I'm going to beat you every single time just because I'm faster. And that's it. I'm fired up. Let's go. That's our key. You're bringing four ex Legoland executive staff members to run Skylake Adventures.
If you've got a passion and you've got a vision and you're doing something that's unique. This is really a once in a-lifetime opportunity. Right. Decades from now when Skylake is just ripping. What do you want people to remember about what you're building in Hamilton County? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today.
I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. If you've been craving a change of scenery, Wabash County is worth a drive. Tucked into Northeast Indiana, Wabash County is the kind of place where a simple day trip turns into something more. You can paddle the river, wander scenic trails, shop small, enjoy great local food, and discover experiences that feel relaxed, welcoming, and a little unexpected. It's easy to make a day of it here. Spend the morning outdoors, explore downtown shops and local favorites in the afternoon, and catch live entertainment, or a special event before heading home.
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It's worth the drive. Now, let's get into the episode. My guest today is Sean Howard and he is the co-founder of Skylake Adventures. And this place is awesome. Skylake will be opening this summer and is a year-round destination offering personalized self-paced experiences where guests choose their immersive journey. A relaxing lake escape or a day of adventure with thrilling water and land attractions all within a stunning outdoor environment.
I mean, I might need a side job reading commercials. That was incredible, right? Come on. Absolutely. Uh up off of US 31 in Westfield. You have definitely seen this construction happening.
This is going to be a pinnacle attraction within the state of Indiana. I'm so excited to hear about the journey, the guy behind it, how you went from Princeton up to Butler and ended up building this incredible attraction here on the north side of Indianapolis. Sean, welcome to the show. Hey Nate, thank you so much and first and foremost, I really appreciate the time today. Uh, it's an honor to be on your podcast and congratulations to you and all your success that you've had. Right.
Look at this. He knows what he's doing. It might be your first podcast appearance, but you have definitely done this before, right? Thank you. Um, so what I want to start with, you're a guy from smalltown southern Indiana. You grew up in Princeton.
Go Tigers. There we go. Come on now. You're good. You're good. Just like Depal.
Amen, brother. And you ended up coming up to Indianapolis. Yep. to run track if that is correct. Talk to me about going from smalltown Indiana to the culture shock of the big city and how you ended up finding your way into being a a guy who's going to start a a huge attraction. Uh first and foremost, yeah, grew up in a small town and and I love small towns because that's the core of Indiana, right?
Is is growing up there. And when you grow up in small towns, you got, you know, different types of values, right? You got the doors are unlocked at night. you know, you're out uh chasing uh fireflies until the the middle of the night. Uh you know, you're where we grew up, we started on a farm and then we moved in town, so that was a different type of a shock for us. Our town at the time was about 5,000 populationwise.
Was this before Toyota? It was. Yeah. I was I was pre Toyota cuz now Princeton like Toyota runs Princeton. Toyota runs. But this would have been before they they came in.
So I graduated 89. Um, look, the good Lord gifted me with the ability to run and, um, I, uh, had some success early on. I went to state early on as a freshman in high school. Okay. What was the event? Uh, I was in the 4x4 relay.
Oh, that as a freshman. As a freshman getting called up to run with the big dogs. So, it was fun. Yeah. And so, that gave me my first taste of that was the first time I was ever in Indianapolis. Um, and had success there.
started getting some letters to run track. Uh my sophomore year, I tore my ACL, so that set me back. Um the way that our family grew up, unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of money. I was raised by a single mom. She was a factory worker in a day and a cocktail waitress at night. And it was just driven into me every single day that like, look, if you want to be successful, you're going to have to get out of this town with with with who?
It was my mom, right? She's like, "With your talents and and your expectations, you're going to have to get out to get, you know, to have success." Was there ever a moment where you felt guilty going and running, working on your craft that is track while your mom's working in a factory during the day and waiting tables as a cocktail waitress at night and you're, you know, running circles around the track at school? Yeah. So, not really. I mean, cuz she she instilled hard work in me from day one, and she was just like, "Listen, again, if you're going to get out of this town, you're going to have to do it on your own.
If not, you're going to be in a coal mine down here." And we had some family cousins that that did the coal mine thing, which was there's which is is a great life. I mean, they do very well. But for me, I just felt my aspirations were a little bit higher. And uh my the end of my senior year, we got a co a call from coach Stan Lions at Butler. Um and they had uh a quarter scholarship for me uh which again because of our economic situation that made a ton of sense.
And so we signed the papers. Back then there was no FedEx system, right? So it took like two weeks to mail it to me and signed it and then uh I came up to Butler, you know, unseen, right? So I'd never visited. You never been on campus? No, I'd never been on campus.
Never been honestly though like showing up right here in the heart of like Meridian and Kesler Butler Tarington like not a bad place of like hey this is what it's like to be an indie. Yeah it was cool. It was really cool for me again you know coming from a small town that was the first time that I saw cars like Mercedes Benz right and BMWs and you know and Butler was you know an affluent university and so uh it was very eye opening for me. How important was your mom's influence of telling you to dream big? You know, like I know we obviously there are great lives lived all across the state of Indiana, all across the world where you know you can thrive in a coal mine and you can go down there and I mean it's it's hard work but you get rewarded for it. Absolutely.
But then having your mom in your ear telling you, hey, you know, you have these talents. God gifted you with this. You should go out there and and seek the big city and what it has to offer. How important was her voice? So, I'll tell you, here's a quick story. So, uh my freshman year, uh I joined a fraternity called Delta Delta, which rah rah, come on.
And so, um but at Butler it was different. You went in like within two weeks, the first two weeks. And so, uh we we we me and a friend, my my roommate at Ross Hall was a kid by the name of Scott Drew, who's now the basketball coach at Baylor University. They won the national championship. That's pretty sweet. So, Scott and I made the decision to go into the fraternity life.
Uh, and we joined the Doubt House. Um, I was running track. Uh, back then you would get your grade card. It would be mailed to you. This is 1989. It would be mailed to you.
So, we would get it about mid January mailed back home. So, uh, it's a Tuesday. I'm in the fraternity house and I hear uh, these high heels clicking down this storm down the the hallway. And I and I knew I I already knew and I was working the shift because I was a pledge, right? And I'm working the shift and I'm cleaning the tables and I could hear this and I couldn't even turn around in time. And literally all I hear is my name, Patrick Shawn, being yelled and she grabs me by my right ear, pulls me in front of every fraternity guy in the house, takes me up the stairwell and and gives me a tongue lashing like no other.
And that was because she found my grade card and it was below a 3 0. And she literally said, "Listen, I don't care what scholarship you're on. If you ever get below a 3 0 again, I will pull you out of this school so fast that you won't see straight and you'll be back in the coal mine. Do you understand me?" And I was like, "Yes, ma'am." She literally got back in her car and drove 3 hours out.
And that was my wake up call to be like, "Okay, you have this opportunity at a fine university. Don't screw it up." She sounds incredible. Yeah. Oh my go driving 3 hours for like a 10-minute cover. Not even like a Okay, now let's go get dinner.
No, no, no. She left right then and there. It was Yeah. Honestly, that's epic. Like that's So, but sometimes you need a little just like a wakeup call. You know, you go there one, when you went back home, let's say for Christmas break or Thanksgiving, were people looking at like like you joined a fraternity like, "Oh, you just drinking beer and hanging out like oh, one of those guys."
No, absolutely. They didn't really understand, right? and Butler was a special place because it's a smaller school, right? You know, most of my friends went to the IU and the Purdue, so they couldn't comprehend uh the small school and most of those guys that went to the bigger schools, you know, they really weren't in the fraternity life. And so, yeah, it was interesting. What did you study at Butler?
Uh business. Okay, nice. So, you you end up going through Butler. And when you talk about getting professional experience, this is what I think is interesting. Now, Skylake, you're building like an attraction, like a this like crazy experience. How do you start to learn all the things that go into building something like Skylake?
Like during your journey, what did you have to pick up along the way? Yeah, so that's a great question. Um, what I would say it it's been a culmination of a lot of events that have happened in my lifetime, right? So, uh, graduated Butler, got into med device, uh, had a wonderful career there for 22 years with companies like Striker and Boston Scientific and Echos. Uh, was fortunate enough to be a three-time national rep of the year. Oh.
And a and a one-time national uh, manager of the year. And through all those experiences, um, I gathered information in each one of those stops, right? Um, I got out of the med device world in about 2016 and really started to try to understand real estate a little bit more. Um, and that's when I met my partner, Phil Sack, who is a a real estate mogul, uh, entrepreneur. And so, um, we've used the culmination of all the experience of, you know, again, and you're in med sales right now. You cover five, six, seven states.
It was like, "Hey, you're on call, you get a phone call, a back then a pager, and I'm driving five hours to the Cleveland Clinic right in the middle of the night." What were you like, what were what were the devices? Yeah. So, with Striker was orthopedics, right? Were you ever in trauma? Yes.
Like, I have buddies who are on call and it's like, yeah, you know, can't drink this weekend. I'm on call. What do you mean? You're not a doctor. You know, but if you get like you have to go in there and like be in the room, you're you're scrubbed in right next to the physician in the room. So we started with orthopedics at Striker.
Then with Boston Scientific I switched to cardiovascular. So that was a big jump because you got to learn the anatomy, right? So if you're if you're doing orthopedics, right, you understand that. But cardiovascular is everything that do that does with the the the heart and the peripheral vascular system. And so that was a whole change. And in that realm, I mean, when you're dealing with, you know, the coronary arteries and the and the peripheral arteries, that's a that's a big change.
So you've got to be on your P's and Q's. I mean 22 years in the orthopedic, you know, in that sector, why pivot and take a risk and start something totally new? Yeah. So, it's interesting. I've done some homework on you, too, right? And so, I think I think what happens is, you know, you you sit back in life and you're like, you know what, this is great.
We're making money for for someone else. Um, but I've always dreamed big, right? I've always had that. Again, I shared with you the story about my mother and how she came up there and said, "Look, you got one chance at this kid. Don't mess it up." And so, for me, it was always like, I want to be the guy that gets up and I'm not scared to strike out, and if I strike out two or three times, I'm fine with that because I know the next time I'm going to hit a home run.
So, I use that same philosophy uh in business. And so, I shifted and went, okay, we had we had sold uh I was with Boston Scientific. Uh I left Boston Scientific and went to a startup uh in 2006 and we took that company from 06 to 12 from 0 to 270 million and we sold the company. Now where I messed up and I shared with you my background of not having a father. Um I had no guidance and support. So I couldn't call my mom who I love dearly and be like okay how do I negotiate this contract?
How do I sit down with you mom? And and so I I didn't and I left. I learned at that lesson. I I I had stock of course I didn't get any equity. I should have uh you know tried to get it more equity and that taught me a life lesson because when the company then got sold to uh BTG, British Technology Group, that was an eye openener for me because these guys made tens of millions of dollars. I did okay.
And it was at that moment I'm like, "Okay, I got to take care of myself. I got to go out and defend myself." And and that's why I made the change to start like doing stuff on my own. Yeah. Uh one that is like a I feel like it's a lesson unfortunately you learn best the hard way. Absolutely.
Where it's like you know and but also with that piece of having equity versus risk and that whole like you know it it it is interesting to see entrepreneurs that have that uh that see something through to an exit and are like oh I want to get on that side of the table. I want to get on the ownership side of things. So, uh, the wild part is you would think you see a company go from 0 to 260 again in this like med the medical type space. Yep. Why completely change? And where did you get the confidence to think like I can build this attraction that has nothing to do with med device?
Yeah. And like go a completely 180 from what all of your experiences. Yeah. So, great question. So, in that moment, I sat back and I wanted to go back to sort of my grassroots, right? I wanted to go back to um you know growing up in southern Indiana.
I knew what it was like to go down to Kramer Lake in Evansville or to the White River. We all grew up in that lifestyle of you know swimming in fishing holes and swimming in the rivers, right? And and walking around barefoot and having our toes in the grass and feeling that. And so being up in the Indianapolis area, we've got children um that are of age that play a lot of sports at Grand Park. And I just sat back and listened to the customer and the customer was all these families coming from all around and explaining like, man, this is great. Hamilton County's beautiful Grand Parks amazing.
Um, and there's a few things to do, but man, what else is there to do, right? Hey, Connor Prairie's awesome, right? Indianapolis Museum, uh, children's downtown is awesome. There's lots of things to do. They go to to to the Clay Town Center. Awesome.
I sat back and went, "Man, if I could use that same feeling of growing up because my wife and I, we we do a lot of traveling, right? We we've traveled to multiple states around and we would look and we'd be like, "Hey, this is really fun, right? Going to a river and getting on a rope swing. How do I transform that idea and bring it to central Indiana?" And that's how the idea came to fruition. And then I brought my partner, the real Phil Sack into involved in this and he's like, "Let's do this."
It is interesting. Hamilton County specifically. A lot of good places to grab a beer. Yep. And a lot of good places to play organized sports. Yep.
But if you're not like on the AAOU baseball, basketball, whatever team, you know, the football team, whatever it might be, or you're not 21, there is like a gap of I mean, running or walking on the Mon, but if you're like a 15-year-old kid or 12-year-old, like that's not that fun, right? So that is an interesting like gap in that Hamilton like pickle balls explode like all these adult things exploding but yeah kids things I feel like everyone is you got to go to the children's museum downtown maybe go to an Indians game downtown now you could go to a Noblesville boom game but you're again watching sports but like interactive things totally absolutely I got to know the moment like where did the light bulb go off in your head where you said water park attraction like how do you and I guess how would you explain it someone that never met but didn't know anything about Skylake, what would you say?
Hey, I'm building a blank. Yeah. So, um I'll answer the first question. The the moment that this went off, we were uh in Loganport, Indiana. I was with my wife. Wait, wait, wait.
Were you at Oh my gosh. Hold on. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it. It is.
Uh it's not like a It's like a Corey. Uh Matt Goins from Triple A. This was his hidden gem. Oh my gosh. All right. You have to I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a hint.
It's the name of a country. Yes. And it's blank park. It's the name of a country. Yes. Oh my gosh.
This is going to make me so mad. That's okay. You can say it. All right. France. France park.
France park. Yes. F. Cuz then I went and looked at this thing. So he get said, "You have to go check out France Park." And it's like the inflatable kind of stuff out there.
You can jump in, do the whole nine yards. And like people in uh people in Loganport were pissed. Yes. They were like, "Stop blowing this place up. Like this is our spot. We're gonna have all these random people coming from all over to France Park to, you know, jump and, you know, play on the inflatables and all the stuff."
Absolutely. Wow. So that was the day. So we were coming back from a lake with my wife and and some kids. Um a local friend had recommended us to go there. It's my son's 11th birthday.
And we sat back and my my my son and his buddies just had a ball and I was just like taking it in. And we walked up, my wife and my mother-in-law and myself walked up to the top of the rock quarry and there was a an overlook if you would and we were sitting watching and it was at that time my partner Phil Sack um had already bought about 35 acres on Highway 38. Um, and the goal there because of his real estate background, he was going to transform that into uh an Airbnb sort of tiny home RV uh campground. And won't won't dive into the weeds there, but there was there was a moment where we needed uh to have some activities at that location. And that's when the light went off. My wife simply said, "You we need to have this inflatable on on, you know, on what we called the farm."
And that's when the light went off. Wow. Yeah, it was cool. France Park. Shout out Cass County, baby. There you go.
I love it. Wow. Okay. And then how would you describe if you were like if you met someone brand new and said, "Hey, I'm building this crazy thing in Hamilton County." Yeah, absolutely. So, Sky Lake Adventures is Indiana's first and largest adventure park of its kind.
It's very unique, right? So, we've got a 6acre lake that is man-made. Mind you, one year ago today, this was just farmland. So, we've dug a 6acre lake. We've put in a liner, a white liner. We've imported white sand from of all places just east of Cleveland, Ohio.
So, if you go around the county uh in this area, so Crooked Stick, Meridian Hills, Holiday Farms, Cadam Hills, Bridgewater, all of those golf courses, they use the exact same bunker sand and it's very white. So, we made the decision to get that sand. So, we import it every day. So, now you've got this beautiful lake, uh, 6 acres with crystal clear water with white sandy beaches. We've got chairs and umbrellas around it. Uh, we've got cabanas that'll be there.
We've got an awib system, which is the inflatable that I described to you. Wait, what's it called? It's called a Wibbit. Wibi T. A wibbit system. Is that like an acronym for something?
No, it's a German company, which is Whibbit. It's just the name. And so, it's this inflatable. And what again is wonderful about this is when I took my kids the very first time, I'm like, "Why did you like this so much? You had the best time ever." And they're like, "Because there was no lines."
And I'm like, "Really? Okay, this makes sense." No, Dad, you don't understand. If I wanted to go the easy way, I could go to the left. If I wanted to go the hard way, I could go to the right. If I want to take the mid road, I could go down the middle.
But the key was that there was no lines. Any family that's listening to this day, you you we go to water parks all over and they're great, but we call it the 15 of 15. Your kid's going to stand in line for 15 minutes for 15 seconds of fun and then he's going to rinse and repeat. We didn't want that. We wanted to get back to nature, getting your toes in the sand, feeling what it's like, closing your eyes and going, "Man, am I really in central Indiana? I think I'm in Florida."
Right? We're gonna have palm trees on our private island, right? Which is crazy. We've got an adult only section, right? So for folks, particularly graduates of Depal University who like to maybe throw back a few adult beverages on the weekend. Hello.
Right. You can come out there and just relax. Um we we adapt to every walk of life. So, if you're a grandparent out there and you've got the kids for the weekend, you want to come out. You're going to feel extremely safe knowing that your grandkids could be on this section. We've got a multitude of lifeguards.
But here's the key. Every one of those kids is in a life vest. Okay? So, that's a key. We want to be safety first on all of that. Then you look at a mom, particularly maybe a Catholic mom, who's got a lot of kids, right?
She comes out there and she wants to unwind. she's going to be able to sit back and let her kids roam freely knowing that they're safe, that they're on all these attractions, that they're being watched by all of our lifeguards. Uh we're hiring 50 of those, by the way, for the summer. And then to be able to have an adult beverage or a water or just just relax. And then we really appeal to the younger generation that with the adult only section right on the private private island and having we're going to have a DJ out there with cabanas. So, we're appealing to all three different in my opinion.
Yeah. Okay. One, uh, I think I drove by Sunday. Yeah. And I saw a Will Power sign. Did Will Schuler and the team there, did they help out with some of the excavation?
He's unbelievable. He's 24 years old. There's very few people can work as hard as I do. He's up there with me. He's amazing. Like, I will tell everyone, he was one of my early podcasts that really got some traction, right?
It is an incredible story of how he had like full-time he had a full-time employee as a senior in high school was going to school for three periods and then working until the late hours and still graduating from high school. It's a crazy story. I saw his sign out there. I mean I love that. Incredible. Give me a scope like like six acres.
I I have that. Put that in like conceptualize that for me. What does 6 acres feel like? How far across does it like? Yeah, great great point. Put it normal size.
Yeah. So, it's about four football fields long, right? So, it's big, right? So, four football fields. Um, it's going to take us 12 million gallons of water to fill this, right? So, that gives you an idea.
Um, we've got 25,000 tons of sand, beach sand. 25,000 tons. So, I'll give you an idea. So, these these um dump trucks are coming daily. We've got about 20 dump trucks coming daily from Cleveland. Um, we need 650 dump trucks total to leave from Cleveland, dump off, and then turn around and go back.
Wow. There's definitely like a gas station that's sold out of Taquitos like on that on the road from Cleveland to the north side of Indianapolis. Absolutely. 650. That's nuts. Okay.
When you think of a project like this and you know, obviously it's you go to France Park, you kind of get the idea, but where do you start? Like I think everyone has these crazy business ideas that are just huge and massive. But the difference between dreamers and doers is the doing part, right? Like making [ __ ] happen. How do you start? You drive home from Logan Sport.
What's the first thing you do? Who do you pick up the phone and call? Yeah. So called my partner and and really said, "Look, I want to do the homework on this inflatable. Our relationship, Phil and I, is perfect. We we do uh Phil's always been the finance the money guy."
Uh, I'm the hustler and in every decision we make, it's a good, better, better, excuse me, it's a good, better, best methodology. So, um, I saw what I saw at France Park. The family up there was Caleb, uh, Prince was the last name. We started talking to them. I then wanted to do the research of who actually made these, like where where could I go and buy these? I made a phone call um up to a friend in Wisconsin because I found that that there was an exclusive dealership, I'll call it, called commercial recreational specialist out of Madison, Wisconsin.
What a name, right? Commercial Recreation. And so, so I called a Dell fraternity brother, a guy by the name of Dave Neeper. Called him up cuz he lived in Madison. And I said, "Hey, this company's really close to you. Could you go check it out?"
And he gets on the website. He goes, "I was just um on one of these and I'm like, okay, where at?" He goes, "Lake Arvesta Farms in South Haven, Michigan." And I'm like, "Wow, that's interesting. I haven't heard about it." He goes, "Listen, the family that owns that, Brian de Best, um is a family friend.
I can put you in contact." So, he put me in contact with the family. I reached out to Brian and Brian says, "Listen, if you're a friend in the Nepers, you're a friend of mine. Come up and I'm going to show you everything." And so he took me up there and he literally when I say showed me everything, he showed me the books. It made all the sense.
He's like, "Look, we get 900 to a,000 people a day here." And I'm like, "Okay, you're in sort of BFE in South Haven, Michigan. You're getting all this traction." He goes, "It's unbelievable." So then he then told me another place to go, which was um land of Nura up in the Wisconsin Dells. So we took our whole team up there and that's when really the light went off because if you follow Wisconsin Dells, there's 26 water parks up there.
Okay, it's the water park capital of the world. It's incredible. But all of these folks are driving by these the tallest slide, the craziest this and that and all of this all to get to land in Nura, which was basically where we got our our thought process or or you know, our imagery. It it is a 5 acre man-made lake, you know, with with white sandy beaches uh with this inflatable on it. And I just would sit back and do market research and again I just kept asking why why are you coming here? And the answer nine times out of 10 is there's no lines.
It's self-paced. It's relaxing. Everyone can do it. When you go to these big water parks and you take your grandparents or your mom, your dad, it's difficult, right? You know, grandma and grandpa or mom and dad, they don't want to walk up five flights of steps to go down this, you know, thrill ride. They so they end up sitting off to the side where where now with what what we're doing and what what Landon Chur does is we're immersing the whole family together.
Everyone's coming together and that's the secret sauce for us. Wow. Okay. So, you go out and do market research. You said you had a team. So, you guys go from you have the idea with Phil.
You guys like, "Hey, come together." Did it always start as so big and extravagant, or were you like, "Yeah, we'll just throw some inflatables on a little pond. We have the the A-frame, tiny houses, whatever it might be, and there you go. It's a day." Yeah, great. So, so great point.
Here's what happened. We quickly outgrew our initial project in Sheridan that from from a land aspect. Um, and then so we had to pivot. So, then we started to look uh south of us in Westfield at different uh areas to be. The challenge there was we needed 50 acres. So that's where our vision went.
And the reason that it went that way, we had a a meeting with Karen Radcliffe and her team at Hamilton County Tourism uh in their office and they were like, "We absolutely love this idea. We're behind it 100%. This is amazing. We need help in the shoulder seasons." And I'm like, "What do you mean by that?" She goes, "What are we going to do?
you're going to be done in September, uh, just like everyone else. We need we need some attractions in October, November, December, January. And I'm like, "Okay, give me a minute to think about that." And I was uh driving to pick up my son and and uh a thought came into my mind. My in-laws, a lot of this is tied back to them. They live uh down in Dade City, Florida.
And there is a place called Snowcat Ridge and it is a man-made hill um that has ice made on it and it's a tubing hill and I sat back and went down and did my market research there and went, "Okay, we're going to do that exact same thing." Because when you take the dirt, you know, I mean, we've moved 600,000 cubic yards, okay, of land with Will Schuler and his team. So, we've got all of this, you know, 6 acres of dirt, 18 ft deep in the deepest part. What am I going to do with this dirt? To haul it off is uber expensive. Okay.
But if I'm able to keep it there and build a tubing hill, which by the way is the highest point in all of Hamilton County now, and now we can not handcuff ourselves to putting ice and snow on it. Now I can help out tourism, right? and I can give them a solution for September, October, November, December. I'll say this, Nate. I've always I'm not that smart. I just freaking know.
I always say this. I'm smart enough to know when I'm not smart enough. And when people give me the answers to the test, then if I don't pass it, shame on me. So, tourism gave me the answers to the test. They're like, "This is what we need. Okay, we're going to create it."
We took it a next step further, Nate, uh with our threetory ropes course, right? which is just unbelievable. Right? Again, it's another group just north of us in Alligan, Michigan. Right? So, uh if you you're up north from there, so if I'm driving 31, I'm just going to go straight through South Bend.
Uh it's just south of uh Kalamazoo, Michigan. Small little town. There's a a gentleman by the name of Jim Liot that started a company. He's 61 now. He started it when he was 19 years old. It's called RCI, Ropes Course Incorporated.
And it's fantastic. It is it is a an experience and an adventure like you've never seen. He's built 1,400 of these ropes courses in over 42 countries worldwide. No way. Yeah. It's amazing.
Okay. Putting together the all four seasons. Incredible. I mean the comparison to be on the other side of Hamilton County uh Kateway like at Straw Town. I mean what as an adult so much fun getting to s and obviously you know there's they're over more by like Noblesville up in that area and so like that place is packed all winter long is so getting something that's over here on the other side of Hamilton County is awesome and like really helps serve and so many people don't know about that place and know about the winter fund and this is the piece you'd say you know 10 to 18 19 year olds in Indiana It's always there's nothing to do here. Indiana's boring.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And like uncovering stuff like this and building stuff like this is so so important. Y wow. So we have a So if you were to lay out all the attractions, if you were like telling me the whole thing, we have the sixacre lake. Yep. We've got the snow tubing in the winter.
We've got a threetory ropes course. Yep. 36 holes of miniature golf. Oh yeah. So that'll that'll be second season or we like to call wave two. You know what?
you should host like your soft opening the mousers instead of the masters. There you go. Look at you. I like it. Give me some of that. There we go.
There we go. Love it. Love it. You know what? I think what's I think what's interesting here is we're going to be all things to all people, right? And that's what's going to make us really unique with this experience.
Now, that's an interesting statement. All things to all people. That's usually where things start to go wrong for brands. Absolutely. We'll serve like Billy Mays and but wait, there's more. No, absolutely.
And I think for us, you know, again, if you're coming in the summer, right, our water activities, I mean, that's going to be epic, right? But at the same time, okay, uh not not in the grant, you know, not season one, but next year, you're going to be coming out there in the summer and the material that we have on the tubing hill, you can use it in the summertime. So, you can go down tubing in the summer, in the fall, and in winter. There's going to be year round sledding. Absolutely. Like on snow.
Yep. So, it's not snow. So, it's a material. So, we went over to Europe. There was two companies. One's called Nevlast out of Italy.
The other company's called Snowlex out of the United Kingdom. And they've got a material um that is is widely used here in the States. So, if you're out in Colorado right now and you want to go work on your craft of skiing or snowboarding in the summer, you can do that. So, the material allows you, it's a silicone type material that allows you to, but we're not going to ski. We're not going to snowboard. It is just inner tubing.
So it gives you the feeling of of what the tubing would be like. And it go back to what I said earlier and that is I didn't want to handcuff myself to just the winter months, right? Because hey, I've been down to Poli Peaks and that's great, but goodness gracious, if you get a warm winter that sort of it hurts your revenue. I didn't want to be able to do that. So, what's great about our particular uh tubing hill, uh it's got a magic carpet, so it's going to bring you all the way up to the top. Um we will also have the sky view bar, which will be at the very top, which is so right.
Like like it's almost like a ski chalet, right? So, it'll be fun. It'll be very intimate, right? Uh you know, for you know, 15 to 18 folks going down the tubing hill on both sides. Um this thing's going to be lit up like a Christmas tree. So, it's going to be like football stadium lights that'll be colorcoded to a DJ playing on Friday and Saturday nights.
Let's go. Yeah. All right. I hear all of these things, right? From the tubing hill to the 6acre lake to the 650 trucks of, you know, very particular fine white sand. Yeah.
And I hear one thing, it sounds expensive. Yeah. It sounds like a heck of a project to put together. Tell me about funding. Yeah. How do you put together such a like a project that grows and we quickly outgrew the Sheridan location and like you're putting this whole thing together?
Like are you just independently wealthy and like hey let's put the whole life savings into this and we can make it or like are you having to go out and raise funds? Yeah, great question. Um you know for us the the whole key was finding the right spot of land. Okay. And and we got blessed. We did a lot of homework uh in in Hamilton County and uh to to be able to get 133 acres sitting on Highway 31 with 70,000 cars a day passing was just monumental for us, right?
6 minutes from Grand Park. Um that was a big deal for us. So once we got the land, then we went out and we started talking. I mean this has been 3, four years in the making now, right? Then we started talking to local family, friends, right? friends and family and just having conversations about the vision and what we wanted to do and we started bringing folks in from the investment side of of things.
Did you have experience in that like going out and doing the old sand hill shuffle raising money? Yeah. You know what? So, so not to this extent, right? Done a lot of raising money for the Delts at Butler or for Garen Catholic, you know, Our Lady Mount Carmel, but nothing nowhere to this extent. And I think the key and why we've had success in raising the amount of money that we have is this.
If you've got a passion and you've got a vision and you're doing something that's unique that is going to truly come around once in a-lifetime, you hear that phrase all the time, but this is really a once in a-lifetime opportunity, right? I mean, you go back and you do your history on Disney and Kings Island and all that. Like we're going they're going to take me out of this. Okay. Mouse is out. fills out.
Someone's going to go back and look and go, "How in the heck did they get that land on Highway 31, 6 minutes from Grand Park?" It just it's doesn't make sense, right? How did you We got blessed by the good Lord, to be honest. Right. For them to find us that land um from Sheridan. We found it.
We captured it. We ran with it. Was it like you ever have conversations with a legacy land owner? Yeah. So, so those conversations, we had particularly started dealing with a lot of farmers in the beginning. Um, great people, but and I grew up down home, so I know the farmers.
What you'll say, what I underestimate is what I like to call the farmers mafia. Man, those guys got thousands of acres. They got a lot of money, and they don't need your money. Oh, I mean, Sunny Beck owns the northern part of Hamilton County. You're not getting that. No.
And you know what? Him and his family have been absolutely fantastic. uh their whole team has been out to to our property. Uh they're just, you know, we introduced ourselves and we did this with everyone, too. Uh we went around and just introduce ourselves as being good neighbors, right? Just, hey, we want to let you know what we're doing.
We're not looking for approval or disapproval, but we want to tell you what we're doing. And I think that it helps that you're one of us. Yeah. Like it's not it's not someone from the outside coming in and putting their big cookie cutter Skylake thing in our backyard. It is this is an Indiana guy like you know you're going to see these people whether it's at Garren Catholic or you're you know at church or wherever it might be like you're one of us and I think that helps. What makes a difference is again I talk about the passion and the vision and then when you put the team together, right?
So, so you've got these early investors that believe, okay, now we get the land, now we get it zoned, now it's permitted, now Will Schuler's out moving dirt on a daily basis in in incredible amounts, right? So now as an investor, you can come out, see it, touch it, feel it, and you're like, "Okay, this is going to make a lot of sense." But what took us to the next stratosphere is the team that we built. And through this whole process, Nate, we sat back and we were like, Phil and I both knew, okay, who the hell is going to run this thing, right? And so, because of my background in medical device, um, I was fortunate again to have some accolades. And there was a there was a a sort of like LinkedIn, but it was called Medraps.
It was this portal that you could go in and find the great the best reps, right? And if they were looking for jobs, it was sort of you could find them. And I thought to myself, man, there's got to be something like that in the theme or adventure park, right? And so found that um met a gentleman. I flew to uh Orlando. You'll appreciate this.
I like to say that I went into the transfer portal and I went down to Orlando uh right before Thanksgiving and I came away with one of the top execs worldwide with Legoland. His name is Phil Royal and he is like off the charts stud, understands everything. 25 years at Legoland. So Phil comes up. He's of British descent. Phil comes up and he's like, "Hey, here's the deal.
With me comes my toolbox." And I said, "All right, well, what does that mean?" He goes, "Look, do you need help on marketing?" I said, "Well, we've got Pence Media already, but we might need some more media cut." He goes, "I'm going to bring you Don Staley." I go, "Who's Don Staley?
You mean the basketball coach?" Don Staley. Ironically, Dawn is amazing. Um, but she's not a basketball coach, but she does live in South Carolina, which is crazy. And so, Dawn, 27 years of marketing at Legoland. Incredible.
Then he says, "Hey, what about on the finance side?" And I'm like, "Uh, yeah, we need help there, too." He goes, "I've got Brian Shaw. He just retired from Legoland. 35 years at Legoland. Do you need a general manager?
We do. He goes, I'm going to give you Ben Peacock. Ben Peacock ran the head of security at Walt Disney for 10 years. Then he ran Legoland. And then most recently, the last four years, he ran Margaritavville. So there's our team.
We've got 110 years of experience. That was the best trip for the transfer port. I feel like Curt Signetti at IU. Like I've built this out. So you're bringing four. Was that four people?
That is correct. You're bringing four ex Legoland executive staff members to Hamilton County just north of Indianapolis to run Sky Lake Adventures. And some of them have already moved here with their families. They've been running. They all came on board uh January 15th. I mean, talk about like again going in the portal and getting like a star running back or a star and then plus a couple offensive linemen and he brings the quarterback and you're like what?
So that was four Legoland ex Legoland employees are coming to Indiana. So I mean that's nuts. So then Nate, here's what's happens. Okay, again I keep saying this. Good Lord's got his hands all over this. How do we get this land?
And now all of a sudden I get these four guys. What does that do to the investors? They're like, "All right, I'm I was in for this. I'm coming in for more." And now they start to tell each friend and family, right? Uh, a little fun fact, out of our 37 vesters, 36 are from Hamilton County, 28 live in Westfield, and 16 are Bridgewater residents.
So, we're really keeping this. This is a tight community. And what makes it different, Nate, is we have no bank debt on this project, right? So, it's just we're raising the money. Uh, it's a $50 million fund. We're we're crushing it.
And it's going to be a fun project because it's just it's a it's we're all in this together as a tight community. a decade, you're going to see a lot of new pools in Bridgewater. Right. Right. Uh Chris Bagot tells that story of him like going around and raising money for Exact Target in the early days and he's like going to people in his neighborhood and then like after they end up like growing and selling like everyone got a pool in our neighborhood. You're going to be you're going to be able to be president of the HOA after that, right?
Come on, dude. Wild. Yeah. So obviously huge project, lots of you know big vision comes in stages. Stage one opens this summer. Correct.
What can we expect for stage one and what does the timeline of the rest of it look like? Yeah, great question. So we like to call it waves. Wave. You got it. Tied into Sky Lake.
So wave number one, uh we are we're going to come in in June, June of 26. Wave number one is just going to be water activities only. So, you're going to walk in, you're going to be walking into a white sandy beach. You're going to have umbrellas and beach chairs and uh towels laying out, and you're going to be able to get on the wibbit system. We've got a kids section, right, that you can run on the north end. Uh we've got a Zoom Flume Hill, which is uh if you grew up on slip and slides, you're going to love this.
We've got a 90 ft slip and slide that goes directly into the water. We've got another one at 60t that goes into the water. Um our wibbit system will hold up to 500 people at a time. The key component for us is um we've also imported um the X tower and the X tower is from a company called Boaz, B O A Z. Um it's a company from France. We just received it 2 days ago.
Um this is an incredible incredible piece of equipment. Um, it's a 40 foot floating dock that will have nine different inflatable slides going off of each section. So, again, at different ranges. How do we get in the bit? Like, I love you. You're in the business of putting this all together.
I want to get in the business of creating this stuff. Like, you just get to sit around the boardroom and say, "Now, what if we had nine slides off this one?" Well, here's here's here's how we do that. We have one of these podcast up at our place after we open and then you can see the vision and we can just like sponge and mark and go. Okay. Yeah.
You know what we need? It's like a huge cannonball trampoline dock. There we can do it. The Z tower. Right. Right.
No, dude. That's crazy. Yeah. So, that's what it'll look like. So, again, wave one is you're going to come in. It's all water activities.
Uh the Wibbit system again, the X tower, uh cabanas will be there. Um you you know we'll have the South Beach which again is the adult only. Um nice. Yeah. We've got the private island uh that we've built that'll hold up to 30 people. So for private parties though we've got four three palm trees that'll be on there like real palm trees.
Not real but they're they're they're they're faux paw but Yeah. But they're going to look the part. They're going to look the part. Absolutely. South South Beach is coming to central Indiana. South Beach is coming to Central Indiana.
Absolutely. And Okay. Is it like um a membership thing, a pay as you go thing? Like what can the what does the buying process look like there? Yeah, great question. So um for us there will be some of the seasonal stuff late at later dates.
Right now wave number one it's just going to be a come and play as you are. There'll be a one price. Um come check it out. Yeah, come check it out. Our tickets go on sale uh very soon this, you know, very soon in the month of April. Um, obviously skyake indiana.
com is and you can follow us on all of our social media, Instagram and Facebook. Uh, Skylake Adventures. So, yeah, man. Sean, this is crazy. When you think about the imprint that you guys are leaving on Hamilton County and, you know, 10, 15 decades from now when Skylake is just ripping, what do you want people to remember about what you're building in Hamilton County? I always say this, right?
Like, so, hey, you've got this great vision, right? And and now you're building the team around it and and each day it gets more and more real, right? Like, so I think in life, you know, you want to leave impressions. You want to leave your own footprints, right, in the sand, so to speak, right? So people look behind. And our goal with leaving our footprint in the sand is I want people to come back and be like, "This is crazy."
like we built this an amazing, you know, experience in central Indiana like and and the one question or the one statement that I get brought up all the time is like why hasn't someone done this before? Like we're Indianapolis is amazing, right? It's booming. It's we're the eighth largest convention center business in the country, right? I mean, it's huge. I mean, you know what just happened?
You're at the final four. all these people come in for all these experiences and now for us to have I'm not using this word lightly, a legacy project. I mean, that's really what I feel like this is going to be. This thing is going to be running for generations to come. It's only going to grow. We've got a lot of other ideas for land to the east and to the west of us and north of us.
And so, uh, and that's all because of our Legoland folks, right? They've got big visions. Lego. That's crazy. That's so cool. Yeah.
Well, thank you. And I love I'm going to I'm going to tie it back to something you said earlier. It's like, you know, I'm not that smart, but you just got to be smart enough to like read the signs and put the right people in the room that can make magic happen. That's it. It's it I'm not that I I I say it to our team constantly, right? There's two things I always say is one, I'm not smart enough or I always say I'm smart enough to know when I'm not smart enough and then I find the right people.
The other reason we've had tremendous success is we go back to the conversation in the very beginning. We talk about track, right? I ran the 400 at Butler. And so if you follow the 400, that is a race that when the gun goes off, you run as fast as you can, for as hard as you can, for as long as you can. I do the same thing in business. I implore our team, okay?
The reason we're having this success you brought up isn't because we have more money. It's not because we are these entrepreneur developers that we've done 10 of these. No, none of that. It's because we're fast. We're faster than everyone else. And what I mean by that is this.
The time that I think of something until I implement it, I've screwed it up three times and then I figured out the right way. I always say, the other thing I always say is this. The time between people of thinking and doing things, that's where dreams and money die. It's exactly what happens. And so now if you run fast, so if if if if I'm supposed to if if if I call you uh and say, "Hey, let's get together." And like, "Hey, I can see you in a month."
I'm like, "No, I can see you next week." You're like, "But I'm like, "No, I want to see you next week." And if I can can get you to do that, and if I can shrink that time from a month down to two weeks, from two weeks down to one, now you look at it from a yearly standpoint. I've taken something from a year down to 6 months. I'm going to beat you every single time just because I'm faster. And that's it.
That's our key. I'm fired up. Let's go. I'm fired up, too. Let's go, dude. I'm all in.
I am, too. I can't wait. You're Hey, listen. We're here's what we're going to do. You're going to be invited out. We're going to have your show.
We're going to do a live show out there. Then on top of this, we're going to get some of the Depal alumni that some of us know here. And we're going to have a Depal Day out there. Take out the whole South Beach and just have a blast. Depal takes over South Beach. It's like spring break all over.
Come on. Dude, I love it. I'm fired up. Okay, the word Yep. that might need to enter your talk track. You talked about vision.
Yep. You talked about like all these stuff. It's conviction. Yep. Like when I hear you talk about Skylake. Yep.
It's conviction. You are convicted that this thing is a legacy generational project here in central Indiana. It reminds me if you look back at the history, you know, there's this whole piece about how people from downtown Indie used to summer in Broadripple and there was a one of the largest of it with the the first indoor or inground pool, one of the first inground pools in the country was in Broadripple, I believe. Don't quote me on that. The Rivy the Riviera. The Rivy, right?
But like there's this whole amusement attraction piece that didn't make it leg like generations. It didn't make it through the legacy there. And I so this is something we're missing. We're needing like when people think of big attractions for like youth in Indiana, you obviously think of Holiday World going down to Santa Claus and having that whole experience. Bringing a top tier attraction for families of all ages to central Indiana. Huge.
No, it's huge. And you know what? Um I always also use this. I like to be confident, not cocky. Okay. We will be the Midwest destination.
That's that's a guarantee, right? We will outdo Kings Island because people are going to want to come to this destination because sitting in central Indiana, being in Hamilton County, the premier county in the state of Indiana on Highway 31 with 70,000 cars a day, 6 minutes away from Grand Park. It's amazing the location. And now we've got the platform and a blank canvas to build this out. It's unprecedented what we're doing with a landmark of a hill, the highest point in Hamilton County. I mean, we're we're going to draw attention from three to five hours away.
I mean, that's a given for us. And so, we're excited about it. We welcome all those folks and we're just wanting to get them out and get their toes in the sand and get a drink in their hand. Amen. I love it. I will give the the stat correct.
Broadripple Park pool was constructed in 1907/1908 and was one of the first indoor swimming pool or inground swimming pools in Indiana and it hosted the 1924 Olympic trials and then we hosted the 2024 Olympic trials 100 years apart. So there you go. That was that was going to eat me up if I didn't like provide the right information. Understand? I love it. We've come to the end of the show where we talk all things Indiana one.
I just want to say I'm fired up. This is incredible. your conviction, your belief in everything that Skylake is doing like a and becoming one of the first official, you know, getting an official partnership with uh Grand Park, another like pinnacle attraction in central Indiana in Westfield. Huge. That was huge for us. Yeah.
So now it's like, you know, that's the one thing about like I hope one day if I grow up and have a family that they don't I'm not a baseball. Like I don't want to sit at the diamond all weekend long just cuz it's long, you know? I would much rather prefer the all the excitement that is wrestling tournaments which are indoors all year. So like not much of anything better, right? But you have families that are out there and they might not, you know, maybe they play in the morning and won't play till the evening, maybe they play one day and not the next. Like getting a partnership there is huge.
It was huge for us. That was a game changer. And what how that all came to fruition which is very interesting is um they actually reached out to us which was crazy. And so we went down and we met with them and uh walk into the meeting and I have my information and I start off the meeting by saying, "Hey, listen. What do you know about us?" And they're like, "We know everything about you."
And I was like, "Okay." Um they're like, "Listen, we've been waiting for this day." And I went, "Okay." And they're like, "Listen, mouse, we've heard that you like to move fast." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's a true statement." Yeah.
He's like, "Good. We want a partnership." And so it took us about 3 to four weeks to work out all the fine details. And the reason that it came uh to to fruition is is twofold. One, Grand Park and the vision that Andy Cook and and the predecessors before him have was genius, right? If you go back and watch the films, you know, their goal was to get 250,000 people up there, you know, at this 400 acre sports complex.
Now, that's grown to north of 5. 5 million visitors, right? It surpassed last year uh the ESPN zone at Walt Disney World as the number one youth attended sports facility in the country, which is just crazy, right? And so, so they're telling us all this stuff and to grow their business, they sat back and they're like, "Listen, we already get all the tier one teams, right? So, like, how do I get the, you know, I can't get any more fivestar athlete tournaments here because we're tapped out. How do we get the tier two and tier three teams, right?
And those those those actual uh tournaments currently go to towns like Toledo because of Cedar Point, Cincinnati, because of Kings Island, Orlando, because of Disney. Why? Because those the coaches there, yeah, they want to win, but they're more important of saying, "I want to take my kids to Grand Park to play in the tournament." Cuz Grand Park's like the Yankee Stadium, right? It's like, you know, Madison Square, right? No, it's crazy.
So, they want to do that. And now the coaches, tier two and tier three, yeah, they want to win, but it's not that important. They're not watching film before. The coach isn't saying, "Hey, you can't go out there and and go swim for." No, they're like, "You know what, dude? Let's go have fun.
Let's book a trip on the front end and on the back end and stay longer." So, Grand Park saw that and went, "We need a partner because we want to be able to say that we have a destination 6 minutes away. In return for that, they're allowing us to have two separate locations, one by the baseball section and one by the uh lacrosse and soccer section that will allow us to be able to sell Skylake tickets on their campus. And that was a gamecher for us. Yeah. Yeah.
You're already getting what you said five 5. 5 million 5 and a half million people come through there. Yeah. That that does good for uh the marketing budget for you all. Absolutely. Getting in front of that many people.
Absolutely incredible. I mean, dude, again, said it like 10 times this episode. I'm fired up. I love it. I can feel it. I can feel it.
Well, now we get to close out by talking all things Indiana. So, this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homejart. com. My question for you, Sean, why do you call Indiana home?
It's who I am. It's the heart of my pulse. It's the It's the beat of my heart. I love Indiana. I love the hospitality. It's different.
I I for have lived here all but five years of my life. Uh when I transitioned, I lived in Florida and Florida was amazing. But when you come here, you just know it's different, right? The people are different. They're nicer. Uh they're willing to help out.
And I love uh being a Hooser. I love being from the state. I'm proud of it. And I love having the Hooser hospitality. Heck, I mean, yeah. working in the hospitality biz.
You can't you can't beat that. I do want to know when you think about iconic family vacation attraction moments, what's yours? What's like that memory you have? Whether it be at the Wisconsin Dells or Holiday World or wherever. Could be when you were a kid or could be with your family. What's the moment that still sticks out to you?
Yeah, for us the moment that still sticks out um my oldest son played college football at Central Michigan. uh we were in the first ever Bahamas Bowl. So he took our kids to the Atlantis and that's a moment that really stuck out which again I used that information later on. We were there in 2014. So I use that information later on because again we were there with young kids. They're on this water slide.
You can't find them. You're sort of panicking. So but it was just an amazing moment. We love that venue. Yeah, that's a good one. The Bahamas Bowl.
Who they play? Uh they played uh Western Kentucky and that was the game which was crazy. We were down by 35 points in the second half and we came back and tied it and we went for two. We scored a touchdown. Uh Cooper Rush threw a pass to uh Titus and um he we went for two and we dropped it and we lost the game. Almost almost almost I got it.
Uh wow. Here's another question I have for you. I just thought of this one. When building something as extravagant and big and you know a legacy project like Skylake, what is something that is just crazy expensive that you didn't expect? Like something like sand or like a crazy piece that people might not be thinking about like you don't realize how much beach towels cost or whatever it might be. Everyone always asks me you know the situation with the sand, right?
So sand is it's not expensive. Getting it here is expensive. Oh, so that's a big cost for us. The transportation. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, I've got 650 trucks, right?
So they load up in the morning, first thing in the morning. They they fill up with sand, they drive 5 hours, they dump it, they turn around and go back and they just rinse and repeat. 5 hours, 315 miles. Like, yeah, do the math. Transporting the sand. Transporting.
Yep. Wow. That's interesting. Yeah. All right, we've come to the final part of the show where we have the same three questions that we ask every guest who comes on. First, you know, from working at oh my gosh, Boston Scientific, Striker, all these places, multiple states all over, traveling for, you know, your market research for Skylake.
If you could shout it from the rooftops, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana? The frog at Lake Wawa Sea. Oh, I love the frog. I love the frog. I've been there after a few weddings. I love the frog.
Yeah. The frog at Lake Wawa. People need to know about the frog. It's a great It's a huge I actually I actually just had someone else recommend something at Lake Wawa that I've never heard of. There's like a supper club. Have you heard of this?
Yes, I have. The whatever the supper club is. So, I had literally within like a month I got two Lake Wava recommendations. There um fantastic. Here's your question. All right.
This is where we source new guests and get other ideas for people that are doing big things in the state of Indiana. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. It's real simple. Nicole Pinsspecker. Shout out.
Come on. Shout out. She's amazing. Oh, totally amazing. So, yeah, you've been working with uh her team. Yeah, absolutely.
They're doing fantastic. So, we we've known each other for quite a while. She's very active at Our Lady Mount Carmel and um couldn't be happier with what her and her team are doing. Heck yeah. Let's go. We're big fans over here, too.
Uh humble brag. Go check out our our previous episode with Nicole. We'll link it in the show notes. Great time. Awesome. Finally, this is a piece you kind of shared a little bit with the frog, but we're going to ask you.
This is your opportunity to highlight a spot that more people need to know about in the state of Indiana. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? I think a hidden gem in Indiana is coming to fruition is going to be Skylight. Oh, right. Well, it's not going to be hidden, though. Yeah, I know it's not, but it's not going to be hidden.
It's been Here's the deal. It's been hidden for a while because it's so funny and they that that so many people even I mean now thanks to your wonderful show, we're going to get a lot of exposure, right? But what I would say it really has been hidden. I mean unless you're driving up 31 and you see and everyone's like, "What's this big hill? What's this about?" Uh but because of Pence Media and our own folks with Dawn Staley, we're getting the word out and it's going to be we're we're making it loud is like what we like to say.
There we go. I mean, literally, I was driving, you know, in the car and Lauren, my girlfriend, says like, I this conversation is crazy. I'm having deja vu. She says, what is that giant hill right there? Literally, we're driving. She goes, that thing is huge.
And I'm like, I don't know. That's where I looked and saw the Will Power. There you go. That's us. And I was like, oh, will we just doing Will things? Wow.
Yeah, it is a That is a big hill. It's a highest point in Hamilton County. Highest point in Hamill. Let's go. Y Sean, it's been incredible to get to hear about your journey from Princeton up to Butler here in Hamilton County creating Sky Lake Adventures. This place I know if if it is onetenth of I mean as exciting as as you know we've talked about it's going to be totally worth it.
Like from winter to the 6acre lake to the threetory ropes course. Yeah. to all the what? Wibbitz. Yep. I know.
I know a thing about Wibbits now. Let's go. Like this just seems like something that is going to be a home run for Indianapolis. Home run for Central Indiana. The more we can pull people from Ohio, from Michigan, from Illinois over into come check what it's all about. I love it, man.
Keep up the good work. If people want to learn more, if they want to connect with you, how can they do that? Absolutely. So, skyake indiana. com. You can follow us on all of our social media, Skylake Adventures.
Um, I want to say this much. It's been a pleasure and honor. I respect the hell out of you. What you're doing, you're killing it, man. And I'm proud. This is my first podcast ever.
Hopefully not my last. We would love to have you up. But no, in all seriousness, man, you're you're, you know, uh, for you to to take the journey of where you were to where you're at today. Uh, we're coming up on your 2-year anniversary with this, right? We're coming up on your 2-year anniversary. So maybe we can coincide it with the opening of Sky Lake and you come up for your 2-year anniversary and do a show.
We're celebrating up there on South Beach. That'd be a heck of a day. That would be a heck of a day. I love it, man. This has been a pleasure. Keep up the good work and we'll talk to you soon.
Cheers. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
