My family began our adventure to Santa Claus, Indiana with hopes of a great trip for my sons 2, and 4.
However, for the first hour we had our doubts.
During a our six-hour trek to Louisville, our first overnight stop, we had an encounter with police officer in Ohio. He informed us of our expired tags, but no worries, the tags were in the car, we just forgotten to put them on.
The next five-hours was a breeze as we traveled through the cities of Columbus, Cincinnati, and then finally reaching Louisville.
To keep Friday low-key for the kids, we decided to stop in Clarksville, Ind.
We decided to celebrate National Ice Cream Month early, which usually takes place in July, and found Zesto's Ice Cream. The outdoor stands best feature, besides the tasty soft serve cones, was good prices. We got baby cones, which was just enough to cool down in the 90 degree heat.
Finding a good book isn't easy sometimes, but the Green Tree Mall in Clarksville offers many choices.
They have two book stores in the mall, Books-A-Million or Waldenbooks.
Books-A-Million, the third largest book retailer, according to their website, had a vast selection for all types of readers. Shoppers can enjoy Joe Muggs coffee shop and a Yogurt Mountain cafe if you get tired or hungry of reading all the titles.
The mall and Zesto's is all in the same area of East Lewis and Clark Parkway as well as Bass Pro Shop, the hunting and fishing chain.
My boys, especially my four-year-old loved the large aquarium as well as the hunting exercise, which children (or adults) can walk the different hunting stations to try to shoot the game targets such as turkey and deer. My son wanted to hit the mechanical lion that came out of the bush, but we didn't have any change.

I will be posting some other thoughts on Saturday and Sunday's trip in Santa Claus, Indiana this week.

Angela Gartner
AGartner@News-Herald.com