Dirty 30 Pub Crawl

When the Polack turned 30, he had the bright idea of celebrating by doing a pub crawl around Lafayette and stopping at 30 bars. On one condition... the stops had to be at the dirtiest bars around town. No campus bars. No high class, swank. No sir-ree - the bars we went to had crockpots of mystery meat, patrons who were missing teeth, and bartenders who didn't understand the concept of receiving a tip. It was a great day - full of stories we often talk about. And since the Polack turned 35 this summer and we were making a move from Lafayette to Bloomington, we thought it only appropriate to re-enact that magical day five years ago.

This was bar #3 - the Spot Tavern. By far, the dirtiest bar on the crawl but the Polack and Marty perked up when they found out it was for sale. I spent the whole time telling them, "We are NOT BUYING this bar." Fun fact about the Spot.... It's the third oldest bar in the state of Indiana. At least that's what Larry the owner told us. In this picture, we're sitting on his bed as he practically lives at the bar. I wonder where he'll sleep after he sells it??



Have I ever mentioned my mad Ms. Pac-Man skills? I rock at the game and got the
high score of the day. And I can totally do better than this score. But everyone got tired of watching me play. The Polack keeps promising to buy me a Ms. Pac-Man game for our basement.



Bar #8 was the Parkside Deli.



Mom's Place was our stop for bar #16. When we ventured here five years ago, several people in our group chose to wait outside because the bar had a pretty bad reputation for fights and shootings. This ended up being my favorite stop of the day. Oh, and Marty tried to re-enact his bout on the stripper pole from the previous pub crawl. Only the pole at Mom's Place was square. And made of wood. I bet he's still pulling splinters out of his hands.



When we went to this bar last time (Double Deuce - bar #18) they had one side decorated with Purdue paraphernalia and one side decorated with Indiana paraphernalia. Half our group went to one side and half to the other side and we tried to outsing each other's school song. The Double Deuce no longer looks the same except there are still some IU bar chairs which I was excited to see. It's hard to find some IU love in Purdue country!



Outside of bar #24 - Jerilee's Pub. I'm not really sure what's going on here...



When we were hanging out the Filling Station - bar #25 - someone arrived who was driving a limo. He let Lindsey and I check it out. You would think that owning a limo is a rare thing but he is actually the third person I've met who has his own limo. I totally want one!



The Biltmore!



The Biltmore was bar #26 - I was excited about going here but then we got in trouble when Marty used their plastic table cloth as a cape. We had to make a quick escape.



Ace's Pub was bar #27. Ace's wasn't quite dirty enough for our taste but we were getting low on options so we added it to the list. I guess Lafayette just doesn't have enough dirty bars anymore.



We ended up making it to 30 bars. We started at 11am and went until 2am. It was fun day with many more stories we can share in the future. There was our second stop - at the Clubhouse - when we asked the bartender to take our picture. She sent her "bouncer" to do it instead. He was drinking straight from the Jack Daniels bottle and tried to take a picture. I had to tell him the camera was upside down. Then he tried two more times and said the photo's were great but really, he never took any. He was scary and I definitely wanted to disinfect my camera after he had it.

There was also the lady at one bar who was carrying a freezer bag full of brussel sprouts. Who does that? It was quite a mystery to me. I wanted to find out why she was carrying around a bag of vegetables and I was quite disappointed that no one else in the group seemed to care about this.

There was one bar where Gimpy met his future wife. We left his phone number with her but I don't think he's received a call yet. And there was the bar that had the Mexican wedding reception. We tried to go in but were scared away by the guys in Tuxedo's and the girls wearing 1980's prom dresses. The Polack was very disappointed to see that his photo was on the banned for life wall at Chances Are. That was our last stop of the night. Fun times - despite not getting to sing karaoke at Cox's Pub!