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!

A Day at the Orchard/Corn Maze/Pumpkin Patch!

Housekeeping Item First: If you missed the Saturday Six a couple of days ago, you might not know that I have a book giveaway running until the end of this week. If you or someone you know has experienced pregnancy/infant loss, I am giving away a book that is a fantastic resource to comfort the grieving mama's heart. It's Sarah Philpott's new book, Loved Baby. Really, really well written, and I just wanted you to know you can find the giveaway here!

So this weekend, Ryan and I had the chance to enjoy a really wonderful, restful, much-needed getaway, and I'm going to tell you about it over the next couple of days! Ryan has pretty much not had any time off this whole year. Well, he had a week in January, but that was his gallcation, and he felt pretty lousy for that week, so that didn't count. We did take a 3 day weekend in May for our birthday getaway to Saugatuck, Michigan, and that's been it for us this year! His only fun time off. He needed a mental break, and I needed a couple of days of not sharing him, so we carefully planned this weekend for a few months, and I stopped just short of making a paper chain to count down the days until its arrival. I was so excited.

We actually turned the mini-vacation into a three-county tour, so you'll get to see the full county recaps here soon. But today I just want to tell you about the orchard/corn maze/pumpkin patch! Ironically, this was not even on our radar when we left home. We were at a store and saw a card advertising a corn maze. We had several hours up for grabs Friday afternoon, and it was just about the most perfect weather day, so we decided to try a visit to the County Line Orchard in Hobart, Indiana.

I'm not gonna lie: I panicked a little when we drove up and saw this:

But this place was SO HUGE that we didn't find ourselves overrun by herds of hyped-on-natural-sugar kiddos!

We got in line to purchase an activity package, and yes, we were the only people there without kids. LOL!! (We got the Explorer pass, so it was just $7 for each of us. That gave us access to the corn maze, trolley ride, and u-pick apples. We didn't pick any apples, but we felt like we got our money's worth with the rest!) Just for funsies, we took a wagon trolley from the main barn to the very back of the property. We weren't too lazy to walk. We just thought the trolley would be fun!

We started with the corn maze. For the most part, we didn't run into too many people (astonishing, if you could have seen the parking lot and all the cars!), and those we did see mostly just politely nodded and walked by. There was one little group, though, that was in its own world of fun, and I think we were cramping their style. We decided they should never take up burglary. Stealth was not their forte.

This was the maze:

 (Hobart is in Lake County, which is the farthest northwest county in Indiana - practically a suburb of Chicago - hence the Cubs loyalty.)

 (Took this one while trying to avoid "the group.")

Of course we had to find all the markers. We compromised and decided it was okay if we didn't find them all in order, but we were not leaving that maze until we found them all!

#8 was our last find. The post was missing, and the sign was on the ground, BUT WE FOUND IT!

After we left the corn maze, we had so much fun with all the photo props around the farm. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

 (This is what happens when you don't think you're going to need your tripod, so you leave it in the car. Improv!!)

We did a little Christmas shopping/birthday gift shopping/apple cider donut shopping. Look how big the barn is!

A couple more photo opps in the parking lot...

Thanks, County Line Orchard, for a fun (and unexpected!) date!

Linking up with Tamar!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy Sunday!!! Happy October! Happy getting closer to the end of DST! Lots of happies today. :)

* Last Sunday, I was still mostly miserable from my huge apple dumpling splurge the night before, so I barely ate anything all day. A little yogurt, granola, and strawberries might have been the biggest meal! I took a lonnnnnnnnnnng nap in the afternoon while Ryan watched the Colts game, but he was kind enough to document the nap. HA! And that night, we went for a lovely walk, and we saw some of the first harvesting in our area underway. Let the dust and good Midwest aromas commence!

* Still feeling fluffy on Monday, I was ready to get back to working out, but I was not ready for the alarm to sound as early as it did! WHEW! I was grateful later that day when I discovered Katie Farrell (from Dashing Dish) is publishing her meal plans now, so I worked to make our menu plan for this week, using hers as an inspiration. And in happy mail...we got our latest scrapbook! I love scrapbook delivery days!

 * I was so excited when I got the paper on Tuesday and found the article with Ryan's picture featured! (It's the same one I shared in the Six yesterday. YAY!!! I made some pumpkin muffins for us while I worked to get the house ready for our small group, and I finally got out all the fall decorations and put them up. They need to be spruced up a bit, but they're out!

* Wednesday I was stuck in a room with a person who had never heard of an inside voice. Enjoy the photo I sent Ryan to describe my thoughts. LOL!! It was a really nice night, so we both worked outside. I lost a couple hours of my life that I'll never get back to deadheading our size-of-Earth mums. LOL! And then Ryan shampooed our carpets. Immediately after he did this, Braeya threw up and he spilled his coffee. So our floor luck continues. HA!

* Thursday I got the sweetest little encouragement gift while volunteering at the school. A church ministry has sort of adopted the staff and dropped off cookies in these cute boxes. Loved it! Thursday was also hair overhaul day for this girl! Goodbye, split ends and white roots! I feel like a new woman.

* Friday was super special for two reasons. One, Ryan had a vacation day, so we got to spend the entire day together!! Secondly, it was National Coffee Day! I mean, how great is it to get to spend a holiday of that magnitude with your favorite coffee drinker??? We actually went to a corn maze/orchard/pumpkin patch and had a blast...and then we drank the coffee. More on these adventures to come next week!

* And then yesterday. OHHHHHHHHHHH yesterday. It was some sort of special day, so the state parks had free admission. We had been wanting (for several years, actually) to hike at the Indiana Dunes, so this seemed like the day to do it! So many stores on this to come later, but let's just say we conquered the 3 dune challenge AND hiked two more dunes just for funsies. It was THE most perfect day for it. Perfect temps, sunny, lovely.