Weekend in Bloomington, Indiana: Part 1
I’m excited to blog about our trip to Bloomington, Indiana! As you all know, I love exploring Michigan… and I’m really excited to be getting out of the state to explore more of the midwest. Definitely a midwest fan over here! Bloomington, included. It was such a fun weekend. The town is small enough to get a good sense of in a long weekend, but also big enough to provide so many different adventures and options of places to eat, drink, and see. We followed a fun scavenger hunt from Visit Bloomington and tried to knock as much as we could off the list… but didn’t even make it close to half way! Looks like we’ll have to schedule another trip there soon!
Visit Bloomington sponsored this trip. As always, opinions are my own!
So coming from Grand Rapids… it’s about a five-hour drive. It didn’t feel bad at all though! We left in the morning, stopped for breakfast along the way, and got to Bloomington to check into our hotel at Grant Street Inn right on time! This inn was so nice to stay at. It’s a boutique inn with over 40 rooms. They have a few different buildings, we were across the street from the main inn, in the more “modern” side. Our room was wonderful! Very spacious, the bed was super comfortable, big TV, huge bathroom. We loved it. Plus the inn is in the perfect location if you’re exploring downtown Bloomington. We were able to walk most places, especially because we had wonderful autumn weather while we were there too!
Our first night in Bloomington, I knew I wanted to just get out and explore downtown and get a sense for the city. So we ended up just walking around, taking in the sights, stopping into a few boutiques and stores, snapping photos. The town is so walkable, and there are scooters everywhere, so you can easily scan with your phone and go! So fun. We ended up stopping into Gather, which is a really cute retail gift shop located in the historic Redman Building. I loved their little succulent area/wall. We ended up buying a maple candle, and some adorable earrings I can’t wait to wear on the blog soon. We also stopped into JL Waters, which is an outdoor/adventure store. I found a winter jacket I ended up loving!
After a little shopping and strolling around town, we went to dinner at a Bloomington staple, The Irish Lion. I loved this place for dinner! I absolutely love a good themed restaurant, with food and drinks that are authentic. This restaurant was actually used as a pub & inn in 1882. The inside feels so unique too, we ended up sitting in a little booth on an upper level, so we had a fun view of the entire restaurant. For an appetizer, we went for a local favorite — the Blarney Puffballs, which are house deep-fried potato balls with a cheese and garlic mixture. For dinner, I went for the classic Corned Beef & Cabbage. Eric had the Shepherd’s Pie. Both classic Irish dishes! Granted I’m only 10% Irish and know very little about being Irish, haha, but this place felt very authentic. We really enjoyed our meal there!
After dinner, we walked over to The Bluebird. When we were planning our trip several months ago, we saw that Jimmy Eat World would be playing there when we were in town, so of course we had to grab tickets! I’m glad we got them early too because the show ended up selling out. It was such a fun thing to do while we were in town… and I loved that venue. It’s such a unique set up, with several bars, and levels. Lots of different viewpoints. It was a little tricky with a sold out show because it was PACKED in there. We were on the lower level for a bit, before we ended up escaping to grab another drink from the bar and ended up just staying on top to have a little bit of space. But we were able to hear/see them perfectly, and it was super fun!
So yeah, we loved our first night in Bloomington, Indiana. Grabbed some Taco Bell right after the show (perfect central location downtown, hahaha, definitely a college town!) and then went back to our inn to get some sleep! I’ll be back with our full day in the city, so stay tuned for part two!
