Back home again... in Indiana!

The Slackettes feelings on finding Natural Light beer at the Friend's house!!

We spent five days at my mom's house near Ft. Wayne.  We were just back over Thanksgiving also, so it was another familiar stop on our trip.  We got filled up with starches for our first few home cooked meals - chicken & noodles with mashed potatoes, and scalloped potatoes and corn casserole!  This type of food is good, and I know I grew up eating like that, but at this point in my life I/we do not eat this type of food often, so it makes you feel stuffed after eating dinner!  I don't think we saw a green vegetable while we were in Indiana!

Danica getting her dog fix with Owen and Millie at Jen's.

Friday morning started out with a huge thunderstorm and lot of rain.  It is nice to have a dark, cloudy, rainy morning as we don't get to experience those very often!  Due to the rainy weather, we decided to go see Wonder Woman in the afternoon.  It was a great movie we thought!

Andy "rotating the tires" aka Stan doing the work in his shop!

We went out to my sister's house on Friday evening so I could rotate the tires on the van after almost 4,000 miles.  I knew Stan would have a jack and socket wrench I could borrow, and he wouldn't try to sell us new tires like America's Tires would.  We borrowed a shovel, and dug up Zoysia's marker stone where she is buried in Jen's backyard.  Then the girls got to catch lightning bugs again!

What's left of Zoysia.

Darby with a lightning bug in her hand.

On Saturday we headed down to Indy to see some friends while in town.  I am fortunate to have a lot of good friends in the Indy area from my time living there as well as friends from Purdue/FH also.  On our drive down to Indy, we stopped off in Anderson so the girls could experience a Skyline Chili 4 Way!!!  It's not as good as the hot corned beef in Cleveland, but it is still pretty darned good!

Skyline Chili 4 Way!

Our friends, the Friends who inspired us to make this cross country trip live in Indy, and offered up their North side house to us for the night as they were out of town.  They stayed with us for a few nights during their cross country trek a few years back, and welcomed the opportunity to offer up the same hospitality.  Their house was near Keystone Crossing, and is a cool older house with a very unique layout/floor plan.  They were nice enough to buy us supplies such as chorizo and eggs, as well as beer for the short time were were there.  I thought Brent liked good beer, but then we found some Natty Light in the fridge.  My respect for them dropped significantly!  :-)

Leaving the Friend Residence on Sunday morning.

We went back up to mom's place on Sunday morning.  Along the way, I made a "short stop" on the interstate in the Gas City, IN area.  See pic below!  Darby commented afterwards, "Was that in teh budget mom?"

Popo finally caught up to me near James Dean's hometown!

My sister's family all came into mom's Sunday night for a cookout/dinner.  It is always fun to see her kids and catch up on what they have been up to since we do not get to see any of them very often.  They have all been out to AZ/Cali a time or two, but it is always fun to see them back in Indiana.   And it's good for the Slackettes to get to spend some time with their Indiana cousins too!

The definition of "salad" at my mom's house is very different than what that word seems to mean in most parts of the world.  In most places, "salad" usually means a dish with leafy green things and vegetables in it.  But at my mom's house, "salad" is synonymous with dessert, or at least something very sweet!  For dinner she had a "Watergate salad" (the only green thing on the table!) which was a mixture of pistachios, pistachio pudding, cool whip, and grapes or something.  In addition, there was "pretzel salad" which included crushed pretzels, red jello, and cool whip!  Adam and I referred to the coconut cake as "coconut salad" too!  Oh, and don't forget "Aunt Jeanie's potato salad" (more starches!) which is a very sweet type of potato salad my mom has made for years.

Strawberry "salad" at my mom's house!  J/k, it's actually pie!

On Monday we ran into my hometown of North Manchester to kick around for a bit.  We stopped by and said hi to my friend Kathy who I graduated from MHS with.  I always like to visit my hometown where I grew up when back in Indiana.  Part of the reason I would try to visit would be to get a breaded tenderloin sandwich at Mr. Dave's, but it recently closed, so that NM staple is no longer an option.  :-(   Instead we barely made it by Nick's Kitchen in nearby Huntington, as they have one of the original BPTs!  Since Mr. Dave's is now closed, we ran by nearby Huntington on our way back to my mom's.  We lucked out and got to Nicks's just before it closed at 2 pm.  We were able to order a few and eat them in a nearby park.

Our new favorite place to get a BPT since Mr. Dave's is now closed.

As we were driving to Indiana a few days back, Danica reminded me that "we needed to stop and buy grass seed."  When I asked "what for?"  She responded with "To put on your dad's grave site!"  What a great kid!  The other primary reason I like to visit my hometown is to stop by my dad's grave site to say hello.  And it seems that every time I do, I remember, after getting there, that I wanted to put grass seed on his grave site!  I figure since he was in the turf business later in life, and I am a turfer, he deserves to have more grass and less weeds than most others.  So on this visit, we ran by what used to be the local Coast to Coast hardware store, and bought some grass seed to remember Max by!  We had borrowed a rake from my mom to scratch up the ground a bit, and then I taught the girls how to "Johnny Appleseed" it in sowing the seed!

Sowing some grass seed on Max's grave site...finally!!!

We spent our final night in Indiana back at my mom's.  We had leftover's (mainly "salad") and some pierogies we had bought back in Pittsburgh, for dinner.  It was a nice, quiet night, and we even got some rain just before dark.  I do enjoy a good rain/cloudy day every so often since we do not get them much in AZ.  We took off on Tuesday morning, headed for the Chicago area and our next adventure!

Slackettes in front of (formerly) Louie's Candy Kitchen in my hometown!