Although the transition can be slow, the cold, dark days of a Midwest winter will soon be replaced with flowers, budding trees and shadows extending into the late hours of the evening. For the warmer days ahead, here are a few great date ideas you may not have known about.
Henry County Saddle Club
2221 N Memorial Drive New Castle, IN 47362
There’s something romantic and a little strange about an old fashioned rodeo, but it’s a spectacle either way.
Take State Road 3 a half hour south of Muncie on a couple of upcoming Saturday and Sunday nights and you’ll find the dusty floors of the Henry County Saddle Club filled with the cowboy boots of crowds watching boys and men of all ages riding bulls, steers and calves.
“There’s a lot of couples who come,” said Rebecca Baker, HCSC president. “Women are more attracted to the horse shows but rodeos are a guy thing I think that they like that. You see cowboy boots, cowboy hats, lots of cowgirls and lots of cowboys.”
Baker said this year’s rodeos will be more limited than expected because of an accident in December at an event in Marion, Ind. that involved the death of one of the riders, but that the summer and fall season will be filled with a full schedule of horse shows.
HCSC’s two bull riding events for the first portion of the season are High School and Junior Rodeo events on April 20 and 21 and May 4 and 5, respectively.
Baker expects a full house for the two upcoming events. She said bull riding at the HCSC usually attracts upwards of 150 attendees.
Larry Iscrieg, owner of the Mudd Creek Cattle Company from Rushville, Ind., rents out the Henry County Saddle Club to hold the rodeos, says he expects to be back in full swing by November 2013.
“I want to say 98 percent of [the area’s bull riders] are all getting back into full swing now,” Iscrieg said.
Iscrieg will still be holding between five and ten rodeos this year — a few in Rushville and at other locations around Central Indiana.
He has been riding bulls since he was little and said that the combination of excitement, competition and camaraderie is difficult to find anywhere else.
“Part of it is just for themselves to kind of draw the best bull or be the only one that’s rode that one,” Iscrieg said. “There’s never a dull moment. There’s always something going on always something to see.”
Updates can be found on the company’s Facebook page at “Mudd Creek Cattle Co.”
Bonge’s Tavern
9830 West 280 North Perkinsville, IN 46011
At about 4:30 p.m. on a typical Friday at the modestly sized rural shack that is Bonge’s Tavern, the owner’s daughter, Ingrid, and the rest of kitchen staff are just finishing up their daily five hours of prep work.
They joke comfortably with each other between preparing meals for the few early patrons populating the dining hall’s row of booths.
“We take a lot of pride in what we do,” Ingrid said. “We’ve got a great staff; we make everything pretty much from scratch and we’re here all day prepping.”
The unusualness of the place is obvious upon arrival. Instead of menus on the tables, the restaurant’s 5-10 offerings of the day are posted on a chalkboard above the bar.
Special dishes on the menu change regularly but the prices aren’t exactly what would be expected from a roadside tavern in the middle of nowhere along the White River in Perkinsville, Ind.
Dinner for two would be hard to come by for less than $50 or $60 but take that first bite or take a few minutes to talk with Ingrid’s father — head chef and owner, Tony Huelster, and diners will know where the extra cash goes.
For example, Huelster’s fish come from a distributer in Chicago who sources everything from Honolulu and other places around the globe and deliver’s fish to the restaurant daily.
“They know me well enough to know, ‘Don’t send Tony crap or else he’ll send it back,’” Huelster said. “And I do and I get pissed and if I have to I’ll switch companies.”
Huelster holds all his ingredients to the same high standard.
“All I buy is New York strips and rib eyes. We cut every steak in house,” Huelster said. “If there’s any veins in them that I don’t like or the marbling’s not good or there’s any problems with the steak I pull it off and get credit for it.”
The dining room’s sixty seats that routinely become jam-packed on winter weekends and nearly every summer evening.
Hungry patrons are encouraged to bring drinks and tailgate in the surrounding gravel parking lot or in the fenced-in beer garden attached to the main building while waiting on their table.
“On a Saturday in the summer at 4:30 [p.m.], when we open the door we will have a line out the parking lot,” Ingrid said. “And if you’re not in that line at the beginning when she opens the door, you’re not getting in.”
Huelster took over at Bonge’s in 1999 after spending time cooking at a number of high-end Indiana restaurants including, the Glass Chimney in Indianapolis and Foxfires in Muncie.
Since he began cooking at his Perkinsville location, Huelster’s food, service and atmosphere has become part of Indiana culinary legend.
With four-star food and service, it’s no wonder this quirky restaurant with the strange location has survived for so long.
Because of the cost, it may not be a viable location for a once-a-month date for everyone, but it’s perfect for any occasion calling for some excitement. A trip to a place this fun can be an occasion of its own.
Mounds State Park
4306 Mounds Road Anderson, IN 46017
On a warm day, Anderson psychotherapist Brian Hart watched a group of his particularly rowdy patients standing silently on one of Mounds State Park’s pebble beaches along the White River with their feet in the water.
“Normally you couldn’t pay them to be quiet,” Hart said.
Hart said he remembered five to ten minutes of silence before one patient spoke up, saying “If I got to do stuff like this more often, my life would be better.”
As the snow melts and temperatures start reaching upward, places like Mounds State Park become increasingly attractive.
Grassy areas and trees surround the ancient Native American ceremonial mounds, from which the 290-acre park gets its name.
“They were set up as an astronomical alignment between the great mounds,” said Dewayne Hook, an interpretive naturalist at Mounds. Smaller earthworks are set up for the summer solstice and the winter solstice and the fall and spring equinoxes.”
The park’s attractions include a pool in the summer, running and walking trails, 75 campsites and lots of picnic areas as well as a pavilion big enough to hold about 200 people.
When he doesn’t have patients with him, Hart says he uses the park all year round, making it out to the park about once a week to run or camp with his wife.
“I do think I observe that people don’t seem to be aware of Mounds,” Hart said. “I don’t know if they physically don’t know that it’s … here in Anderson, most don’t appreciate what Mounds is.”
The park also has a nature center on its grounds that houses a range of small wildlife and can be toured daily.
Hook said there is someone from the park on duty seven days a week to answer questions about the park and help anyone who might want a deep look at the park and its history.
Official park hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the winter and 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the summer. Summer hours have already begun.
Information on special events at Mounds can be found at the parks Facebook page — Facebook.com/moundsstatepark
Check out the park on warm spring and summer days for a place to picnic, explore nature or just go for a casual walk.
