Friday, November 25, 2016

Crown Point Gun Show, Part II: The not-guns part

The old Lake County courthouse in Crown Point is a glorious Victorian-era pile occupying the whole of the town square. Naturally, the seat of county government has been relocated to a hideous concrete-and-glass complex hard up against the jail, outside of town.

The old Lake County Sheriff's House & jail, famous for a gangster who stayed briefly within its walls before letting himself out and taking off with the sheriff's car.

Right next door to the old jail is Crown Brewing. That's their Basilisk chocolate milk stout.

After stopping in at Crown Brewing, we headed slightly north and west to Griffith to check out Blythe's, a large and bustling gun store. A couple doors down from Blythe's was a shop called simply "Charcuterie". If Griffith could put a pass-through between the two stores, they'd have a hit on their hands.

After browsing guns and smoked meats, it was time to head just around the block to New Oberpfalz Brewery for a late lunch. I had a pint of Hopwagen American IPA, on the right, while Shootin' Buddy ordered their Krieghammer APA.

 I was in the mood for some charcuterie.

And then it was time to head back south, through the fields of spearmint and corn stubble and spinning kilowatts.

Giant machines to suck the lightning from the sky and send it through copper pipes into faraway houses where it's turned into glowing dreams on Chinese glass.