Things to Do in Saint John

For more than 30 years, equestrians have sought tranquility amid the forested trails and weathered barns of A Ranch 394, Inc. They find their solace atop the healthy, gentle horses and ponies that roam the ranch's meadows and slumber or play late-night poker in boarding stalls. Employees saddle up the steeds for rides or tours on horseback, and even host parties complete with jaunts atop ponies. The staffers also channel their passion for horse care into camps that cater to the budding equestrian or disenchanted carousel operator.

Between the cheery, orange walls and cozy, carpeted floors of Your Yoga and More, a team of expert instructors leads challenging yet scalable yoga classes for groups of 32–40 people. Suitable for students of all fitness levels, their classes flow through various poses, with gentle yoga or chair yoga offering a slower pace and Vinyasa-flow and Hatha classes strengthening muscles with rigorous poses. For a cardio workout, the instructors teach high-energy Zumba classes that do away with fat via Latin-inspired cardio dance moves.

Three dedicated instructors curate the syllabus at Your Yoga and More. Allison Haugh, an import from Scotland, has practiced yoga since 1995, when many people who currently practice yoga were practicing Jonathan Taylor Thomas worship. Andy Keene first experienced yoga aboard a Hawaiian cruise ship, and he animates his training to help students achieve a unified body-and-breath rhythm. Instructor Pat Partin has 12 years of experience, and she recently became certified to teach a heart-focused version of yoga to patients with cancer and heart disease.

Entertainment at the Crete Family Fun Center includes a Cannonball Wars arena, in which teams fire foam balls into the opposing crew’s net. Players work up a sweat while dodging focused light in an indoor laser-tag arena or playing classic and modern games in the arcade, and bumper cars provide catharsis for overworked driving instructors. Crete’s onsite restaurant dishes up treats such as pizzas, hot dogs, and burgers.

Stardust Bowl's two locations welcome everyone from casual groups to diehard competitors, keeping lanes open as late as 11 p.m. in Merrillville and as late as 1 a.m. in Dyer. In between frames, patrons can refuel with a quick bite or drink from the snack bar, try their hand at the Merrillville location's billiard tables, or visit the Dyer alley's arcade. The Dyer location ramps up the energy on select evenings with starlight bowling, showering all 48 lanes with laser lights and cranking up the sound system's playlist of spirited mayoral debates.

In 1910, when apothecaries regularly doled out narcotics and opiates for issues such as headaches or nausea, Joseph Meyer was planting natural alternatives to the questionable contents of the brown bottles. Through research, careful tending of herbs and medicinal plants, and labor negotiations with garden-gnome unions, Meyer's small operation grew steadily. He acquired a tract of land on the Little Calumet River where he grew medicinal plants and cultivated flora. Eventually, the tract of land was finished with an English gabled building and given a name: Indiana Botanic Gardens, Inc.

More than a century after Meyer actualized his vision of providing natural health alternatives, his family continues to champion his idea. They curate an ever-expanding inventory that includes vitamins, nutritional supplements, and bulk herbals—all of which may be purchased both in-store and online.

The Village of Park Forest lays claim to being one of the first postwar planned communities. In 1948, as World War II veterans were looking to make peacetime lives, the village’s pioneers built affordable housing and an accessible road system for a diverse, welcoming community dotted with green parks and tail-finned trees. Today those trees have grown into a mature canopy, and the village has taken steps to maintain its legacy while seeking to reinvent itself for the modern era. In 2000, the Metropolitan Planning Council awarded the village a Burnham Award for its downtown redevelopment. The revitalized downtown area features a variety of spaces where community members can come together, including its Dining on the Green meeting and banquet facility, which overlooks the village green's verdant pasture decorated with ornamental flowers, a gazebo, and sculptures that do not animate and roam the streets with each full moon.