Things to Do in Zionsville

Orchard in Bloom’s annual garden show and symposium in Holliday Park raises funds for The Orchard School, an independent grade school for grades pre-K through 8. Select local landscapers create macro-landscapes with in-season botany as well as specialized microgardens, designed to showcase specific plant varieties and new design ideas that homeowners can easily incorporate into their own yards. Gardeners can stock up on tools, plants, and art at the Gardener’s Market, full of national and regional artisan vendors. The children’s area entertains youngsters with age-appropriate activities, such as filling flowerpots with soil and playing patty-cake with the limbs of trees.

X-Site Laser Tag & Games arms its patrons with miniature cannons capable of firing a beam of light across their 12,000 square foot laser tag arena. Thus outfitted, competitors take to the vast, darkened room, blasting away at an opposing team as the Nexus Generation equipment keeps real-time score via the simple use of radio signals. When not locked in laser duels, patrons pass the time in the arcade, which mixes the flat screen video games of yore with interactive virtual reality games and classic redemption-style challenges, such as the crane game.

The first 18-hole course ever designed by legendary architect Pete Dye, Maple Creek Golf and Country Club's challenging course layout unfurls across 6,633 yards of tree-lined, water-kissed topography. The club's driving range is an expansive tract that absorbs players' practice shots as they prepare for the fast-starting course where the second hole is the most difficult and most willing to throw a tantrum. Babbling streams and rippling ponds add to the scenery of the pristine par 72 course, threatening the life force of ill-struck orbs on as many as 11 holes. Class-A PGA pro Jim Grossi roams the verdant valley, shoring up swings in lessons, on a never-ending mission to appease his golf mentor, who was half golf cart.

A classic checkerboard floor leads bowlers to their lanes and perseveres as one of the few retro holdovers in Pinheads’ modernized domain. As pins clatter in surrender, bowlers keep an eye on the automatic scoreboards from black, leather seating flanked by blue walls. Between frames, the onsite Louie’s Bar & Restaurant summons players with handcrafted quesadillas, towering sandwiches, and sliders served with fries and meaty fillings. Because all of Pinheads is a smoke-free facility, the only smoke to waft through the air is from burning guitar solos during live-music performances or when patrons emulate Elvis during karaoke on Friday nights.

Though it's an airy indoor facility, The Crag Indoor Rock Climbing gym gleans its name from the jagged outdoor cliffs that climbing enthusiasts often strive to summit. Designed by a respected indoor rock-wall builder, The Crag safely recreates the excitement of inching up a punishing rock formation. However, not every wall at the facility is so challenging. It's frequently populated by skilled youth climbers and kids as young as 8. The younger climbers at The Crag often become adept through joining the youth climbing team, or by attending the gym's skill-building summer camp, where campers learn to scale walls by practicing belaying, top roping, and stealing Batman's utility belt. The facility's designer also kept adults and seasoned practitioners in mind by creating more than 100 routes that range in difficulty from beginner to more advanced.

Director Kara Reibel helms a staff of instructors who help students tone core muscles with an arsenal of more than 500 mat and Pilates-machine techniques. Certified in Pilates by the PhysicalMind Institute, Kara and her instructors lead private, semiprivate, and small-group classes in a variety of Pilates methods, including reformer, Cadillac, Wunda Chair, and ladder-barrel training. To ensure that each individual gets personalized instruction during reformer sessions, Kara caps these classes at four students or one fitness-conscious octopus, and teaches students to use their body weight as resistance during mat classes that lengthen and tone core muscles.