We stayed at the Hilton downtown - fancy, but not too fancy. (Read: I didn't want to spend ALL our money on a room for one night!) We had a room on the top (19th) floor, which was pretty cool. Well, in theory it was pretty cool. In actuality this was our view:
Hermmm...
But really, we didn't care that much. Because who sits around staring out their hotel window? (At least when you're in Indy...) It was right off of Monument circle, so that's where we headed first.
And then we took a selfie. Because that's what you do.
Can you tell from the picture how humid it was that evening? It was MUGGY, as only a midwestern state can be. Still, we were away from home and without the kids - life was good! (Does anyone else ever feel like they're sometimes escaping from their kids? I'm pretty sure that's how the kids felt about us leaving, so we're even.)
When I originally planned with trip I had all these ideas about where we could go and what we could do - but then I remembered that sometimes I plan a little too much, and that Lance might really like to be able to choose what we did, since it was his trip and all. So I suggested the canal walk and paddle boats, but since it was pretty windy and looked like it would rain any minute, we opted to just wander the city instead. We wandered and chatted and looked at signs for historic places. We watched crazy religious fanatics on the corner who were preaching that God was gonna kill us all, and we watched the poor cops who were parked nearby, leaning on their cars and looking like "How did I get stuck with having to deal with this?!"
While Indy is a big city, it's not that big. We pretty much covered downtown in that one evening. I told Lance he could choose anywhere he wanted for dinner, fully expecting him to choose Italian (his favorite), but he surprised me with Ruth's Chris Stake House. So we had a really, really excellent dinner there. I had the chicken. Kidding. We both had steak and were quite full when we were done, so we walked around some more and ended up at the mall, where we saw a guy who looked just like Mark Twain. I kid you not. And we had seen him earlier around town, so it was fate and destiny and what have you, and I tried to surreptitiously take his picture but I am apparently terrible at that sort of thing, so it didn't happen. Sadness. We bought some Cinnabons to help ease our sorrows.
I had wanted to go see a play or something that evening, but apparently all theater in Indy shuts down during the summer, so that was a no-go. So we went back to the hotel room and did something that Lance lurves - played video games together. Yes, we are that couple.
The next morning we had breakfast at Lance's choice - Panera Bread. He had never had breakfast there before!
Then, because Lance LOVES me and tolerates me and knew I would be a happy, happy girl, he agreed to walk around the inside of the state capital building, which I had been wanting to do for quite a while. And when we got there we found out that there was a FREE TOUR starting in a few minutes and I about died and went to heaven. I LOVE free tours!!! Again, Lance agreed because he loves me.
We hung around the main atrium while waiting for the tour to start.
It was set up for wedding that was taking place later that day. Here's the fabric the bride was going to walk down.
There's where the bride and groom would stand. Aside from the homely black chairs, it was really quite pretty.
Soon the TripAdvisor Award-winning (true story!) tour began. The thing about free tours (or even paid ones, really) is that 1) you really can learn a lot of interesting information, 2) they're almost always entertaining (I can't think of a single boring tour I've ever been on), and 3) even if you do get bored, you tend to meet really interesting/entertaining people. Or wackos. Both.
This tour was no different. The biggest crazy we were with was some old guy who was in town for the Kiwanis International convention. He was from California but claimed he was from "the state of confusion" at least seven times during the tour. We lowered the tour group age considerably, except for some randomly mysterious Chinese Canadian guy who was around our age. (He said he was in Indy for a meeting, but didn't elaborate.) There was a vocal, elderly couple from Illinois, but the wife was originally from Germany and had that odd German humor that you kinda get, but kinda don't. There were sundry other people who joined us throughout the tour; we were a motley bunch, and I loved it. Lance tolerated it.
Our tour guide, James, was awesome. He sure knew his stuff and he sure loved Indiana! I love tour guides who really enjoy what they do!
He liked giving silly little facts about Indianapolis. For example, it has the most syllables in its name out of all 50 state capitals. And Indianapolis is the most centrally-located state capital in the union. Oh man, I love that these were the most interesting facts he could give - that's true Indiana right there. Oh, and also, we're the only state capital building to have its price tag carved on the inside. See? Right there and just under it's $2 million budget.
I don't know why that tickled me, but it did. It's just so... Indiana. Frugal and boring and totally proud of it. We actually have a large state budget surplus right now, which I think is awesome. I was thinking about all of this during the tour - sure, Indiana is not exactly the most exciting state. But it is one of the more sane. Sure, we've had our hiccups here and there, but on the whole, we're pretty under the radar. And that's how I like it.
Here's a fossil I found in the floor. There were actually quite a few of these in the marble; I think it's cool!
It really is a beautiful building. Lots of marble and limestone and granite, all-brass light fixtures, and solid oak doorways.
Part of our group.
Looking down into another atrium ready for a wedding.
Where the state senate meets. Everything's under plastic because they were fixing a roof leak. (NOT a good year to discover there's a leak. SO MUCH RAIN.)
Our state house is different from most others because the state's Supreme Court still meets there. We got to go into the courtroom, but not after I got to show off my mad Indiana knowledge skillz. (The tour guide asked questions about the state bird, river, etc. He was extra impressed I knew the state pie: Sugar Cream. Hey, you don't have kids in Indiana schools and not learn a thing or two!)
The courtroom was surrounded by portraits of past justices. (It kinda reminded me of the Hogwart's Headmaster's office... only, disappointingly, none of these portraits were moving or talking...)
Where the justices sit. There's our tour guide. Doesn't he just look extra friendly and warm and... Hoosierish?
The stained glass windows and the ornate ceilings were really impressive.
The plaque over the door says "In God We Trust".
After our awesome tour we went to Fry's Electronics up in Noblesville. (Just north of Indy.) Lance loves that store. I walked around pushing the cart and looking at my phone. It was fun to see and it really was a big store, but I didn't know what all the computering stuff was, and after you've seen one monitor/sound system/keyboard/pair of headphones, you've seen them all. (Don't tell Lance.)
We finished our day together by watching Jurassic World in IMAX 3D. The movie was really fun; I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Not that I thought I would not like it; it was just better than expected! The dinosaurs look so real now! Too bad the main female character kinda spoiled it by running around in high heels the entire movie. I mean, c'mon, it's hard enough to believe she could outrun a T-rex, but also while in heels? Puh-lease.
All too soon we had to get home and save Carli from the kids. (Just kidding. She did great and the kids were sad to see her go.) It was a great little trip and I'm so glad we were able to take it!
