A Small Town in a Flyover State

It’s easy when you’re hometown is set in the mountains or on the coast. You’re blessed with the beauty of nature every day. If you grow up in the city, you get to enjoy the lights, the skyscrapers, and the endless choices of things to do and people to meet. When you grow up in the fields of a flyover state, what do you have?

While a small town in Indiana probably hits the bottom of places to move to or call home for most people, I happily call it mine. I spent most of my life growing up dying to get away. I wanted to move to the mountains or to an exotic country abroad, but when I moved a state over to Cincinnati, Ohio, I realized how much I missed and valued my small town called Ellettsville.

While I haven’t returned yet due to work, Ellettsville is home to me and will always be. Just reminiscing about it brings out nostalgia that tugs at my heart and fills me with immense emotion. I love my hometown. It’s where I discovered myself and made the majority of my memories.

Now you may wonder, what’s there to love about the town though? There’s a lot actually! Ellettsville is part of the Bloomington Metropolitan Area. While Ellettsville is small and full of farms, the area it’s a part of is quite large. If you don’t know, Bloomington is where Indiana University resides. It’s a true college town with loads of things to do, so once you get to the heart of town, which is a short drive from the boonies, there are loads of things to do inside and out!

Ironically, not straying far from home, I attended Indiana University where I acquainted myself with the vast options in food and drinks. I grew up consuming a lot of comfort food. Mashed potatoes, green beans, and meatloaf was a normal meal, and I rarely dined out. College was my opportunity to discover the diverse options in food my hometown has to offer. There’s a large assortment of ethnic food. Want Indian, Turkish, Mongolian, Venezuelan, et cetera? We have it! We’re a great place for foodies, and I’m definitely that. When I’m in town, you can probably find me at Sushi Bar devouring sushi (of course) or grabbing homemade grasshopper ice cream (mint brownie) from The Chocolate Moose.

To make things even better, we’re an awesome place to grab a drink. Whether you want to sit down for a sip or dance your booty off, we got a place for you! As an avid coffee and wine fan, I love and am impressed by our options. We have many coffee shops. My favorites are Crumble and Soma, and in all my travels (I’ve done a decent amount), they’re still my two favorite coffee shops. The shops are dimly lit and modern with a hipster vibe. The atmosphere is relaxing while their coffees are unique and delicious.

If when you say strong drink, you mean alcohol instead of coffee, well we’re even better for that. We have lovely sit down wineries. My favorites are Oliver and Butler. Oliver consistently create new wines as projects, such as their recent Lavender Cucumber Chill; Butler has delicious fruit wines and Indiana’s only black currant wine, which is honestly not very common in the first place.

We also have secret gems, such as Friendly Beasts Cider Company, which makes a wide range of different ciders from spiced and sweet to hoppy and dry. The building is small and hidden, but homey within. As a bonus, they allow dogs. They’re my favorite ciders by far. What can I say, we know how to eat and drink. If cider or wine doesn’t float your boat, we have Cardinal Spirits Distillery where you can sit down and eat while you try a delicious cocktail or taste their different hard alcohols. They specialize it vodka, but also make whiskey, rum, and gin.

If you’re more interested in a bar scene, there’s many to choose from. We have chill, sit-down bars (my favorite is Upstairs Pub), bars that you can dance until the early hours of the morning in (I recommend Kilroy's: The Jungle), and bars where you can hang out and play arcade games, pool, and darts. We don’t lack in options. The bars are rather budget friendly as well. We have two dollar Tuesdays and three dollar Thursdays, and that's for just about any drink you want. On other days, you can get a 32 ounce long island for just seven dollars, along with other daily deals.

Now if bars and restaurants hardly interest you, it may surprise you that we have plenty to offer outdoors, such as beautiful lakes to adventure. Griffey Lake is a lovely nature preserve where you can canoe and hike. While small, the area is very pretty and serene. If you want a big lake, we have Lake Monroe. It’s a huge manmade lake where you can swim at the beach, kayak, take out a party boat, fish, camp, cookout, and climb fire towers with breathtaking views. There’s so much to do there, and if you’re really adventurous you, can find secret beaches and abandoned structures to explore. One of my favorites is the abandoned water park. It’s a single blue slide made of cement. Sounds painful, but now that it’s abandoned and covered in graffiti, it’s a unique spot to discover and capture pictures.

The slide isn’t our only neat abandoned structure either. We have our fair share of abandoned homes just as many places do, but we also have abandoned facilities and a warehouse with an old firetruck in it which you’re welcome to hop in. Next to the warehouse is a quarry. Indiana has a large amount of limestone which we excavate, but when the quarries are abandoned, we get amazing swimming holes and landscapes. Whether you dive in or not, they’re still neat to see. Please, be careful if you swim in one though.

Last but not least, there are the fields and farms. They may sound boring, but if you love animals and nature, it’s nice. You can walk down the road and have chickens follow you (I've had it happen.), cows moo at you in hello as you pass by, and horses hover their heads over the fence for you to pet. It’s adorable to any animal lover. The winters are cold, but the snow on the trees and fields are beautiful, and during the spring and summer, we have the cutest little wild flowers everywhere.

Ellettsville may be the last place you’d think you’d want to live or visit, but it has so much to offer. Whether it is adventures outdoors, gaining a food belly at a unique and tasty restaurant, or enjoying the simple life of the boonies, there’s plenty to love and plenty of beauty in our town. All you have to do is look.