Fair Oaks Farms in Indianapolis: Smart family fun
As quirky, off-the-beaten-path attractions go, it's hard to top Fair Oaks Farms, a working dairy farm with 21st century flair, only an hour or two from Chicago or Indianapolis. Fair Oaks features 3-D movies, a birthing barn, farm tours, a play area with a gigantic inflated pillow (think trampoline) and a restaurant that serves probably the best grilled-cheese sandwich ever. And the ice cream might be even better.
It won't break the bank, either. Farm tours are $10. Meals are even less (sandwich and soup combo $6.25). And this is not the drab, dusty farm from your third-grade field trip. It is a state-of-the-art facility in a storybook setting.
AT THE FARM
The birthing barn alone makes this attraction worth a pit stop. All day long, Holsteins in the first stages of labor are brought into a theater, where in an hour or so, they produce a baby calf right before your eyes. As biology lessons go, it is thrilling stuff - and, of course, fairly graphic. The entire operation, which houses 30,000 dairy cows, produces 80 to 100 calves per day. Warning: The process may be a little overwhelming for children younger than 5.
From there, you can take the bus tour of the farm, which features milking carousels that operate like giant merry-go-rounds. The cows, creatures of habit, load themselves on and off the milking carousel for the five-minute process. On the bus tour, you hear how the farm uses waste to produce its own electricity.
Before you finish the tour, be sure to catch the 3-D movie, which comes with a few surprises. Suffice to say, those little gizmos in front of you are not speakers.
MORE INFORMATION Fair Oaks Farms, Fair Oaks, Ind. (Exit 220 off Interstate 65); 877-536-1194, fofarms.com.
