favorites were the Obscura Blackberry which is the driest cider they make and the Fleeting Youth which was a fruit-forward cider infused with raspberries and lemons. They also have a small selection of food. We both got the grilled cheese which was rated "Best Grilled Cheese" by the Indianapolis Monthly in December 2019.
I told you we used the bikes again! I'm happy to report that bike riding is also fun after dinner!
The Squirrel
I am incredibly disappointed that I forgot to tell you about Fenerton! While on the Indy 500 Racetrack tour, Fenerton the squirrel (Fency for short), was following us! Must have been reporting back to my squirrel friends back in LA.
I have a work trip to NOLA this week, so our time will go even faster in Indy than it usually does on these trips. Crazy that things are slowly starting to get back to normal, whatever that means. Stay safe!
Until Next Time.
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