Every 1's a winner on a beautiful winter/spring day in Indianapolis.

Porter, that is.

As it turned out, we never made it to Winterfest yesterday.

D and I drove up to Indianapolis early so we'd have time to explore before going to the State Fairgrounds. She'd never been to the Fountain Square neighborhood, and it's been two years for me, so we parked there and started looking for coffee.

The record will show that it was as gorgeous a spring day as one might imagine occurring on Saturday, January 30.

After lunch at End of the Line, we were browsing shops and happened to overhear two couples talking about going to Winterfest later in the afternoon. One couple had tickets, and the other did not. The ones who didn't have tickets were from out of state. Because the event was a sellout, they were debating creative ways of scoring two additional tickets.

Obviously, they were complete strangers to us, and the back story was unclear from eavesdropping, although my impression was that someone had forgotten to purchase four tickets and bought only two, hence the snafu.

Well, we could fix THAT, couldn't we?

After a brief chat with D, we gave them our tickets with only one small caveat: They were to find Salt Creek Brewery's booth, say hello to Brad, and have a sample or three for me. I hope they did, but it's okay if not.

In my world, all's well that ends well.

After beers at Fountain Square Brewing Company, where we chatted with a few fest-goers from Peoria, we walked the cultural trail pedway along Virginia Avenue to the center and doubled back via the city market, stopping at Chilly Water Brewing for another round. The urban changes along this corridor were utterly fascinating, and it was a gorgeous day on top of it.

I hope those folks (and many others) had a good time at Winterfest. Concurrently, we had much fun just wandering through Indianapolis. Serendipity is a powerful motive force, don't you think?

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