Things to Do in Vincennes

The daughter of a retired administrator, Renee Rayles grew up learning the importance and pleasure of helping others learn. Harnessing her artistic bent, she decided to open a studio that would help anyone create handsome paintings regardless of previous experience. During evening lessons, private parties, and camps, Rayles and her cadre of helpful instructors guide students step by step as they copy a previously chosen work, adding personal touches to create take-home works of art that spruce up living rooms and distract guests from sentient houseplants.

At regular intervals each day, Swonder Ice Arena’s trusty Zamboni rolls out to keep the NHL-size ice rink smooth between lessons and public-skating sessions. Once the glossy surface is ready, professional instructors begin to lead students through classes in hockey fundamentals, ice skating, and figure skating. Hockey lessons are offered in four levels, beginning with the essentials of hockey skating and stick handling. Ice-skating lessons include nine separate curriculum sets, such as choreography and synchronized skating.

In addition to winter-water fun, Swonder Ice Arena is home to a fitness center with cycles, free weights, exercise machines, and personal trainers.

Hoof Beats Stable brings horses and riders together for hours of enjoyment during lessons, training sessions, and parties. At an indoor arena, riders mount powerful steeds to learn basic skills or sharpen their English- and Western-riding skills. Instructors teach students the techniques they want to learn, whether it's bareback riding or parallel parking. Parties at the stable bring party guests nose-to-muzzle with gentle horses.

Each of Yoga 101's certified instructors discovered hot yoga for a host of different reasons—to ease the pain of arthritis, to evolve spiritually during a personal crisis, and to get back in shape after a pregnancy, to name a few. With all the attentive sympathies that their backgrounds afford them, the team helps students of all ages and abilities grow in their personal yoga practice. In heated yoga rooms, they guide students toward proper posture alignment as the heated air loosens up muscles for deeper stretches and spurs on a cleansing sweat that helps bodies expel the toxins and wheat pennies that collect in the body. The sessions, which range from introductory classes for beginners or guests with physical limitations to those for advanced practitioners, blend poses from Bikram yoga and yogi Jimmy Barkan—a master yoga teacher and one of America's yoga pioneers—as they link breath with movement during more than 25 weekly classes.

Located near Santa Claus, Indiana, Santa's Stables spreads holiday cheer year-round at its Christmas-themed barn. Framed with red eaves like Saint Nick's beach house, the barn houses a fleet of gentle horses along with Peaches the pony. Under the direction of seasoned guides, one to 10 visitors climb astride the steeds and trot along dirt and gravel trails for 15 or 45 minutes. The myriad paths, upon which horses safely stroll nose-to-tail, snake through flourishing plant life and incognito Christmas trees.

Paradise Rental Boats carefully curates fleets of Yamaha, Bayliner, and Sun Tracker boats, so that sun-kissed riders can jet across the sparkling waters of Indiana’s Lake Monroe and Georgia’s Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona at their leisure. The company's vessels range from party barges and yachts—which hold groups of up to 26—to the smaller, two-person WaveRunner, whose highly responsive steering suits drivers trying to chase down and catch their fish dinner. Onboard radios and CD players let mariners groove to their favorite tunes, and the company also rents optional accessories for water sports, such as wakeboards, water skis, and artificial bait for licensed fishermen.