Indianapolis, IN: August 19th-20th, 2014 - You Take The Good With The Bad

I've said it before and I'll say it again: travel, while almost always a great idea that leaves one richer for the experience, can sometimes be more frustrating and disappointing than exciting and magical.  Case in point: the first half of my Big Ol' Gosh Dang Overnight to Indianapolis, IN.

I had a travel companion along for the adventure this time, who informed me that Indiana is a terrible state.  I was unwilling to believe that, until about twenty minutes over the state line, when traffic came to a dead halt.  Where it remained.  For what seemed like almost the entire way.  Turning what should have been just under a 2 hour drive into well over 4.  Also, we wanted to find cheap icewine at an Indiana Aldi (since in Kentucky, grocery stores can't sell wine), but even stopping at 3 different ones along the way, there was none to be found.  THEN!  When we finally made it to the hotel after 8 PM, the front desk had record of my reservation...but NOT my payment.  Which had definitely already been drafted from my credit card.  And the lady at the front desk wasn't about to let me leave until the whole mess was sorted out.

Midway through a phone call to Kayak.com customer support, in the lobby of the hotel that it had taken an extra 2 hours to get to, forcing us to cancel what we had planned to do that evening in the city, I was almost ready to throw in the towel.

But then, Front Desk Lady had a change of heart, gave us the keys, and said she'd handle customer support.  And from the moment luggage hit bed in the hotel room, the trip was wonderful for its remainder.  Is there a life lesson in here?  Who the dang heck knows!  On with the frivolous story!

First order of business: dinner.  Oh my god, dinner.  Beyond spectacular.  This was where we knew the trip had taken a turn for the better.  After, we strolled about town after dark.  Some shots:

There was this massive building, which I believe was some sort of performing arts center?  But I was never really clear:

It looked sort of Russian to me.  Dunno.

This thing:

Which danced continuously.  Again, haven't deciphered a reason behind it.

Given the lateness of the hour, that's all we really had time for that night.  We needed an early start the next morning to pack in all of the Funtimes I'd planned via a cursory look at the Indianapolis Wikivoyage page (seriously, I know I won't shut up about it, but that site is really invaluable.  Also UrbanSpoon.  Use those things when you go to a place every time).

First on the agenda: the Indianapolis Zoo.  For some reason, a few weeks back I got an itch to go to a zoo, and this fine morning I was finally going to scratch it.  I've never been more excited to go to a zoo.

Some shots of downtown during the drive there:

The massive-est Marriott I've ever seen:

And then at last, the zoo!

Some animals:

Not the best shot of the meerkat, since it was behind glass.  But look at it stand!  So curious about stuff.

When we got our tickets, we were informed that with the price of admission, we got a dolphin show included!  Hooray!  What a stupendous surprise.  The show was in an indoor arena that looked like this:

Then when the show started, the lights went off and the pool started to glow:

Spoooooooky!  They didn't mention this was the haunted dolphin show!

Side note, I'm not sure what that ring thing at the bottom of the pool is - it was never explained or used during the show.  I read elsewhere that it was a dome for viewing the dolphins from below, but we were never given the opportunity to do so, nor was it apparent that that was even an option.  Oh well!  Show was good regardless:

Next, we made our way to this strange building:

Which turned out to be an orangutan house!!!!!!!!!

This was also where we started running into a massive population of what I assumed for the rest of the day were the Amish, seen in the first photo above.  I sneakily took a picture of a group of them later, just for proof:

Almost as fun as tracking the animals!

That may not be a nice thing to say, but it's always safe to poke fun at Amish people on the internet, so no harm done.

Next, birds.

BIRDS!

One of them made friends with me:

He then tried to eat me.  No!  Bad bird!  Do not eat friends!

So we continued to see animals - you know, that thing you do at a zoo.  I'm gonna cut to the chase and just dump the rest of the pictures:

For some reason, they also had a butterfly house which was outside of the zoo proper.  Like, we had to leave the zoo and go over to it.  But it was included with the price of getting into the zoo.  It's like, why not put it in the zoo, cuz??  Whatcha doin with the butterfly house outside the gate???

And the garden outside:

So!  That was it for the zoo.  We were quite hungry, so we went to this burger place downtown where I had, no joke, the best burger of my life.  Impossibly good.  Then we got cupcakes...also impossibly good.  Stuffed with wonderful lunch and dessert, we sallied forth to the art museum: destination number two!

Delightfully, the museum was totally free of charge.  Not even a parking fee!

I told you.  The trip just kept getting better as it went on.

Just inside, there was a hanging art:

That you could walk inside!

We then walked into the museum proper:

and toured the many, many, many exhibits, of which we only got around to seeing maybe half.  There was a big featured exhibit on pointillism of the late 19th century, which was interesting but...I kind of got it after the first few rooms.  There were a few interactive exhibits, which I'm nearly certain were meant for children...nevertheless, I played with a gigantic lightbright and made pencil rubbings of supposedly African symbols.

Here's me in Paris, I swear:

The fountain out front, from a third floor vantage point:

Probably my favorite art in the museum:

I think it was called like, Gramophone or something.  No wait!  It was Sound Suit.  I think.  Maybe.

Tired from our full day, we found an indie coffee shop back in town to boost our energy for the drive home, which this time took 1hr 50min.  So you see, sometimes it is worth slogging through the bad thing to make it to the good one.  That's the moral of this tale.  Pretty basic, right?

Second moral: Indiana is okay, but Indianapolis is fantastic.  Go if you can!  I sure did.