Road Trips : Road Trip 98 : Indainapolis - Cincinatti

Wednesday 21 October 1998 (Des Moines IA to Indianapolis IN)
Odometer: 85758

 

 

Minimal sleep. Hit a few thrift stores on the way out of town. And then I was off through the wilds of eastern Iowa and central Illinois, onward through Peoria and Champaign/Urbana. I had another Chick-Fil-A moment in Moline IL.

Finally I hit Indiana, where I had no idea what time it was (Indiana does not recognize Daylight Savings Time). Bob and Cody were waiting, as was my suite at the Renaissance Tower. There was TV Land on cable, White Castle a few blocks away and things were about to start getting more interesting with less driving and more things to see.

Never again will I drive from San Francisco to Indianapolis with only three stops.

Thursday 29 October 1998 (Indianapolis IN and Cincinatti OH)

 

 

Indianapolis was something of a homecoming. It was the first stop where I'd spent any significant time previously. It's also the home of my friend Bob, on whose shoulders I place the blame for these annual mega-trips. Thus, I had some perspective (and lots of pictures from last year) so I could actually look at things with my eyes rather than with the camera.

I miss fall. It was always my favorite time of year when I used to live in places with discernible seasons. So it was pretty cool to see (a) trees and (b) trees with multi-colored leaves. It takes so little to make me happy. Sometimes.

After a couple of thrift stores (including Bull Winkle's where I managed to find the missing link in my set of Flintstones mugs from McDonald's) and a pretty decent used bookstore, we did the southeastern Indiana tour along US52...

 

 

...which led ultimately to Cincinatti. I'd never been to Cincinatti. It brings to mind images of a really repressive social climate and of scrappy little AM radio stations. Actually, it seemed a fairly interesting place with a sort of seedy urban aesthetic I really liked. Reminded me a little of Pittsburgh. Definitely worth a longer look next year.

 

 

 The evening brought a quick trip to a bar or too. At the 501 Tavern, I had a brief conversation with a crowd of lightweights who thought I was completely nuts for dribing around the country when I could have spetmy vacation flying to really "fabulous" places. They were pretty much irredeeemable and I moved on to this strangely endearing sort of mega-club (whose name I forget) where I spent a few minutes chasing a boy who looked completely out of his mind. I didn't catch him. In retrospect, I think I'm glad...