BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA

 Bloomington, Indiana, is a town like no other in Indiana.  After coming out of the flat, agricultural countryside of northern Indiana, it is surprising to find the rolling landscape and the beauty of the myriad forests and trees of Bloomington.  With Indiana University inside the city limits and the diverse population of Bloomington and Monroe County often working together, it offers much in the way of restaurants, entertainment, natural beauty, nature trails, education, physical fitness, special events, medical care, largest farmer´s market in the state, long-term and short-term housing, and so many other things.

Bloomington has been given much free publicity.  It has often been listed in various magazines and publications as a top place to retire and one of best small towns in which to live.  So what draws these publications to extol the virtues of Bloomington?  It can be a special niche that they require.  A bicycling magazine may love the rolling hills and bicycle trails and the "Hilly Hundred."  A music mag may centralize on the world-class opera at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with its other professional programs from jazz to the classics at very reasonable prices.  There is even an international harp contest held in Bloomington every four years!  There are many specialized areas of interest in the town, but mostly it is the variety and availability that the publications and the people of the community find appealing.

 The Bloomington Convention and Visitors Bureau has a great site for Bloomington, IN, restaurants, hotels, calendar of events, etc.  For all the best and latest information, click onto: http://www.visitbloomington.com.

Bloomington health care is booming.  There are two hospitals and many general practitioners as well as specialists.  Information on the hospitals can be found at http://www.bloomingtonhospital.org or http://www.monroehospital.com.  Two of the larger consortiums of doctors are Internal Medical Associates http://www.ima-md.com and Southern Indiana Medical Doctors http://www.bloomingtonhospital.org/doc.  Many other doctors and nurse practitioners that are not part of either of these groups are also available.  For even more specialized care and treatment the Bloomington Hospital is a partner with Clarian Hospital and the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis.  Monroe Hospital also works with St Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.  Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute, available upon referral for certain types of cancer treatment, is one of the very few institutes of its kind in the entire United States.  The Jill Beerman House is available to patients and their families during treatment at the facility.

Monroe County is located along the 39^th Parallel, so weather typically is not extremely high or low.  Being a smaller town, Bloomington weather information is usually included in the entire Indianapolis area climatology.  That information of typical highs and lows can be found at: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ind/local_cli.php.  Because Bloomington is about 60 miles south of Indianapolis, the weather is usually a slight bit warmer throughout the year and without as much snow and ice in the winter months.

.Bloomington is a city and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana.^[3] According to the 2000 census, the city population was 69,291.

Bloomington is home to Indiana University.  Established in 1820, IU has approximately 42,000 students and is the original and largest campus of the Indiana University system. In the 1991 book entitled The Campus as a Work of Art, author Thomas Gaines named the Bloomington campus one of the five most beautiful in America. Most of the campus buildings are built of Indiana limestone that comes from the local area.  Many quarries are dotted in Lawrence County, Monroe County, and to the south.  Indiana limestone has been used in many of the buildings throughout the world, including the Pentagon that was damaged in  9/11.  There are many local stone cutting artisans, especially in the Bedford, Lawrence County area.

Bloomington is also the home of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Maurer School of Law - Bloomington, the Jacobs School of Music, the Kelley School of Business, the Kinsey Institute, the Indiana University School of Optometry, the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing (the School of Informatics also has a branch at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis), and the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.

Bloomington has been named a Tree City for more than 20 years. The city was the site of the Academy Award-winning movie Breaking Away, featuring a reenactment of Indiana University's annual Little 500 bicycle race; Bloomington's rock quarries also figure in the movie