Fiddler's Hearth & Kennedy's kithchen

Unsurprisingly there is a strong Irish influence in South Bend. There are a few Irish pubs scattered around the town. By far the most authentic is Fiddler's Hearth on Main St., which celebrates the culture, food and drink not just of Ireland but of all the Celtic nations.

A great time to enjoy an evening at Fiddler's Hearth is one one of the many Fridays throughout the year when the local Irish band Kennedy's Kitchen are performing (photo above from their website). They play a mix of traditional Irish instrumental music, contemporary songs and well-known ballads, and are always high-energy.

Migration of the sandhill cranes

About 90 minutes south of Notre Dame, deep in rural Indiana, is the Jasper-Pulaski fish and wildlife area. For a month or so every fall and spring, the area hosts a huge population of sandhill cranes. The cranes live in northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan and southern Canada in the summer, and very sensibly winter in Florida. The Jasper-Pulaski wildlife area has for many years been a resting spot for the cranes as they make their twice-yearly migratory journey.

[Photo above by Chris Bergin, from http://chrisbergin.photoshelter.com/.] In the fall, the birds tend to stop over in Indiana between late October and late November. At the height of the migration, as many as 20,000 cranes are gathered in quite a small area. The spring migration passes Indiana usually late February to late March, but for some reason unknown to m there tend to be many fewer birds at the peak time, maybe 6,000 to 7,000.

[Photo above from meetup.com.] The best time to see the birds in just around sunset, as they return from a day's foraging. Most of them fly in to a single field (conveniently located next to a viewing platform) in the hour leasing up to sunset, and trot around socializing for a little while, before heading off to a nearby marshy area to sleep.

[Photo above by Tim Wallace, from birdzilla.com.] In the air the cranes are beautiful creatures, with long legs and wingspan, and an elegant gliding motion. On land they lumber around in a rather ungainly way. The sight, and sound, of thousands of these birds filling the twilight sky, coming in in waves from all directions, while thousands more wander around on the ground chatting, is truly awesome.

As I mentioned earlier, the best time of the year to take the nice drive through the cornfields of Indiana to the wildlife area is in the fall, but it is also well worth the effort in the spring. As a bonus, you get to see birdwatchers, too! [Photo above from http://rensselaeradventures.blogspot.com/2009/11/sandhill-cranes-at-jasper-pulaski-fish.html.]      

Notre Dame hockey

The football team gets most of the press at the university, and most of the rest is taken by men's and women's basketball, but there are a lot of other sports that are played at a high level on campus. Depending on the season, on any given day you can enjoy baseball, cross country, fencing, golf, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track and field and volleyball.

Right now, you can enjoy ice hockey at one of the nicest arenas in the sport, the Compton. The hockey team here is always in the mix for the national title, and this year is no exception. The team plays its last games at home --- the quarter finals of the Hockey East tournament --- on March 10, 11 and (if necessary 12). (Photo above from und.com, photo below from Rosetti.com, architects of the Compton).

If you are not leaving campus the instant that spring break begins, you could do far worse than enjoy an evening of first-rate athletics at the Compton. (with much more hockey and much less fighting than in the professional game!). Go Irish!    

Chickory Cafe

Chickory Cafe is a New Orleans-style coffee house in downtown South Bend. It is open very decent hours (until 9pm most day, 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays), serves great coffee and great food, including some Louisiana specialties --- Jambalaya, Gumbo and, most importantly, beignets.

There are lots of events --- concerts, trivia nights, ... --- and overall it is a lovely place to hang out to chat, read or play games (as you can see in the picture above, from Chickory's website). If you like Mardi Gras but can't get to New Orleans, it is a great spot to be on the day before Lent starts.

Amish country

Indiana is the state with the third largest Amish population in the USA; about 50,000, or 1/6 of the total US Amish, live here. Many (more than 1/3) live in LaGrange County, immediately to the east of St. Joseph County. The heart of the Amish country is the triangle spanned by the towns of Elkhart, Shipshewana and Nappanee. (Photo of Shipshewana below from in.gov)

A tour of Amish country makes for an excellent day trip from South Bend. The town of Shipshewana has many lovely craft and quilt stores (the Amish are known for their truly beautiful quilts), particularly in the Davis Mercantile center, and also has a great throwback to older American ways in Yoder's department store. Goshen also has excellent stores, particularly in the Old Bag Factory. Middlebury has good stores too, but probably its main attraction is Das Dutchman Essenhaus, the place to go for cream pies in northern Indiana.  

See here for a map (specifically here). Elkhart, the closest town on this map to Notre Dame, is about a 30 minute drive from Notre Dame.

Warning: If you visit Amish country on Sunday, you will find all stores and restaurants closed.


  

Paczki day!

South Bend historically has a large Polish population, and so the day before lent begins is not Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, but --- Paczki Day!

Paczki (roughly pronounced ``PUNCH-key'') are Polish pastries, basically big lumps of fried dough filled with deliciousness (strawberries, custard, cream, and, maybe not so delicious, but very traditional, prunes). They are typically eaten in Poland the day before the fasting of Lent season starts.

With an historically large Polish population here, South Bend is one of the small number of towns around the US (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago are others) that celebrates the day before Ash Wednesday by devouring these high-calorie monsters with no regard to what they do to the heart and arteries.

Up until a few years ago, paczki were only available on the Fat Tuesday itself (or maybe on the Monday at a few places), but now quite a few places in the area have given in to demand and make pazcki up to a week before the day itself. So you can enjoy them for a Saturday brunch, and try out a few different examples without dying of sugar poisoning!

Here are a few likely spots for paczki over the next six days:

-> The Baker's Dozen --- the only true Polish bakery left in town, their paczki are quite traditional, with more emphasis on dough than filling. The other places I'll mention have somewhat "Americanized" the confection, with a greater emphasis on the filling.

-> Macri's --- an Italian bakery, and, by the way, also a great Italian Deli.

-> Cops and Donuts, Dainty Maid Precinct --- when this was just Dainty Maid, it made the best paczki in town (imho, see picture above). Recently taken over by the Clare, Michigan bakery Cops and Donuts (police owned and operated --- no joke!), I won't know until next week whether the same high standards will be maintained by the new owner.

-> Rise'n'roll --- this is the first year that Rise'n'roll, the Amish bakery, will be offering paczki, so as with Cops and Donuts, time will tell where they stack up to the competition.

The river walk

The St. Joseph river cuts through South Bend, and the turn it takes at Howard Park, close to downtown, gives the town its name. On a nice spring, summer or autumn day, there is nothing better than walking by the river, enjoying the ever-changing views of and across the water.

We are fortunate to have a well-developed river walk, that allows one to walk a more-or less unbroken 12 miles mostly right by the water. The trail starts at St. Patrick's Park, near the IN-MI state line, then goes south, eventually reaching and passing through downtown South Bend before turning east, ending up at the very lovely, and recently remodeled, complex of four parks in downtown Mishawaka: Beutter Park, Battell Park, Kamm Island Park and Central Park. Have a look at the map here to see how to follow the path.  There are plans eventually to link up with some existing trails along the river in Niles, MI, so that eventually there will be an uninterrupted 20+ mile walking and bike trail connecting Niles, South Bend and Mishawaka.

The best parts of the river walk (to me) are:

-> From IUSB (there's a parking lot near the corner of Ironwood and Pleasant Streets) to the old St. Joseph high school (right at the southwestern corner of campus); along this portion, you can walk for about 6 miles without having to cross a road, always right beside the river. The picture below is from this stretch, just by the farmer's market. The building on the far right is ND rowing's new boathouse.

-> Along Riverside Drive from Angela Blvd to Cleveland Rd, past the campus of St. Mary's; along here the views of the river are so beautiful, especially close to sunset.

-> Around and about the parks of downtown Mishawaka; there are plenty of great opportunities for decent-length loop-walks here.