Marion County Tour

This past weekend, while we were celebrating Valentine's Day in Indianapolis, we decided to official mark this county off our tour schedule! (If you're new here, we are in a quest to visit every county in the state and are 1/3 of the way to our goal.)

Despite Marion County's status as the home of our capitol city and consequently home of so much to do, it was actually challenging to come up with our plan, because we have already done so much there!

It all went back to our very first date, when Ryan planned an amazing day in downtown Indianapolis. We did a paddleboat ride on the canal, went to the zoo, and had a picnic in White River State Park.

Then, right before we got married, he took me to my first Colts game - at Lucas Oil Stadium.

We went on a double date to the Melting Pot - back in our first year of marriage, when we often went on double dates with our friends Mike and Angie. (They have since moved to the Pacific Northwest and have made me fall in LOVE with that part of the country...via photos!)

We spent our anniversary in Indianapolis, actually, enjoying a hotel right on Monument Circle (even though our donuts ended up mysteriously eaten from our room), watching the lighting of the tree on the circle, going to a Gaither Christmas concert at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, checking out another Colts game, and touring the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

We went on another double date with Mike and Angie - this time to Fogo de Chao for a proper food coma.

I planned a date for Ryan to see Pentatonix at the Old National Centre. (We stood outside in line for an hour and a half, where I developed actual icicles on my eyelashes.)

Ryan planned a surprise date with a downtown city scavenger hunt!

We did an escape room (with a bunch of other people we didn't know) and had a blast!

We had a fancy date night at the Eagle's Nest, a rotating restaurant downtown.

We went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra - and the Christmas lights downtown - and had dinner at Scotty's Brewhouse.

We celebrated Ryan's 39th birthday with lunch at Giordano's and coffee at a downtown coffee shop. (And a failed attempt to tour Lucas Oil Stadium.)

We walked with our friend Pat in the kidney walk two summers ago.

On a very rainy day, we had coffee at Porter Books and Bread, near Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park.

And on our way home from an anniversary trip, we did a Christmas tour of Garfield Park Conservatory.

So as you can see, we've done quite a few things in Marion County, but we hadn't officially marked it off the list.

 I learned that the county was created almost 200 years ago and was named for Francis Marion, a Brigadier General from South Carolina. The county grew rapidly in population a few years later when the state capital was moved there from Corydon in southern Indiana. It is the largest county in the state!

As you saw a couple of days ago, our official county tour was a two day stay, inspired by Ryan's amazing Valentine's Day surprise getaway!

We stayed in a super cute Airbnb on the 10th floor of an apartment building overlooking the canal with a breathtaking view of the skyline. Everything about that place was vacation perfection, let me tell you.

We ate dinner at Burgerhaus - which was right in the same building where we stayed.

And we got coffee at Quills - which was a cute coffee shop ALSO right in the building.

So all that was Valentine's night.

The next morning we got up to the most AMAZING sunrise right there over the skyline. Indy, you sure are pretty.

We got all packed up so we could check out by ten (boo...the one bad thing about the Airbnb...super early checkout) and headed back to Quills for more coffee and a muffin...

AND!!!!!!

Guess who happened to be passing through the city on the way to visit family? Our dear Mark and Lynnette and their new baby! Because I was fighting germs, I didn't hold the baby (which very nearly caused me to keel over right there on the spot) but OH my she is cute as a button and has grown so much since we met her in November!

We spent about an hour together before they had to get on their way, and we moved on with our county tour, but what a fun blessing this was!

Our next stop was to walk the canal, which wasn't new for us, but it was new for us to walk it in the winter. It was just as beautiful, ice and all!

It was also bright and we didn't have our sunglasses on us.

We found the paddleboats we rode on our first date!

And we got a picture with "our hotel." On our first date, we did a picture with this hotel in the background, and when we started planning our wedding, we decided we wanted to stay in that hotel o our wedding night. Of course, getting married in Florida sort of put a wrench in that plan. Ha! We've still never stayed there, but we still take pictures with it any chance we get!

We also found our Airbnb building! In this first photo, I'm pretty sure we were the third balcony from the left on the top floor.

We ate lunch at a Chick-fil-A in the mall...

And headed home via IKEA (which is actually in another county, so I won't feature it here).

This was such a fun date. I loved it!! Thanks, Marion County, for giving us so many years of fun memories!