Let's Go Places: Indianapolis, Indiana

 

Here's what happened for Boy Scout Camp weekend in March:

• My husband and stepsons headed out for the woods
• Our lovely puppy headed off to the vet for boarding.  On arrival she recognized the vet tech from her previous stay and greeted her like a long lost friend.
• Yours truly packed up the car and headed off to the fair city of Indianapolis.

Why Indianapolis

I grew up about two hours away from Indianapolis, and the fam made many trips there when I was a kiddo.  If I had to put a date on the last time I was there, I'd guess 1987.  Thank you for not doing the math on how long ago that was.

As an adult I've heard that Indy is a cool town, so it has been on my list of places to go.  One thing that stood out to me when I researched it a few months ago is that Indy has a ton of things to do in winter.  I was actually planning to go there in January, but had to cancel due to a last minute winter storm.

My preliminary research told me that Indy offers:

• A home of a president (I've found Presidential sites to be strangely entertaining)
  
• Monuments (could be either a yay or a nay)
  
• A state capitol (whoop!  I've been looking for capitol #2 to add to my collection)
  
• Museums galore (again, these can be either yays or nays depending on my mood)
  
• The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (yawn.  I'm not into sports but I didn't rule it out)
  
• It was a given that I would eat at the restaurant that we always went to when I was a kid.  The question is if if would still be as good all these years later.
  

Given a choice, I prefer Airbnb's over hotels.  It's just nicer and easier to be in a unique apartment/house instead of a hotel room that's identical to a million other hotel rooms.  When I was planning my January trip, Indianapolis boasted a nice collection of super cool, reasonably priced Airbnbs.  When I was planning this trip it was a different scene.  The place that I'd picked out before wasn't available.  There were many low cost offerings, but several of them had the same host and negative reviews with consistent key words like "bare bones accommodation", "uncomfortable bed", and "smelly towels".  My gut told me that something sketch was afoot.  Hotels are boring, but sometimes boring is good.

In my spare time I've been dabbling in the world of travel hacking, which has led me to focus on Hyatt since they have a very good loyalty program.  The location put me right smack downtown very close to most of what I wanted to see.  I had enough points to stay for free, but the point value redemption was very high.  On the flip side, the cost in cash was the same as an Airbnb and would give me oooodles of points for a future free stay somewhere else, so I forked out my cash and booked the Hyatt. 

Friday - wheels up

On Friday morning I packed up and hit the road.  After lunch I rolled into town just in time for a tour of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site.

Visiting presidential homes and libraries falls under the heading of "things that I never thought I would be into until I tried it and found out that I was into it".  Anytime that I find myself in the vicinity of a Presidential site, it's an auto add to my tourism list.

What I knew about President Harrison going in: there were two President Harrisons who were somehow related, and this one lived in Indianapolis.

What I learned about President Harrison during the hour that I was in his house (standard disclaimer: I'm just repeating what I heard in the way that I understand it.  For historical accuracy please do your own research).  His grandfather was the first President Harrison, who holds the distinction of giving the longest inauguration speech and serving the shortest presidential term ever.  According to legend, Grandpa Harrison gave a two hour inauguration speech outside on a cold rainy day, took sick, and died 31 days later.  Years later Grandson Harrison grew up, became a lawyer, and was asked to help recruit soldiers for the Civil War.  He took the assignment seriously and recruited an entire regiment, which led to him being asked to serve as its officer.  He had zero military experience but a lot of enthusiasm and worked his way up to the rank of General as one does.  After the war he switched to politics and worked his way up to the top rank.  Yada yada yada he did a lot of stuff in his first term, his wife died, and he didn't put much effort into getting reelected.  Harrison went back home to Indy and took a page out of the Blennerhasset Island playbook and married his niece - except he did it the polite/legal way and married his sister-in-law's daughter instead of his sister's daughter.    His youngest child was younger than his grandkids and they all lived happily ever after.  The End.

The Presidential bed, with Presidential Crazy Quilt, which included a patch from his presidential campaign (P.S. I have a small crazy quilt that was passed down in my family.  I'm kinda obsessed.)

The Presidential Home Gym.

There is a Presidential Walkway on the grounds with the signatures of all of the Presidents.  Let's put a pin in the presidential signature thing for now and someday when I get caught up on writing about other presidential sites that I've visited I'll loop back to it.

The Harrison site delivered exactly what I crave from a presidential site - a tour of a historic house, a not-boring peek at history, and lots of good stories.

The next stop on the agenda was to check into the hotel, and once I had done that I hit the streets of downtown Indy.  I had just enough time to visit the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

Normally the cost to take the elevator to the top is $3.  But when I visited the elevator was out of commission, so I got to climb the stairs for free.  Given the choice, I would have taken the stairs anyway.

The stair climb would not be everyone's cup of tea, but I can never resist a challenge.

Sigh, I was planning to yell, run, jump, AND stomp on the stairs but then they said that I couldn't....

At the top you get a nice 360 view of Indy.  Even on a rainy, gray day it was impressive and well worth the climb.

After I made the climb back down I walked around downtown for a bit and took in the sights.  I like a town with bicycle traffic lights.

Next up it was dinner time.  Every time that we visited Indy back in the day, it was a given that we would have dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.  I remembered that we used to get something called "Mizithra pasta" which I remembered as a plate of noodles heaped with butter and tangy cheese, but I questioned my memory of the name.

I have to tell you that my track record of reliving old food memories has mostly been a disappointment.  My childhood food memories don't always line up with my adult tastes.  Last spring however, I broke the curse when I went back to my favorite childhood pizza place and found it unchanged and just as epic as it was in the 80s.  Would the Old Spaghetti Factory live up to my childhood hype or would it be a dud?

Visually it was EXACTLY the same.  We were off to a good start.  I got myself a glass of wine (not an option when I was in middle school) and settled into the bread and salad course.  Yes Mizithra pasta was their signature dish, it was not a funny name that I'd made up.  And YESSSSSSS this was exactly what it looked like in 1987.

So how did it taste?  Exactly like it did in 1987!  It is what you see, a plate of noodles with tangy cheese and browned butter, so it has a unique tangy, nutty taste.  It's not something that I would order every day, but every once in a while (read: as often as my parents went to Indy when I was young), it's quite a treat.

But dinner wasn't over yet!  The meal included spumoni, which is one of my favorite ice cream flavors.  It was EXACTLY the same bowl that they used back in the day, and it hit me exactly the same as it did in the 80s.

(PS it turns out that The Old Spaghetti Factory is a chain with a lot of locations, so you might just have one near you)

Saturday Adventures

My first stop on Saturday was the State Capitol, which is just down the street from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.  According to their website they had free guided tours at 10:15 and at noon, and I made sure to be there for the first tour.

Once I got inside there was no tour guide but the was building open and people were roaming about.  I took another look at the website and saw that the guided tours are only given on some Saturdays and not every Saturday - the way it's laid out on the page it's easy to miss the dates, and I was not the only one there who came for a guided tour.  However the public is welcome to do self guided tours.  I roamed around and took in the sites.

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls.

I don't know about everyone else in the Cool Blogger's Circle, but there are certain things that I notice because of Engie.  I don't think that I would have appreciated the bison statue half as much if she didn't make a point to notice them.  After I left the capitol building, I noticed that there were bison statues all over the city, and the one that she posted about was also in Indiana...huh what is up with that...[pause for google]...wait for it...the bison statues are to commemorate Indiana's BISON-tennial in 2017. Hee hee Midwest humor.

The downside to wandering through a building on your own compared to having a guide is that you miss out on all the good stories.  I'll never know what the pig statue is about, but I like it.

After the capitol, I walked around for a bit more and then settled on the War Memorial Museum for my next destination.

Compared to the Soldiers and Sailors monument, the stairs were nothing.

By now it was lunchtime and I had quite a few steps under my belt, so I went back to the hotel to rest up for a bit.  When it came time to make plans for the afternoon, I surprised myself and decided to go to the Speedway.  Like I said, I'm not really into sports or racing, and I probably wouldn't have gone except for my coworkers' reactions when I told them about the trip.  They are not from the US, so I wasn't sure if they had heard of Indianapolis.  Well, shame on me because they both said "oh yes, the Speedway".

There is a track tour every 15 minutes, but I saw that the tours were selling out so I got a ticket in advance.  I ended up getting there well ahead of time, and figured that there was nothing to do but sit around and wait, but they fixed me up and headed me right for the bus.  

Are you ready for more Midwest humor?  The joke of the tour is that the racing cars go up to 240 miles per hour but the tour bus goes 20 miles per hour.  The tour is one lap of the track with a stop at the bricks.

My knowledge of the Speedway going in: there's a thing called The Indy 500 that happens there.  I've heard the phrase "kissing the bricks" from time to time but I wasn't sure what that was about or that it had any connection to the Speedway.

My knowledge of the Speedway that I gained on the tour: um for starters I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know that it's called the Indy 500 because...well...it's a 500 mile race.  The track is 2.5 miles so the cars make 200 laps and that's the race.  Back when the track was built in 1909 it was brick, but over time the surface was replaced by asphalt cuz that's how we ride nowadays.  They kept one strip of the original 1909 bricks in the track and in the 1990s two of the racers decided to kiss the bricks, so it's a thing.  The tour stops at the bricks and we were invited to kiss them.  I wasn't "that" into it so I passed but I could have if I'd wanted to.

There are four bricks that commemorate the four racers who have each won the race four times.  Fun fact, one of the 4x guys is racing this year, so he has a shot at becoming the first 5x winner. 

I went into the tour with minimal interest in the race and left with moderate interest.  After a few Youtube videos my interest went up a little more.  For sure I will watch the highlights this year and find out if the 4x winner upgrades to 5x.

After the high of the Speedway, I hit an afternoon slump that lasted into the evening.  I started on a museum crawl but lost interest pretty quickly.  Sometimes museums are great, but when I'm in a mood they're just buildings full of stuff.  I took a look at restaurants but didn't find anything that was standing out as a worthy successor to The Old Spaghetti Factory.  Eventually I decided to go the "it's my solo vacation and I can cop out if I want to" route.  I walked to Whole Foods and got a slice of pizza and a small bottle of wine to bring back to the room and no regrets were had.

The next morning I drove home to the fam and traded tales of Indy adventures for tales of Scout camp adventures.

Hotel vs Airbnb

Last year I stayed in Airbnb/VRBO's for all of my solo travels EXCEPT for one night when there wasn't a good Airbnb/VBRO option and my solo trip to Chicago (no good Airbnb option + hotel was close to family).

Airbnb pros: a unique stay.  I would say that there is a generic "Airbnb decor style" but the space is always unique.  I've stayed in condos with amenities like pools and gyms, I've stayed in apartments, and I've stayed in houses.  The biggest winner was my Champaign trip, where I was able to stay in a house a few blocks away from my childhood home in my childhood neighborhood.  There is no hotel out there that could have topped that experience.  The beach cottages that I stayed at during my Island Bender were a close second.  You can relax and spread out and feel like you're at home.  You've got a full kitchen at your disposal.

Airbnb cons: a unique stay lol.  While I've never had a bad experience, it's fair to say that there has been something a little off about a lot of the Airbnbs that I've stayed at.  The historic house that was creepy AF...the apartment with paper thin walls...the house that was lovely on the surface but felt like it was falling apart.  I've found a few good deals, but for the most part the prices are on par with hotels and sometimes higher with hosts who are greedy with fees.  Some areas have restrictions on Airbnbs so there aren't a lot of options (and on the flip side areas that are Airbnb friendly can be renter-unfriendly).  There is no loyalty program.  I often can't plug my laptop into the TV because the TV is in a weird place and/or doesn't look like it's securely attached to the wall, or the TV is small and far away from the couch so I'm better off just watching the laptop on my lap.  Why do I care about the TV when I travel?  Because as a solo female traveler my policy is to go back to my place once it gets dark so I often have time on my hands at night.

Hotel pros: you know what you're getting.  Better chance of amenities like pools and gyms.  Loyalty programs.  The cost for the Airbnb that I was going to stay at in January was $300 for two nights and the hotel was $330 for two nights.  If I had stayed at the Airbnb my credit card points would have given me somewhere between $7.50 - $15 depending on how I redeemed them.  By booking the Hyatt with a Hyatt credit card and a 2,000 point per night bonus I got almost 7,000 points.  The hotels that I've been looking at for my upcoming travels range between 5,000 to 12,000 points per night, so that's either a free night or a good chunk of a free night down the road.

Hotel cons: you know what you're getting lol.  I don't care how nice the room is, it looks like every other hotel room on the planet.  You most likely will not have a kitchen, and maybe not even an in room microwave or refrigerator (example: the hotel that I stayed at in Indiana last year on my way to Champaign).  The Indianapolis Hyatt had a mini fridge, but not a freezer so I couldn't refreeze my cooler ice packs.  One thing that I was sure that I could count on was a nice large TV that would be securely attached to the wall and sure enough I got that.  But the TV had software that disabled the HDMI port so that I was limited to specific streaming apps on my phone, cable TV, or pay per view.  This is the first time that I've encountered this at a hotel, but Google tells me that it's a thing and it's related to licensing agreements that the cable companies and pay per view folks have with the hotels.  They don't make money when I watch my movie collection of DVDs that I bought 20 years ago that lives on my laptop.

For Indianapolis specifically, the hotel was a good choice because it put me in the heart of downtown.  For the trip that I took in April (story coming soon!), Airbnb was the prime location and I would not have enjoyed my visit nearly as much in a hotel.  As with many things in life there isn't a definitive answer, but I am planning to stay at more hotels over Airbnbs compared to last year.

Let's Wrap It Up

• Indianapolis as a tourist destination: 10/10.  I'm a sucker for an affordable, walkable city with tons of things to do.
  
• Visiting a city that I hadn't been to since middle school and my only memory was a restaurant: 10/10.
• Finding The Old Spaghetti Factory unchanged since the 1980s: 11/10.
• Visiting a sports site when you're not into sports: 10/10.
  
• A ranking of the sites that I visited from best to worst:
• The Sailors and Soldiers Monument (basically it was as close to a lighthouse visit as you can get without going to a lighthouse): cost $0
• The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (I never would have predicted that this would be my #2): cost $15
  
• The War Memorial and Museum: cost $0
• Walking around downtown: cost $0
• The State Capital - I think it would have rated higher if there had been a guided tour: cost $0
• The Harrison Presidential Site: cost $16
• The museum that I went to on Saturday is at the bottom of my list, but that was mainly due to my mood: cost $20

• I didn't mind spending two nights in Indy, but I also could have done most of the visit with a one night stay.  If I had come just a month later there would have been more outdoor options to fill out the two nights a little better.

Who's been to Indy?  Would you have kissed the bricks?  Thoughts on Airbnb vs hotels?