Going to Larry Bird-ville today

[mrkelley23]

French Lick, not Terre Haute.

Going to see the renovated luxury hotel, the West Baden Springs, and eat a seafood buffet at the other hotel. Also will probably be checking out the (believe it or not) French Lick Winery, if they're open today.

[fantine33]

French Lick, not Terre Haute.

Going to see the renovated luxury hotel, the West Baden Springs, and eat a seafood buffet at the other hotel. Also will probably be checking out the (believe it or not) French Lick Winery, if they're open today.

There's a luxury hotel in French Lick? I was in Terre Haute once and had been looking forward the whole way to going to The Boston Connection. Is that still there? I had agreed to go to Indianapolis with my parents only if I got to stop there, ha!

Anyway, some really tall blond guy with a cheesy mustache was there and I was all ready to get excited but, come to find out, it was his brother (Chris? Mark? some one syllable name). He was very nice and I was going to have my picture made with him and tell everybody it was Larry. So, other than seeing him on the court when they'd come to Denver that was the closest I ever got to my Dreamboat 33.

[earendel]

French Lick, not Terre Haute.

Going to see the renovated luxury hotel, the West Baden Springs, and eat a seafood buffet at the other hotel. Also will probably be checking out the (believe it or not) French Lick Winery, if they're open today.

There's a luxury hotel in French Lick? I was in Terre Haute once and had been looking forward the whole way to going to The Boston Connection. Is that still there? I had agreed to go to Indianapolis with my parents only if I got to stop there, ha!

Actually it's in West Baden - it was built to accommodate celebrities that came for the waters back in the 20s. It has a round lobby. It was in disrepair for a long time.

[kusch]

French Lick, not Terre Haute.

Going to see the renovated luxury hotel, the West Baden Springs, and eat a seafood buffet at the other hotel. Also will probably be checking out the (believe it or not) French Lick Winery, if they're open today.

I stayed there several nights back in around 1974 or 1975 and really enjoyed it. I was there for a work related "retreat". Was it called West Baden Springs back then? That name just does not sound right, not that I could give a name that does.

[kusch]

French Lick, not Terre Haute.

Going to see the renovated luxury hotel, the West Baden Springs, and eat a seafood buffet at the other hotel. Also will probably be checking out the (believe it or not) French Lick Winery, if they're open today.

Ok, since the name bugged me so much I did some checking. There are actually two Hotels--French Lick Springs Hotel and the West Baden Springs Hotel---correct? I stayed at the French Lick Springs Hotel.

[lilclyde54]

I wonder if they sell more French Vanilla ice cream than regular Vanilla ice cream in French Lick?

[mrkelley23]

From a whirlwind day.

Unfortunately, we couldn't do as much as we wanted to because of the recent flooding -- the water is still very high, but at least none of the roads were closed. But walking in the gardens of the West Baden was not possible.

Okay, the very compressed version: The West Baden Springs hotel was a resort which became very popular in the 1910s and 20s, partly because of the sulfur springs nearby. Lots of casino action, resort type activities, and later speakeasys lured Hollywood types as well as many other of the rich and famous.

Here's the home page of the West Baden Springs Hotel, which is the amazingly renovated one, and is a mile or so down the road from the new (I'm not making this up, nitrah) French Lick Springs Resort Hotel and Casino.

http://www.frenchlick.com/accommodations/west_baden.asp

The French Lick Springs is not quite as high-end as the West Baden, but still a pretty darn nice hotel in its own right. We went there for the Friday night Seafood buffet:


http://www.frenchlick.com/accommodation ... h_lick.asp

We also visited the French Lick Winery, which is in an old Kimball factory, and is very unimpressive, both in facilities and in wine:

http://www.frenchlickwinery.com/

And the Winzerwald winery, which looked like a backyard operation, but which had some really nice wines and friendly people:

http://www.winzerwaldwinery.com/

All in all, a very nice trip with my sweetheart. These day trips keep us sane while dealing with life among the male teens and near-teens.