Eclipse Road Trip 2024
We drove up to Indianapolis for a couple of days before scooting over to Muncie for the solar eclipse. Then we stopped in Cincinnati for a couple of days, because why not?! Get ready for a fun trip recap.
We stopped in Manchester, KY on our drive to Indianapolis because someone I follow on TikTok got donuts from a Mennonite bakery there and I am a SUCKER for good donuts, and it was kind of on our way. We tried the glazed, chocolate frosted (it had legit frosting, not glaze), apple fritter, and bear paw (maple icing with chopped pecans) donuts, plus we got a dozen peanut butter cookies and all of it was $8.50. These Mennonites are out here doing the Lord’s work.
When mapping to the bakery, I saw Stone of Witness - Red Bird Petroglyph, and I love old things so we had to stop to see the big rock with carvings too.
Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park at Newfields is still in the middle of the art installation, but we saw a few pieces and walked around. It was pretty and will be even prettier when it’s finished.
We walked along the White River behind the zoo and snuck a peek at the White River Gardens, so beautiful.
We saw a few monuments before our dinner reservation at the old, fancy, and famed, St. Elmo’s Steak House. Soldiers & Sailors Monument, Indiana War Memorial, and Ayres Clock are pictured below. There were a few things that were blocked off because of construction so that was kind of sad.
St. Elmo’s was an experience to be sure. Every single human you walked by on the way in or out said welcome, glad you’re here, see ya next time, etc. Our server was so nice, the perfect amount of attentive without being all up in our shit, and very helpful when we were ordering. I had their signature “Elmo Cola” which is a cherry vanilla whiskey served on ice with a small glass bottle of coke. It is my dream cocktail. I liked it so much that we went to Total Wine the next day to buy St. Elmo’s cherry vanilla-infused whiskey so I can make this drink at home. We ordered steaks with green beans, I had the navy bean soup and Christopher had the lobster bisque, we also ordered skillet mushrooms and potatoes Romanoff. The bread basket they brought out was so interesting and delicious. It had pumpernickel rolls, onion potato rolls, and these flat cheese stick things that were almost like homemade cheez-its but obviously a trillion times better. I wanted to have 70 of them.
Downtown we saw the Indiana Statehouse, the Indianapolis Public Library, American Legion Mall, and the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in the daylight from the Statehouse.
We visited the Museum of Minature Houses and holy crap! people are so talented and patient. I especially loved the Sherlock Holms Display, the two-story library, and the Adams Family Mansion.
I had coffee from two places I liked, Ascend Coffee and MOTW.
Some of our favorite foods in Indy other than St. Elmo’s were brunch at Cafe Patachou, ice cream from Graeter’s, and bagels from Bagel Fair.
After we left Indy, there was one roadside attraction we had to see. Uranus. How do you not stop at such a hilarious place?
The main event of our trip was seeing the Solar Eclipse in Muncie, IN. My sister-in-law’s family is from Muncie and some of her Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins still live there. So we met up with them to watch the celestial event of the year.
We also had to take in the sights and snacks of the city! Let’s start with the snacks.
Donuts from Concannon’s - WOW! Those are some of the best donuts I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot of donuts.
We really enjoyed our dinner at Acapulco Restaurant, delicious chips and salsa.
No visit to a small town is complete without hitting up at least one ice cream place, we picked BerryWinkle for some froyo. I couldn’t decide between fruity Dole Whips and something chocolate + peanut butter, so I got two cups and didn’t choose. YOLO.
I had a great club sandwich with tots, and Christopher had a jalapeno popper burger with tots at Roots Burger Bar. It’s a fun sports bar with good food and service.
Our last dinner in Muncie was at Pizza King. If you know anything about me, it’s that I love a place with king in the name. My top three kings are bagel, donut, and beefy in Orlando. We ordered the Roayl Feast (“A Special Blend” of Pepperoni, Sausage, Mushrooms, Onions, and Green and Red Peppers) and bread stix with dill butter. The pizza was good, not great, although I love the finely chopped toppings and I will be stealing that concept, but those bread stix… WHOA. That dill butter is what my salty, herby, dreams are made of. I will be trying to recreate that shit, it was that good. The best part though, you order by picking up the old-school phone to “ring the king”. It was quite an experience and I’m glad we went.
On our way out of town, we stopped for a coffee at The Caffeinery, such a cute shop and I really liked my latte.
And you CANNOT visit Muncie without picking up some chocolate from Lowery’s. One of the best parts of my sister-in-law joining the family is the box of Lowery’s at Christmas. Who knew we had been missing out on such delicious treats before my brother met her? Good work dude. (P.S. K, I love you for more than the chocolates)
Now the sights. Ball State University is the big to do in town and for good reason. It is such a beautiful campus and offers a ton of activities for the community. We went to a Planetarium show the night before the eclipse to learn about where the sun, moon, and stars were going to be in the sky the day of the eclipse. It was cool that during totality we knew to look for Jupiter and Venus and we could see them so clearly.
Another cool place in town is Minnetrista, a museum and gardens. We just went to walk around the gardens and see the Ball Family (as in Ball Jars) Homes/Mansions. It was a lovely place to walk around and I’m sure the museum is great too.
Probably my favorite place on campus that we got to visit, is the Dr. Joe & Alice Rinard Orchid Greenhouse! What a dreamy, humid, perfect place. They had some cool frogs too.
When we saw this McDonald’s sign on the way out of town we had to stop to take a picture, and pee. How cool is this? I love old signs.
The last stop on our eclipse trip was Cincinnati, OH/Newport, KY. Our hotel was on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River from Cincinnati and crazily enough there is a Hofbrauhaus across the street. We went to the original in Munich when we went to Germany so it’s shocking to see one in Newport, KY of all places. We went there for dinner our first night in town and honestly, it was mid. We shared a giant pretzel, a sampler platter of jagerschnitzel and sausages with sauerkraut and a potato pancake, a side salad, and we each got a beer. Their beer isn’t our favorite, the pretzel wasn’t great, just ok, the salad was pitiful, but the actual entree was good. It was easy to just walk across the street, but honestly we would have been better off driving somewhere else. Oh well.
I had a couple of really nice lattes at Carabello Coffee a few blocks from our hotel, Christopher didn’t love the drip and pour over he had, sad day. I got to go into a really cute stationery shop, Paper Wings, and get a few cards and a new pen.
It rained the entire time we were in Cincinnati, and Christopher ended up having more work to do than expected so we didn’t really get out much. But we did see this cool fountain downtown. Cincinnati has so many murals, I wish it hadn’t been so nasty out because I would have loved walking around to see them, but I’m glad we at least got to see them from the car.
It was a really great road trip! We are so lucky to be able to do this kind of thing, and seeing the eclipse in the path of totality was totality worth the drive.
