{"id":3034,"date":"2011-07-15T10:25:12","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/alumni\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2011-07-15T10:25:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:25:12","slug":"day-1-lafayette-and-merrillville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/2011\/07\/15\/day-1-lafayette-and-merrillville\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 1: Lafayette and Merrillville"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kyle Bender ’12 and Tyler Wade ’12<\/em><\/p>\n

After we finished some last minute packing and stopped by to see our friends in Career Services, we left Crawfordsville at 11:30 yesterday morning and drove up 231 to Lafayette, IN and the Lafayette Brewing Company. The van looked great parked in front of the restaurant and we were soon greeted by a small, but spirited contingent of folks from the Lafayette Association of Wabash Men. The group is headed by Lou Fenoglio \u201981 and usually meets on the last Thursday of every month. They change their schedule for the month of July so they might be able to welcome us on the inaugural stop of the 2011 Wabash Road Trip.<\/p>\n

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We arrived early to ensure a prominent parking spot for the event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a great conversation with the guys there, and even ran into a DePauw grad on the street that asked, \u201cDo you guys have the Bell?\u201d Clearly but one of several key distinctions between Wabash Men and our counterparts to the South. We made sure to add her to the scoreboard Runge mentioned in an early post. We also made sure we pointed out the scoreboard on the back of the van\u2026<\/p>\n

After lunch was finished we left for \u201cDa Region\u201d as it is affectionately known as on the official Wabash Road Trip t-shirts. We had determined we did not want to travel on the interstates so we might be able to see more of the state and be able to pass time between stops. We made a quick visit to see Kyle\u2019s parents in Carroll County and then stopped in Monon, IN for what he thought was going to be a quick photo op.<\/p>\n

For those of you who have not traveled this way, Monon, IN is a stop along the famed Monon line from which our trophy came. There in Monon sits the Whistle Stop Caf\u00e9 and Monon Line Museum. They had a huge collection of train memorabilia, several Monon bells, and some railcars outside. One was a large caboose with \u201cWABASH\u201d painted on the side in lovely red and white. We met the owner and his brother and they gave us a tour of the inside and sent us plenty of brochures so we might be able to spread the word. So, Wabash folks, if you are ever near Monon, IN make sure to run by the Whistle Stop Caf\u00e9!<\/p>\n

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Wabash Caboose at the Whistle Stop in Monon, Indiana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continuing north and then west, we pulled into T.J. Maloney\u2019s Irish Pub located just off Interstate 65 in Merrillville, IN. We knew this was going to be one of our biggest crowds and the folks in The Region did not disappoint, as we had over 40 alums, spouses, current students, and their families on hand for a nice evening of fellowship. We gave short presentations about our Wabash experiences and let the group engage in their own conversations. The crowd was great and it seemed like everyone had a very good time catching up with one another. There is great excitement about what lies for the NW Indiana Alumni Association and hopefully last night\u2019s event puts them in a good situation for the future.<\/p>\n

We decided to avoid the hotels on this trip too, and luckily we have enough friends across the state to be able to stay with our classmates and their families during this trip. Last night we stayed with Jeremy Coons \u201912 and his family in Hobart. They provided a nice place to stay and we thank them for their hospitality.<\/p>\n

Already up and at \u2018em today we are stopped at a Starbucks in Portage to write our blog and then will work over to South Bend for tonight\u2019s event. We hope to be able to walk around the Notre Dame campus and see what their bookstore has to offer before we meet the rest of the group for our event at 5 at the Legends of Notre Dame located right on campus. Hopefully we can get some last minute commits to tonight\u2019s festivities in South Bend and for the rest of the stops along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kyle Bender ’12 and Tyler Wade ’12 After we finished some last minute packing and stopped by to see our friends in Career Services, we left Crawfordsville at 11:30 yesterday morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}