"West Lafayette, Indiana" a West Lafayette Travel Page by John_P_LSU

<i>Stevie J., Jenny, Nikki, and me enjoying beer and grub just off of the Purdue campus</i>

Report on weekend at Purdue:

I’m flying back to Houston on a relatively empty Southwest flight and I actually have room to stretch out and pull out the laptop and write a report. I’ll start by telling about my fun weekend.

First off, my friend, Stevie J., and I left Houston-Hobby on Thursday morning for Chicago-Midway. It was sooooo cold when we arrived (light snow too)!!! Stevie J. is from that part of the country and he said it was only mildly chilly. But when that wind blew, even he was singing a different tune! I had been to the Windy City once before, in June ’98 but only made a brief visit during a drive-through and only stopped at a few places. After a quick driving tour, we stopped for lunch near the Sears Tower. We had a Chicago-Style Pizza-Pie and I had a local beer (Goose Island) which was pretty good.

After lunch and a few rounds, we headed for the Field Museum of Natural History (on Lake Michigan) to see <i>Sue</i>, the world famous Tyrannosaurus Rex that was unveiled earlier this year. It was quite impressive as were the rest of the exhibits. Nikki arrived at O’Hare while we were there and took a cab to the Field Museum. We all looked around for a good bit more and took off around 5pm from there.

We stopped at a cool pub (Coogan’s or something like that) for beers and wings for about a while and had a really good time mixing with the locals, most of whom worked downtown and were relaxing on a Thursday night. We left there and headed to Stevie J.’s parent’s house in Crown Point, Indiana which is a smidge over an hour from downtown Chicago.

His parents were as nice as could be and we chatted for a while, but I was beat by then (still hadn’t 100% recovered from Japan-jetlag and had gotten very little sleep the previous night) and went upstairs to crash. Woke up the next morning and was fed like a king by Mrs. Johnson. Man she likes to cook breakfast! After Stevie J.’s friend Jenny arrived, we got on the road and started making our way towards Lafayette, Indiana in two cars. Nikki and I stopped off at the Tippecanoe Battlefield (only minutes from Lafayette) and soonafter, met up with Jenny and Stevie at the Holiday Inn just off of I-65 at Lafayette. From there we made our way through Lafayette (very pretty) and into West Lafayette and got a quick driving tour of Purdue University. We parked, went to the Union (to find out about Rose Bowl tickets), looked at a bit more of campus, and then went over to a pretty good restaurant just off-campus for dinner and beers.

After showering and changing at the hotel, we went out to Harry’s Chocolate Shoppe, just off-campus for the evening. It’s a very cool bar that reminded me somewhat of the Caterie, but with 80% as many people and 40% as much space!! We stayed and drank for a good while and met up with a friend of Stevie and Jenny’s nicknamed Bert. She’s tall and actually looked somewhat like Ernie’s pal on Sesame Street, hence the name.

More soon......