End of an era and a trip to a Turkey Run.

It was with a bittersweet sense of anticipation that I entered the cinema on Friday night. It was the night that I would end fourteen years of a tradition of going to see the latest Harry Potter film as soon as it comes to the screen. This has involved watching it in Manchester, Newcaste-upon-tyne, an old-fashioned quaint cinema in Bowness (including an intermission) and now in Indianapolis. It was a brilliant ending to this era because it was a  great film (apart from the end bit when they had grown up, not so sure on that), popcorn, mammoth drinks (which were refillable), comfy seats, interactive audience (Ron and Hermione’s kiss gained a loud round of applause), a wealth of pre-film adverts and an electric atmosphere. Although this end of an era didn’t have the smoothest of beginnings. We arrived a bit later than planned, no seats of twos together apart from, yes you’ve guessed it, on the front row right on the left. Nothing screams nausea like looking up at a ginormous, flourescent screen with blurred figures leaping across it. Within a few minutes I thought I might be sick and wished I had some anti-sickness tablets on me. We decided to leave and Luke kindly took me to the later one. Thankfully we got there early and got great seats at the back where we could actually see the images on the screen without feeling nauseous. Although, when we saw the snake scenes that feeling crept back.

After a late night watching Harry Potter we had a relaxed Saturday, which included sitting on the balcony and listening the music coming from the  Indianapolis Black Expo Festival. In the evening we were going out with the expats. This ended up with having drinks in Dans flat, and in true British style, we stayed talking until it was too late to go out. We had a lovely time getting to know everyone better and planing a road trip adventure for Sunday. Dan decided to go with a ‘team theme’. The three boys were the ‘roof team’ (they were welcome to it). I was the ‘breakfast making team’ (typical) and Roanne was in the team of needing to catch up on sleep. With the teams organised we went to bed, after a few drinks, with the aim of getting up early. It may have been an optomistic aim but we all managed to agree on 8:30 to meet and have breakfast. This meant I got up earlier to make sure everything was alright and to try to tackle making french toast. Ah! I ended up making an interesting version of  ’Lucy’s English toast’ instead. It seemed to go ok,I think.  Luckily I had my Pumpkin bread as a back up. Phew, unintentional forward planning saved the brunch.

We then had a ‘ Team Dan’s car’ and a ‘Team Jeep‘ .

The latter turned into the ‘Team fetching Scottish’. Who, as it turns out, is actually called Jack but his ID badge shows his middle name by mistake. Poor guy! We fetched Jack , with his great accent (now I get why the Americans are fixated on our accents, it is so refreshing hearing a new one)  and we met ‘Dan’s car team’ in Walmart to pick up BBQ goodies and a fishing rod. The ones fishing also had to get a licence to be able to fish so I had a look round at the store. It is amazing, you can buy guns and bow and arrows in the same place you can buy your bananas!

So, with a few fishing rods over shoulders and a supply of burgers, we returned to the cars. Unfortunately, we returned without beer as we had completely forgotten that you can not buy alcohol on a Sunday! There went the idea of having a proper fishing trip with fishing rod in one hand, beer in the other. It’s strange, you can buy guns and fishing equipment on Sundays, but no alcohol. It wasn’t from lack of trying though. Roanne did try to catch a few bottle of wine with her fishing rod, but to no avail.

We drove for over an hour to Turkey Run Park. This involved a lot of wind blowing through the car as we had no roof on. It was lovely in the near 100 farenheit! We passed a few idyllic looking old-fashioned towns, farms and lots of corn rows.

Luke resisted the urge of driving through them Although on the drive home the sat nav took us into the heart of corn rows and , as Jack pointed out, this is usually how horror films start. A group of young people, in a jeep, who have been out for the day lose their way in a field of corn and were never seen again (sound the Jeepers Creepers music). Luckily we made it.

Turkey Run Park is massive and there is a variety of things to do. There is a swimming pool, walking trails, picnic shelters and it was bustling. There were even a few covered bridges! We decided to go off to the place where we could fish. We had a lovely BBQ, after we had a quick chat with the rangers and once it was alight. This was after lots of lighter fluid and puzzlement as it wasn’t catching. A few people nearly caught fire, but no fish did as the boys were not too successful. Although later on they nearly caught one, albeit a slightly dead one.

We missed out, just, on hiring canoes and individual rubber rings to go down river in.

So we did a bit of ‘walking’ in the stream , as wading and swimming aren’t allowed. We agreed that the term ‘wading’ wasn’t clearly defined, which was a tenuous argument I know. However, Roanne suggested it wasn’t wading unless the water came to the top of your thighs. We went with this and either floated or walked in the stream so no rules were broken. Perfect! It was so surreal floating in the water with everyone, whilst Nikhil and Dan were trying to catch some of the huge fish that were swimming around us. It may have been more effective to use a spear or pick them up! Still, we could pretend they caught the dead one at the end?

We, soggily, retreated back to ‘Team Jeep’ and ‘Team Dan’s Car’.

It was boiling so it was such a relief  to be back in the Jeep, heading back to Indy, with the wind making our hair stick up. It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday. It mad me feel like laughing when I think of what I was doing on Sundays back in the UK. We dropped Jack back  at his apartment and headed back to Riley. We did make a slight diversion toYogulatteon the way back. The driver insisted. I did quite well in getting my yoghurt’s weight being less, however Roanne beat us all in the modesty stakes and made Luke and I look gluttonous. We sat on the wall, in the sun, and ate our Yogulatte. It was whilst we were sat on the wall that ‘Team Dan’s Car’ found out where we had diverted too and they insisted on Roanne brought them one back. We then had a mad dash with our ‘frozen yogurt time bombs’ made just a little bit more dangerous by hot fudge sauce, never a good idea. We made it back just in time. We got the roof back on the Jeep, well the boys did I stayed well away for the sake of my relationship!

Then Nikhil drove past, bizarrely, with the Yogulatte container on his boot to see if he could drive outside and park whilst preventing it spilling!. I’m not quite sure how it went, but I didn’t see any Yoghurt puddles outside. Always a good sign!

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