You Will Come To a Place Where the Streets Are Not Marked

Indianapolis- a city known for fast car races.  For us- a city we had a "wonderful" driving tour.  I know many people have told me we should have a GPS, but I really do prefer the old fashioned map- or sometimes even just wandering around on our own. And that is exactly what we ended up doing in Indy.  We had many laughs, a little frustration, but finally ended up where we wanted to go.

The day started late- I let everyone sleep until 10:15.  I never really had a firm idea of what to do during our one day in Indianapolis so a figured it was a good day to catch up on some much needed rest.  We decided to head into the downtown of the city, walk around for a while and then go see the Indianapolis Indians ball game.  When I looked online for ticket information I saw that if you showed a receipt for a purchase of honey tickets were but one, get one free.  Being the bargain hunter that I am, I decided we should stop at a supermarket and make the purchase.  Thus began our quest for the day.

We managed to make it into the city with no problems.  However, it seemed no matter which direction we went from there we could not find a grocery store.  In every other city we have been in we ALWAYS find the local Walmart.  But again and again we turned down main roads and NOTHING!  Maggie and Ian wanted me to pull over and ask people where they shopped.  We hypothesized that everyone must eat out or have food delivered.  It was getting to be ridiculous!

We finally turned down this main road and came upon the Indianapolis Speedway.   I figured there had to be something in that neighborhood, and sure enough we located a Kroger.  We purchased our honey, and a few more snacks and headed out.  It was a really nice store, although we thought that the man in the car in front of us was dead when he really was just taking a nap.

Now we had to get back to the downtown of the city.  After making so many wrong turns we were completely turned around.  It took a bit to make it back.  We parked and walked to the War Memorial in the center of the downtown.  There we toured the Civil War museum.  It was a very small, but well done exhibit.  We capped the afternoon with a walk around but then got really hot so we went for an early dinner.

Our next ordeal was in finding cheap parking for the baseball game.  According to the website there is a lot that only charged $5.00.  However as we were driving around we could only find lots that we much more expensive.  On our third try around the stadium I took what I thought was a wrong turn and lo and behold- THERE WAS THE LOT!! I was on the rear side of the stadium.  I wish they had better signage for us tourists.

We purchased our BOGO tickets and headed in.  Batting practice was going on and Ian snagged a ball- good news!!  Just as the game was about to begin an announcement was made that a storm was coming in, so out came the tarps- bad news!!  The rain delay lasted about an hour and a half.  In the meantime, Maggie finished her Artemis Fowl book and the boys had ice cream- not a bad way to wait out a delay.  The game was enjoyable.  Danny and I played Baseball Bingo.  (This forced me to pay attention since the squares are filled with possible plays of the game.)  By the fifth inning everyone was exhausted.  The Indians were losing 4-1 and all three kids asked if we could just go back to the hotel.  Feeling pretty tired myself, I agreed and we called it a night. I wanted to get an early start since the next day was a driving day to Michigan.