Weekend trip to New Castle

Indiana Summer

New Castle, IN - August 9

I spent this weekend in New Castle, IN with my friend from college Katie and her family.  After learning to love rural places while living in Europe, I was so glad to see that I now also love (visiting) rural places in the US.

A few highlights

• Filling up growlers at RAM on the way there
• Katie's brother's huge white dog, Sugar, who he swears is part wolf
• Trying 148 proof apple cinnamon moonshine that her dad got from some guy in Tennessee
• Awesome Mexican take-out with Katie and fam
• Jack's donuts and coffee for breakfast while reading Love in the Time of Cholera in the living room.  Repeating the same events on the porch the next morning
• Sleeping in
• Biking around country roads with Katie and stopping to take pictures of corn, play fetch with a random dog, and take pictures with a tractor and a plane
• Getting pulled over by a town sheriff because we weren't biking in a single file line.  On a country road.  With no traffic.  For my first time ever being pulled over, it's a pretty good story.
• Watching almost the entire first season of New Girl (impressive for a person who almost never watches TV...)
• Building a table in the garage with her brother and learning how to use new tool 
• Finally trying Pizza King, after hearing Patrick talk about working there all the time during college
• Trip to the lumber yard for table leg material, and finding out that a 2x2 only costs $2
• Salted caramel ice cream at Weenie World
• The awesome old trees in everyone's yards
• Using an electric sander

Katie and Blake helping finish up the final corner of the table top

New Castle, August 2013

And another great thing about this weekend's adventure, is that it has set me up with a week worth of skills to learn and projects to work on.  In tableland, I'm now on to the wood filler, sanding, staining, custom glass cutting..........

I begin to see why employed people don't make tables very often.  And I'm so very pleased with mine.