The Long Awaited, Much Anticipated Indy Local Tour Recap

Remember earlier this month when I went to Indy, and had the indie Indy experience?

No?

You're right, it was weeks ago.  All of my focus on local and indie buying has consumed my time, and I didn't get the opportunity to recap the adventures I had on Thursday, August 9th with my dear friend Michelle.  That's actually her real name, too, but mostly because I can't think of any clever nickname at the moment.

After training on 8/9 (where I learned a ton and was completely re energized, and I don't say that for the upper ups who may or may not be reading), Michelle picked me up at the fabulous Canterbury hotel and we took off for the Indy Reads Bookstore.  It's a unique concept- a community bookstore that takes donated books and sells them at fantastic prices- where all proceeds benefit a literacy program who's goal is to have 100% of Indianapolis able to read.  I walked out with 5 books for about $12 and felt like I'd stolen from them somehow.

So what comes directly after great books?  Great Cajun, of course!  Off we went to Yat's, a must visit also on the Mass Avenue corridor.  I'm no culinary writer, so I'm not even going to try to give description to the mouthwatering cheese crawfish etoufee that could ever possibly exist- but I ate every bit of it, and wanted more.  Yat's is the kind of joint where I feel right at home, because there's simply no formality.  We sat outside and discussed the state of the world in general, and probably would have solved all current crises had the draw of a good beer not interrupted.  

Setting off from Yat's, we hit a lovely hole called Chatham Tap.  GREAT beer selection, and my most dedicated tour guide had even checked to see if some local beer was on tap so that I could further my mission.

We sat right at the corner of the bar and shared a nice, hoppy Sunk King brew (can't remember which one!) and attempted to pick back up on the state of the world.  We veered off into something totally not related...actually, I'm pretty sure we ricocheted from family to work to politics to back to the world and were even closer to solving it all when Michelle brought up frozen yogurt.  

You're tracking this, right?  Books, Cajun, beer, and now yogurt.

We made our way to a place called YoguLatte which is a cute play on words with yogurt and latte...where you create a monstrosity from all kinds of different flavors or only one with a whole bunch of toppings thrown in for good measure, and then they weigh it and charge you accordingly.  What they didn't count on was Tour Guide Michelle, who assured me that the best course of action was to sample each one to figure out which one my palate liked best.  My palate should actually never touch yogurt, frozen or not, because I'm allergic to milk.  But, I'm one of THOSE type of allergics- I'll eat it anyway and then complain later from the effects.  

That's me and yogurt sample number seven.

If you're any good at math, you can see that there are four separate units that dispense frozen yogurt, each with three flavors.  Four times three is twelve- and subtract a few flavors that didn't sound good, and I sampled 8 different yogurts before deciding on cake batter.  It was a beautiful dessert worthy of world problem solvers...who decided to end the night with another beer.

After leaving the yogurt place, we closed the night at Metro Night Club upstairs, where we declared that unless we achieved world domination, it was doomed and we may as well have another beer.  We overheard some conversations that were far more interesting than ours in nature and abandoned world domination for more laughs and deep insights, which are often the same thing anyway.

While this post has been a long time coming, I promised The Best Tour Guide Ever Michelle that she'd feature on the blog as soon as I planted myself on the couch long enough to compose it...so here you go, Ms. M.  I had a WONDERFUL time, and can't wait to do it again one day soon.  I'm lucky to have friends that embrace my quirks...especially the quirks that last 365 days and include all local, all the time. 

Next up for the blog:  the current struggles and things I can't find, and the kids' eyerolls.