Indianapolis, Indiana – 4/22/2017
April 22, 2017 (Saturday)
Woke up and had breakfast at the hotel, then left. The first part of the drive today was to Indianapolis, Indiana – about 180 miles. The weather was cloudy and grey but not raining so we were grateful. The roads were all highway and not nearly as bad as Michigan’s potholes and bumps.
We got into Indianapolis and found parking on the street near the Capitol. We were in a hurry because the last tour started at 1:00 PM, and it was real close to 1:00 PM when we got inside. The parking, however, said it was “easy as 1-2-3.” Yea, right – NOT. We fought with it, cussed at it, and finally started the whole process over in order to get more than 15 minutes of parking. By the time we rushed through security and to the tour desk at the 2nd floor, the tour had started – but just barely thank goodness.
The tour guide, Jim, was WONDERFUL! Loved him.
Excellent job and we learned so much about Indiana – like the state bird (cardinal), state tree (tulip tree), state flower (peony), state pie (sugar cream), state song (“On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” – and we sang it with Jim), why there are 19 stars on the Indiana flag (number of states plus them when they joined the Union), etc. Loved it. We also learned that the people of Indiana have no idea how the word “hoosier” came to be. There was lots of speculation but no real record of how it came to be. Love learning the little things like that – and never heard of a sugar cream pie before. Now we’re going to have to find a piece to try out.
Also met some folks on the tour from Florida, Tracy and Jim. Tracy is the great, great, great (not sure how many greats) granddaughter of one of the Governor’s of Indiana and wanted to come see his portrait while she was in town.
(Sorry, couldn’t remember the name of the Governor she was related to. Hopefully she’ll let us know and I’ll update later.) Jim, the husband, is running a marathon in each state. He’s up to something like 16 states. Really enjoyed our short time visiting and wished it could have been longer but they had to rush off to do a tour at the Indianapolis Speedway.
The State Capitol of Indiana is lovely. Lots of character and lots of pride displayed. They have tons (literally) of Indiana limestone, which is beautiful; lovely statues; a wonderful mural in the House of Representatives that is full of symbolism about Indiana; and just a gorgeous dome and interior. We’re putting it up there as one of our top five favorites (so far).
What was interesting to me about the Capitol, while we were walking around we saw where they were getting ready to have two separate weddings in two parts of the Capitol. How fun would it be to get married in the State Capitol? We had to be out of the building by 2:00 PM because of the weddings, so Jim rushed us a little in order to get everything in.
We got to see the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the rotunda, etc. Just beautiful.
After walking outside and around the grounds, which were as lovely and thoughtful as the interior of the Capitol, we saw a HUGE water fountain a few blocks away.
We just had to go explore and found out it was a memorial to all the fallen Indiana soldiers in the civil war. It was beautiful. We also got to see another couple getting their wedding pictures taken near the fountain.
There was a Starbucks near the fountain and we went in and got some coffee to take with us on the road, as we still had a long drive ahead of us. While we were walking outside, Michael tripped (darn drop foot of his) and fell. He said he didn’t hurt anything but he sure scraped his leg and hand up. Hoping he’s not sore tomorrow and hasn’t damaged anything. He, of course, blamed it on me. (Mike here – She is so bad about walking out into the street without looking around very far. She was 4 feet into a crosswalk with a cop car aggressively barreling down on her. She finally saw it and backed out of the crosswalk and the patrol car gunned it past her. I was intensely watching all this, ready to shout, and my left foot got hooked on a lousy one inch curb. Well, down I went, skinned my left knee and hand, blew a huge hole in my personal pride and lord, I have had to politely listen to my beloved chastise me like an errant child running with scissors!)
As we were leaving we went under a tunnel and saw where a very large piece of equipment went into the tunnel but was too big to continue without damaging the tunnel and equipment.
We didn’t want to wait around to find out how they got out of there. I don’t think they crashed into anything but they were sure looking around to see how and what to do. The rest of the drive was on freeways and was about 250 more miles to Collinsville, Illinois.
(We were trying to split the distance between Columbus, Ohio and Branson, Missouri.) Long day in the car and we were tired by the time we got to our hotel (Days Inn – Wyndham “go fast” points discount plus about $50,00).
That was our day. Hope yours was great!