French Lick! That's Right I Said French Lick!

I feel that my hour and a half trip from Cleveland has transported me much farther than to Indiana. I feel as if the flight took me across time, landing in a strange pocket of frozen history. Highway 150 was a pleasant ride along green parcels of farmland, with large stalks of corn, farm homes in various stages of repair or disrepair, and occasionally antiquated farm equipment. Then entering Spring Valley I was transported back a hundred years. Not from the obvious signs of technology in the gas station, automobiles and such, but more from the thick fog of ambiance.
The French Lick Casino, Spa and Resort is a brick monstrosity that hints at the 1900 resort it is, while toying with ideas of being an asylum or straight from a Steven King novel. Seven stories of yellow brick grow out from and around a white-columned porch, complete with rocking chairs and antiquated people. The resort grew around the discovery of Pluto water - a sulfanated spring that was attributed with medicinal and healing properties. An effective stomach tonic and laxative. Now it is only attributed to the hanging wisp of hydrogen sulfide - the rotten egg smell. The mix of spa, illegal gambling and golf course attracted wealthy and famous - including drawing FDR to announce his run for the Presidency and announcement of the New Deal. Reagan's Presidential bid and tomato juice also originated here. The hotel is under renovation - a pungent exercise that requires quarantined areas of the lobby and wings, and all smelling of turpentine. But you can see grandeur slowly un-fading from the ceilings and columns, as if time unwinds, revealing ghosts of a long-lost splendor.
I can almost see small groups of late-Victorian dressed folks strolling the long, spacious hallways. The rooms are small, Spartan and were modern at the last renovation - most likely in the 70's. But despite all this - the blue tiled step-up showers and the nagging feeling that Jack Nicholson will crash through my door letting me know Johnny's back - I feel I am floating in a strange concoction of history and modernity. I feel that walking down the halls I can almost catch images and memories floating by - which compels me to find them and weave them into a tale. We'll see if the springs of Pluto encourage such and exercise - or if I can survive the night.
Redrum. Redrum.
HRP