To Indianapolis- Tuesday, July 23, 2019

     We're off on another adventure.  It's the first day of our summer trip.  We've decided to make a circle to hit a few states that we've never been to- namely Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Emma is with us, but Anna stayed home this time.  (Still it feels like Anna is not that far away when she can still text us to ask where the soft taco shells are and things like that.)

      Today was mainly a driving day, but we did make a few stops.  The best was the first one when we met Julie's friend Laura in Columbus at the Hofbrauhaus.  It was fun for Julie because she used to work with Laura at school and they were very close, but they don't get to see each other much anymore.  The last time that we saw Laura in Columbus was eight years ago (July 2, 2011).  Of course, our girls were much smaller then, and if we remember correctly, Laura was expecting her second at the time.  Now Julie is the one that's expecting.  Even though our time together was pretty short, they loved having a chance to catch up, and Laura laughed when she heard some of the things that have happened at JFK.  Scott had fun because this makes the fourth Hofbrauhaus he's been to, including the one in Munich.  There's supposed to be one in Buffalo, but it's long past the original date that they said it was going to open.    The food was so-so, but Scott said the beer was very good and Emma enjoyed the apple strudel.

     We stopped at the Indiana welcome center on I-70.  Scott wanted a picture by a "Welcome to Indiana" sign because we never got one on the northerly route through Indiana that we've taken before.  They didn't really have one here either.  There was no one in the Visitor Information booth and there was very few brochures and no maps available.  Nothing made it feel very welcoming.  We made do getting a picture by a window that had the Indiana flag on it.  The state of the roads didn't do much to raise our opinion of the state.

     Our last real stop of the day was at "Doctor Who North America," on the west side of Indianapolis.  This store bills itself as the only Doctor Who store in the U.S.   Since we've been to one in London as well as the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, we wanted to stop here.  In fact, Julie had a very specific item in mind that she was looking for- a "Weeping Angel" of a size and material that she could put in the garden.  Scott had contacted the store before last Christmas and they told him that the one that they had wasn't something that they shipped.  We were so disappointed when he said they had sold the one that they had "earlier today"!  Still, we had fun looking around and Julie got a t-shirt as well as a "loot bag" of souvenirs.

     We had to get dinner then and pick up some medication that Julie's doctor had recommended for her.  We were able to get the prescription called in to the Walmart which ended up being just down the road from the Doctor Who store.  We then went to find our hotel which was on the east side of Indianapolis.  Based on the service we've gotten, we've decided that Indiana is really a bit to the South.  (That's not a compliment.)