Hamilton County Tour: Bike Rides and Great Food!

Today's post and podcast work together...enjoy them both!

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Ready for part 2 of our Hamilton County adventure? 

After Colts Training Camp, we rented bikes and rode the Monon Trail. Ryan has a bike, but I don't, and we were worried that even if we were able to find one to borrow for me, the bikes wouldn't be safe in the back of our truck while we went to training camp. So we decided to rent them. Hamilton County has a bike rental program, and one of the rental locations happened to be Grand Park...where we were for the Colts! We had already paid to park our car there, so we just decided to start there!

We had a rough start to our ride, because we weren't exactly sure where to hop on the Monon Trail from the bike rental location. (We were also trying to dodge the traffic of people leaving training camp.)We finally found our way to the trail and just as I started to exhale in relief, the trail CLOSED!! They are in the middle of building a much-needed overpass for the trail to go over a very busy intersection, but it's not done yet, so we had to ride in the road and through gravel patches and across several lanes of traffic before we could catch up to the trail again. Brought back not-so-great memories of when I broke my leg as a kid. (Busy highway...gravel...cast...crutches...)

The trail itself was beautiful, and we had a GORGEOUS day to ride.

When we got into Carmel, we stopped for lunch at Bub's Café, which happened to be right on the trail. We could park our bikes in the yard and sit outside to keep an eye on them while we ate.

 Ryan's lunch was called a shnaffle. (I have no idea if I spelled that right...I couldn't find it on the online menu.) It was a full waffle with a breaded tenderloin on top of it. Unique choice, but he said it was really good, and he would get it again!

I don't know why, but pancakes sounded SO GOOD to me. I got a single pancake and look at this thing!! (It had pecans and cranberries in it.)

After lunch, we got back on the trail and kept riding! We went about ten miles one way before turning back, and if you listen to the podcast, you'll hear the adventures of Bekah and the overpasses. 

By the end, I was struggling!

But we made it back in one piece! Then we couldn't get the bikes to lock, and it took almost 20 minutes to get through the hold queue for help. That was kind of exhausting. 

We were definitely ready for coffee. 

I had picked out The Well, which is a coffee shop in Fishers. 

Because this county is pretty trendy, we didn't have to worry about finding a coffee shop. We just had to figure out which one to visit. I picked this one because of its mission to help others. (They use profits to help provide clean water around the world.)

We decided to step out of our coffee comfort zones on this one. I had "The Sass," which was a coffee infused root beer that tasted like a root beer float. I was nervous, but it was really good! Ryan had "The Cuban," which was espresso with steamed sweetened condensed milk. He liked his too!

We were big fans of the coffee, the nice staff, the mission of the coffee house, and the décor!

And before we headed back home, we stopped at Nothing Bundt Cakes, which I happened to notice while we were looking for a parking place. I've always wanted to try their cakes! I've read about them on Pinterest, but I thought all their locations were out west, so I hadn't tried them. We each got a little cupcake-sized bundt cake to bring home for later, and we thought it was the cutest little shop.

We had a great time officially touring Hamilton County!