One Year (only a month late)

I can't believe it. Time flies when you're having fun, and boy did it fly by in Jason and I's first year of marriage. On Feb 2nd, we celebrated the first of I hope many milestones. It's really been great, and I love him more every day. I know this is all supersap from the sappy tree in sappyland, but I really never thought it would happen. So, I'm happy about it. We know that we'll only have one first anniversary, so we decided to do it up big. We'd been saving since October, and were going to West Baden Springs.

I'd heard of this place before, honestly mostly in ghost hunting circles. I think it was discussed when the re-did West Baden and French Lick Hotels, that there was a reported haunting. This is NOT why we went there. Remember back in October, when I posted about our camping trip to Patoka Lake? On the way down, we passed West Baden. I'd never seen it before in person and it was AMAZING. We stopped in on the way home, and made spur of the moment reservations for our anniversary.

On Friday the 30th, we made our trip down with only one little stop at Bass Pro Shops. It was huge.
As we arrived at West Baden, there were 3 small deer foraging right in front of the hotel! It was really cool, especially for me, who had never seen a live deer until after I met Jason. When we asked about them at the desk, it turned out to be an extremely common thing.
The whole hotel was really amazing. One of my favorite things were these statues. This hotel had fallen into extreme disrepair, at the worst time one wall was missing. In pre-restoration pictures, one of the only identifiable things were the statues.

We checked into our beautiful balcony room. The room was wonderful. It was elegant and comfortable. The furniture was really pretty. The fronts of the dressers were inlaid with a picture of the hotel. The bathroom was huge! That afternoon we went swimming. That night we took the shuttle over to the French Lick hotel and had a look around. We were glad to be where we were. There was live music under the dome every night, and it was just amazing.


The next day I had a Spreudel bath in the morning. These hotels had been built to take advantage of a mineral spring whos water was said to be a cure all. I wanted to do something in the spa that I couldn't do anywhere else, so I chose the bath. I wish I could have taken the list of minerals that were in it with me, because, it was scary. It smelled a little funky, and had turned the tap black. But, it was a realxing bath, and I thought it was neat. Plus, it cured my scurvy.


We went to French Lick winery for lunch, and had a good pizza. I tasted the wine, and decided that I've been spoiled by Oliver. EVERYTHING at Oliver is good. After that we went to the casino. Neither Jason nor I had ever been to a casino. We were excited. We each took $20, and were going to leave when we'd spent it. It was mostly slot machines, and nost of those were penny slots, so they only took one or two cents. Nevertheless, in around half an hour, I'd lost mine, but Jason had doubled his! So, we broke even. Both of us could see how people could spend all day there, but we also agreed that it was kinda boring. I think I'd want to see how somewhere like Vegas would be before I ruled on the entertainment value of gambling.


That night we went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate our Anniversary. I dressed up, and we went to the fancy steakhouse, It was good, and our table was very nice, very private. I had a ymmy martini, and we ate the biggest asparagus we'd ever seen. We went back and had dessert under the dome. There was a jazz trio there that night, and we danced on our balcony.


It was really a great trip. every inch of that place is amazing. It was a great memory to keep.