Huntington, IN, Treats and Crashes, 7/25-8/1

 

Wednesday, 7/31/2013

Camp Timber Lake

Huntington, IN

As I reported in our last blog entry, we arrived at Camp Timber Lake on Thursday, 7/25/2013.

It’s conveniently located just a few minutes northeast of Huntington, IN, and about 15-20 minutes southwest of Fort Wayne, IN.

In addition to relaxing and resting up from a couple of busy days at Eldora Speedway and a travel day, we headed out a few times during our week long stay for some fun, food, and exploring.

On Saturday morning, 7/27, we drove northeast to Roanoke, IN, to the Post Office and then stopped at the local weekly farmers market.  There wasn’t a lot to choose from, and the prices were a bit high on what was there, so we opted out on any fresh produce and headed back home for a while.  Then later in the afternoon we made our way north of Fort Wayne to the Allen County Fairgrounds and the annual county fair.

We arrived just in time for dinner and decided we each wanted a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich.  I forgot to take a picture, but they were huge.  The tenderloin stuck out of the bun at least two inches all the way around!  We both agreed that they weren’t as good as we had hoped, and they were definitely not worth $6 each.  But they filled us up, and we had our fill of fair food for a while.  The big show for Saturday night, and our reason for venturing out to the fairgrounds, was a demolition derby and figure 8 racing!  The total car count was slightly disappointing, but they put on a good show and we enjoyed ourselves.  Here are some of the cars staged and ready.

     

Let the crashing begin!

The derby is underway!

The fire department was on hand…

and they were utilized a few times.  This car had a fuel leak and started on fire…

but was immediately extinguished by the professional firefighters.  As the sun set in the west…

 

the midway lit up!

There was even a rollover in the derby.

Fortunately the driver was uninjured.  In fact, after the car was up righted, the driver jumped back in and continued on in the derby.  Even though it got a bit chilly toward the end of the show, we had a great time.

Monday, 7/29, we drove into Huntington for lunch.  When we were in Celina, we saw Nick’s Kitchen featured on one of those “best places to eat” shows on TV.

On this particular TV show, Nick’s Kitchen claims to have invented the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich.  Because we both LOVE breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches, I immediately Googled Nick’s to see if we were close by.  Happily Huntington fit right into our travel plans, and we were able to sample “THE ORIGINAL Breaded Pork Tenderloin” at Nick’s Kitchen!!!

There is an extensive menu available including breakfast,

     

but we both opted, of course, for the tenderloin!  Terri ordered fries with hers, and I got onion rings.

     

Look at the size of those sandwiches… and yes the onion rings are HUGE… as big as the bun!  So did we like the “original” pork tenderloin?  I’ll let you be the judge of that!

     

We both liked our sandwiches, but we agreed that even though it may be the “original” it’s not necessarily the best… but it was really, really good and very filling!  After lunch we decided to take a walk around the downtown area.  We both chuckled when we saw this sign in front of the Party Shop Store.

Guns and ammo… looks like it could be a pretty dangerous party.

The next day, Tuesday, 7/30, we headed south on Indiana State Route 9 to Marion, IN.  We wanted to check out a rails-to-trails bike trail.  It looks like a nice trail, and we’ll have to ride it someday.  We then continued south to Gas City, IN.  This town was originally known as Harrisburg until the name was changed to Gas City after natural gas was discovered nearby many, many years ago.  However now most of the gas has been depleted, but the city carries on its heritage with these cute street signs located throughout the city.

We continued onward, heading east out of Gas City on Indiana State Route 22 to Upland, IN, to our next destination.  Our friends Dave and Maxine, the Wandering Wingers, have mentioned Ivanhoe’s several times in their blog, so we just HAD to go and try the ice cream!

Ivanhoe’s has over 100 shakes and over 100 sundaes available along with other food on their menu!  Terri chose #99 “Turtle Two”…

and I chose #22  “Chocoholic Anonymous”!

Just look at all that hot fudge on those sundaes!  We both really enjoyed our sundaes, and it was well worth the drive.  Thanks Dave and Maxine for sharing this great place!  Outside next to the parking lot is Garfield the Cat with his ice cream cone.

Garfield creator Jim Davis is from Grant County, and they have created the Garfield Trail consisting of twelve different nearly five-feet tall statues of Garfield placed throughout the county.

After we finished our ice cream “lunch/dinner” at Ivanhoe’s we headed north on Indiana State Route 5 back up to Huntington.  We could have taken the interstate, but I wanted to take the scenic route.  We’ve enjoyed our time here, but now it’s time to move further on north.