French Lick 2007

As a last hurrah before I head back to work tomorrow, Barclay and I had an adults only getaway to French Lick/West Baden this weekend. Mom and dad kept the girls...turns out we missed the girls way more than they missed us. They had big fun for 3 days! Our trip was a lot of fun, though. We got to see the major renovations at French Lick, and stay at West Baden for the first time. On Friday we went to the French Lick Winery, which moved into a bigger building. We did a wine tasting and had lunch there. Then we checked into the hotel and explored a little bit. West Baden is amazing. The hotel and grounds are absolutely beautiful. The rooms were super nice too. They're definitely still working out some service related kinks, and not everything is open yet, but it was a real treat to stay there nonetheless. Friday night we went to dinner at the new steak house over at French Lick, gambled a bit, and then played pool at a bar for a few hours. French Lick is interesting. They really did some impressive renovations on the inside, but on the outside it's lost a LOT of it's charm. The casino is really ugly looking and placed right on top of the old golf course. A lot of the gardens are gone and the new outdoor pool is little and not nearly as nice as the old pool. So I posted a pick of the new indoor pool, but left out the picture of the outdoor pool. Then on Saturday we went over to Patoka Lake and attempted to rent a small little boat for just the two of us. We should have known that the boats would all be rented out, though, b/c it's Fourth of July weekend. So...the only thing left was a "playtoon"...it's a double decker pontoon with a slide. Since we'd had our hearts set on boating, we went ahead and rented it. We looked like huge dorks cruising the big lake in this boat meant for 10 people :) It was fun, though - and we made sure to go down the slide lots of times! It was a cloudy day, but I got pretty sun burnt anyway, There's no avoiding it with me! Patoka lake is really neat - it's uncrowded and 8800 acres...so very big. There are no houses since it's a DNR property. We'll definitely have to go back there next time we have a family trip to French Lick. We got back today and hung out with mom and dad for a while before they all head to North Carolina to visit Joe, Mel and Mike. Tomorrow it's off to work for me and off to day care for Lily and Addy. At least we start on a short week - we get Wed off for the 4th. Wish we could join everyone in N.C. Have fun !