Hotel in Clarksville

For those of you that have heard The Monkees song "Last Train to Clarksville" I finally know where that place is: Indiana! I got a chuckle Thursday afternoon as I made that connection.

Eric had a 15 minute presentation around 2:30 Friday afternoon so we went down as a family Thursday evening and spent the night in the Holiday Inn, which has a "lake" (if you can see all the borders of the lake, I would call that a pond) and two pools. We arrived and went to the outdoor pool, which is about as cold or a bit colder than our pool, and then after sufficiently chilling ourselves, we thawed out in the bathtub temperture indoor pool.

I was really impressed with the three littlest kids. Graigry and Neta all jumped in without being caught until their heads went underwater. Neta even told me to move away a few times. Nate learned to swim on his back and a few times, when he was on my back, I told him to plug his nose and close his eyes and we went under water. They did such a good job, especially if you consider their water intimidation levels earlier this year and moreso last year.

Eric left before the kids woke up on Friday morning so he could get some work done and put final touches on his presentation. I took the kids swimming at the indoor pool again around 9:30 and we stayed until 11. After that, we went back to the room, had lunch and baths, and while watching TV (a novelty for my kids) the youngest three (after a water filled morning and late night) all took naps.

We left the room around 2:30 (late check out). We played a little miniture golf on their small help-entertain-the-little-kids-not-very-impressive-course. Graigry said "I'm good at golf" and "I'm the king of golf" which I thought was humorous as he pushed the ball around until he finally got it in the hole. No lack of confidence in that kid.

The king of golf

Neta and Nate especially had fun with the two that had holes with tunnels.

Xela and Ro played for a little while but got bored faster. Xela wasn't feeling well so she lay down and a small ant crawled into her ear, which she said made her ear hurt. She hadn't been feeling well all morning.

After the golfing, we returned the clubs and balls, Nate thought they were souvenirs and didn't want to give them back, and then we went to feed the ducks. Neta and Nate really enjoyed themselves and had their favorite ducky friends. Graigry and Ro wanted to make sure all were included in the feeding. Xela sat and watched, again, not feeling well.

"Right there duck!"

After duck feeding we hung out in the lobby playing I Spy, bought a Fanta and then played Spin the Bottle to see who got the next turn to have two swallows (what do you think people thought as they saw us???), went down by the fitness room to "play" the arcade games and go potty and then at 5:30 Eric had finished his presentation (his presentation was the last part of the 2:30 session and then he didn't some networking when he finished) and finished the phone call he was on and we marched the kids to the car to leave.

The last van from Clarksville left the station around six o'clock. We stopped for ice cream after about 30 minutes (I told the kids we'd get some) and then had pizza after we got home. How's that for nutrious meals!

We were there longer than I expected so we didn't make it to a birthday party like I'd hoped. It was nice to get away for a little while. We're going to go to Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore in August. I can't wait for the white sands beach there. We had loads of fun there last year.