The Hoosier State

While I don't exactly want to unveil the true depths of my procrastination abilities, this post is almost a year old, and is about an event that did happen over a year ago. It's finally done, though, and I hope you enjoy...

Before May of last year I had only been to six states (…counting Canada and Michigan) in my life. Honestly, the only real state was Colorado, as Ohio is a hellhole, I visited West Virginia when I was about one, so I’m not really sure if that even counts, and one was Kentucky… which was just scary. The other two were Michigan (my home state) and Canada (which isn’t a state at all, go figure). So… I decided it would be a good idea to take a

road trip to Indiana.

Now, the question I got from every single person who I told about the trip was “Why Indiana?”… which should really tell you all you need to know about the state. But, I really didn’t know a lot about the place before I went. I knew about Notre Dame (which I steered clear of thankfully), I liked that movie Hoosiers and I hear they have some so

rt of car race in Indianapolis once a year. I came back with pretty much the same impression. There really wasn’t all that much going on. I figured, at the very least, I’d figure out what a Hoosier is. But, I guess "Why Indiana?" is sort of like the question "why the moon?" I could answer with "Why does Rice play Texas?" and you'd sort of get the idea, but I'll just stick with "because we could."

So, Caleb and I, along with three of our friends headed to Indiana. Caleb was late picking us up as usual, but once we got under way, things were fine. We headed along I-94, past Ann Arbor and Jackson and then south along I-something or another. It was a nice day, there was good music, we weren't in any hurry. We stopped at the Sonic in Fort Wayne to eat lunch and probably should have just turned around and headed home after that. Don’t get me wrong, the food was good, maybe the best fast food I’ve ever had, but when the highlight of your trip is the meal on the way there, something is wrong.

But we did go on, and headed south again. I wish I had some interesting anecdotes for the ride, but it was fairly normal... Caleb and I sang like always while our three compatriots sat mute around us for some odd reason. We saw trees and fields and signs for things... including some car museum Mark wanted us to go see. I played this game where I'd stare at the people in the cars in the other lane until they looked at me, that was amusing honestly, if only to see the varied reactions I received.

Cannibalism

About two hours south of Sonic, we stopped by Eli’s great aunt’s house for a visit. She lived in some sort of old people’s apartments that seemed worn down by time itself… the whole ordeal made me think we had been caught in some sort of time warp and sent back to 1960. The place was wonderful in its own way… everything about it felt old, the carpet in the halls seemed to be rotting beneath our feet and even the air smelled old. Everything had a clean, but oh so worn down feeling, even the buildings felt that way. It wasn't just the age of the place, my house was built in the forties and it does not look or feel that way, but age just permeating from the place. There were some sort of red stains on the carpeting in

the hallway and the elevator, and some sort of WWII veteran showed us around the place. I can’t remember Eli’s aunt’s name, but she was a really sweet, but very assertive little ninety year old Italian woman with giant, Joe Paterno glasses and crazy grey hair, oh and her apartment was unbelievable. It was tiny and cramped, all the more so because of the weight of stuff in there. I know I have a lot of stuff lying around everywhere, but I can’t imagine ninety years worth of my stuff in one little apartment. Clippings of Jesus and Saints and Pope J. P the Two (as Paul likes to call him) were everywhere. There were crosses and old pictures of family hung up all over the place. Everything seemed so dim, and Gunsmoke, or maybe it was Bonanza or Marshall Matt Dillon (I can’t keep those old TV westerns straight) was playing on TV. I suppose a place like that would normally make me feel uncomfortable, but it was beyond awesome. There were all sorts of old chairs and couches and tables, all complete with weird coverings and doilies all about, all mismatched, all in good condition, but battered by time.

The stories she told were hilarious, weird and beyond honest comprehension most of the time and the way her and her best friend Jack bantered back and forth like an old married couple was heart warming, or maybe just friggin’ hilarious. The bathroom was full of makeup, and by “full” I mean every square inch of cupboard, sink and floor space was covered in old bottles and vials… it looked like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory might, except with a toilet and bathtub. I wish I could have taken some pictures, because I’m afraid one day I’m not going to believe I was actually ever there. She gave us candy and pop and the girls a gallon size plastic bag of make-up that I have no idea what happened to, I think they probably tossed it in the sewer. All in all it was a good, albeit long time. Eli really needs to learn that look you give someone when it’s time to leave a place. We were all tired from driving and we still had a ways to go before getting to Indy, so we set off again.

We had decided to camp, and I picked the Indiana State Fairgrounds because it was in Indianapolis, which was a big city and all (as far as Indiana goes). I assumed there might be some stuff to see there, though we never really went looking for much. We found a mall and a thrift store where we bought a soccer ball and a bunch of knives no questions asked. Anyway, I had figured the campgrounds advertised would be a campground… instead of a strip of grass alongside a massive parking lot. I didn’t count, but I’m pretty sure there were more rocks then blades of grass where we set up the tent. The place was deserted, and to me felt like a ghost town, which was damn cool. There were a bunch of big buildings around and a race track that I wandered around, it was all so surreal, just like the whole damn trip.

Ghost Town

But, it was a fun time, not really thanks to Indiana at all, but because of my friends. We played some soccer, stayed up too late and woke up too early, and drove way too much for what it was worth, but I have no regrets. I had conquered another state.

Delusions of Grandeur

There's not much else to say, so I’ll just leave you with some final observations about Indiana:

-It’s a lot like Ohio, but with more trees and less assholes.

-If you want porn or fireworks, it’s definitely the place to go. They have huge buildings on the highway selling the stuff by the bushel.

-They have really weird gas station names.

-Sonic really does have good food, and I'm glad they are finally building one around here.

-There were way too many southern accents in Indianapolis. Isn’t Indiana supposed to be in the north?

-Oh, and one last thing... Hoosiers is a good movie, but Rudy sucks.