June 29th, Nina's house in Indiana

  


Thursday, June 29, 2006
Day 4
Nina’s house

Today we drove from the beautiful Harrison Lake State Park in Northwestern Ohio to my friend Nina’s house in Royal Center, Indiana. We had a nice drive, it was only about 178 miles or so, and the weather cooperated. No rain today! We got gas in Ohio for a bargain price of $2.86 per gallon. Apparently gas went up 20 cents overnight, but this place was still on the low side. It’s sad to think of that as low. I was excited, though, when looking at my receipt for a few groceries that I had purchased at the gas station, to see that I bought soda (or “pop” as it is known as here) without having to pay 5 cents per can on the bottle deposit! Hippee!

Nina is a college roommate and for the next few days we are having a “roomie reunion” of sorts. Julie, another roomie from Connecticut who I see on a regular basis, flew in to Chicago early this morning and arrived here just before we did. Tomorrow two other college roommates are meeting up with us at the Indiana Dunes.

Today the kids had a blast because Nina lives on a farm. They got to get eggs from the chickens, look at a really fat pig, watch the horses (tomorrow they get to ride them!), go for a tractor ride, and play with Honey, one of Nina’s 9 dogs. They also enjoyed the six cats she has. Yes, Nina loves animals! She also has goats, rabbits, and ducks.

Brownie had so much fun with Honey today. This is Brownie’s first real “dog friend” that she has made. At home she gets to see a few neighborhood dogs, but they don’t really get to run around “free” and play. Here, she was free, and I would swear that the two dogs were talking to each other just like two kids will to decide what they are going to do next. It was really cute to watch.

I enjoyed catching up with friends. We all went out to eat at Mr. Happy Burger down in Logansport. They have excellent food, and a large model bull out in front of their establishment. Photos were obligatory of course. I’m looking forward to tomorrow because I will finally be meeting my friend Karen’s son Theo who is about a year old by now. I’ll also be meeting my other friend Tina’s daughter Hannah, who is a bit older than that. Hopefully Rodney isn’t feeling too left out of all this girl stuff. Tomorrow there will be some other husbands around for him to hang out with.