92 County Tour: Lake County

We're smack in the middle of telling you all the adventures from our weekend, and I have even MORE of them for you right here in podcast form. It's extra big today, but I think you'll find it funny!
 

Listen here!

This past weekend, we actually toured three Indiana counties, all right in a row. Some of our visits overlapped days hence the date marker on the chalkboard. We started, though, with Lake County! You can't go any farther north or west in Indiana than Lake County. It borders Illinois (specifically Chicago) to the west, and Lake Michigan to the north. Probably no surprise that Lake Michigan contributed to its name! :)

It's the second most populated county in the state, which is also probably no surprise, since it's a giant suburb of Chicago. (Gary and Hammond are both in this county, but due to the major congestion up in those areas, we didn't go quite that far northwest.)

Fun fact: This is one of the few counties in Indiana not in the Eastern time zone. In fact, all three we toured this weekend are on central time to accommodate those who work in/have business dealings with Chicago.

We started our day with a stop at the Albanese Candy Factory. This was on Ryan's must-see list, because one of his patients often stops there and brings gummi bears back to the hospital for the staff (ahem...Ryan) to enjoy.

The candy factory makes all kinds of candy, from gummi bears to chocolates and more. They make the candies right there in Merrillville (in Lake County) and use US products in their ingredients.

I will not lie; I was really looking forward to this stop. Their website talked about the free self-guided tours and how you could watch videos to learn about the candy-making process, and then at the end, you could get a free gummi and chocolate.

The factory is attached to the back of the candy store, and there are a series of picture windows at the back of the store that give you a peek into that side of the factory. The TVs for the video presentations were above the walkway, and to be honest, I didn't even notice them hanging there until the third TV. It was so loud in the store, it was hard to hear the speaker, and they prohibited all photo taking on the tour. (I died inside right there.) At the end, no one offered me a gummi OR a chocolate. I did finally get a toffee sample (which was absolutely delicious) because I was making a purchase and just asked if I could try one.

 We were both floored at how insanely busy it was in there in the middle of a Friday morning!

It wasn't my favorite stop, just because of how congested it was, and how sad I was about the reality of the tour vs. what I pictured in my head, but I won't deny that the candy is amazing!

One good thing that came from that stop was that was where we learned about the orchard and corn maze we ended up going to for the afternoon. They actually have a soybean maze for kids that features the shape of a gummi! (How genius is a soybean maze? Harder to lose the kiddos!) Anyway. I already told you all about the County Line Orchard yesterday, so I won't rehash all that. But it, too, was in Lake County, in the town of Hobart. (Just barely the county. It was on the county line road! Hence the name.)

You are going to be SO EXCITED (and then so SHOCKED) about our coffee shop find for Lake County.

When I saw that this was a real place (internet research) I about fell off my chair. LOOK!!!!!

Stop it.

There's a coffee shop called Spill the Beans? Like our podcast?? Well we have to go! We just have to!

This was also in Merrillville, and we were beside ourselves with joy to get here and sample the coffee. OH! And it was National Coffee Day, too. I mean, what can be better than spending our favorite day (1) on vacation (2) with each other (3) drinking coffee (4) at our podcast's twin??

It was just the most lovely place inside. Spacious, warm, inviting...we were ready to move in!

 (We need our own version of this!!)

We were just soaking in every corner of that delightful shop...and then we saw this.

In case you can't read that, it was a notice that after 9 years of business, they were going to be closing. September 30th. One day after our visit.

This has never happened to us in the history of our county tours! We have never found a coffee shop, only to find that it's closing in a day! We were brokenhearted! They were so busy the whole time we were there, and I couldn't find anything online that gave a reason for the closing, but oh my goodness, how glad we were that we arrived in time to sample some genuine Spill the Beans before it was too late!

We were so grateful for a beautiful day (weather-wise) to see Lake County. I know the county is much bigger than the few corners we saw, but this was a fun sampling of what it had to offer!