My son Jack has a map on his wall in which he puts a pin every time we visit a new state. Recently, after a contemplative study of his map and a count of his pins, he informed us that he would need to get going on these states if he was ever going to pin all of them. My wife and I researched cities within driving distance, attractions, and interesting sites. What we came up with was Indianapolis. Less than four hours away, it sports plenty of things to see and do and old diners to eat at and cool parks to play in.
So one Saturday morning we loaded up the car which I nicknamed "The Silver Bullet" and the boys re nicknamed "Silvermist" which is a damn fairy from the Tinkerbell cartoons, and headed east. I wont boar you with the "are we there yets", the "I have to pottys" and the "I'll turn this car arounds". After a three hour and forty five minute drive we pulled into Indy and our first stop was downtown for a visit at the Percussion Museum. What little boy wouldn't love to beat the tar out of just about any kind of drum you can imagine. Huge drum kits, cymbals, triangles, they even had a bass drum as big as a Volkswagen. With our eardrums pounding we continued on through downtown to have a look at the canal that runs through the center of town. The boys thought it was something!
After we found whatever we could get our hands on to throw in the water, as boys will do, we went for lunch. Now it was my responsibility to find a place to have lunch ahead of time and I chose a place called Mug N Buns. They make their own root beer and have a long history of serving race goers and locals for over 50 years. Five stars on Trip Advisor in case you were wondering. What. A. Dump. I took to calling it Suds N Butts. Suds because of the root beer obviously and Butts because that's what it smelled like, looked like, and that's what the food tasted like. It was a train wreck and the worst part is, the kids loved it. They were enjoying their butt hot dogs and all I could think of was what disease they were going to catch. It was as if hepatitis and Aids were having a knife fight to see who got first dibs on the two small ones. My wife was horrified by the experience. The last time she had that look on her face was when Oliver proclaimed that his butt was singing....in church.
After we left this outhouse posing as a diner we went to visit a park that had large sculptures and an even larger playground which was nice just to let the kids play for a while. While the boys played, Abby and I regrouped and made plans to get ice cream before heading home. An ice cream shop in an old railroad station was the perfect band aid for our lunch experience and really put everyone in a good mood for the ride home.
Although long car rides can be difficult with small children, new places can help foster their curiosity which is never a bad thing so get out there and go pin some states!. Follow us on Facebook at BadTwinDad and on Twitter @BadTwinDad. You might have noticed the Amazon banner at the top of the page. To support this blog simply click through the banner, log in to amazon and do your shopping as normal and we will get a commission on whatever you purchase. It doesn't cost you anything and would help us greatly. Thank you!
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