It's Spring Break around here and since we aren't in Tahoe skiing as we thought we would be, we had to scramble to come up with some things to do around town. A sort of Stay-cation, if you will. (And for those of you who were really looking forward to hearing stories of Shevel Knievel on the slopes, I apologize. Instead you get us here in Indy. But! We had some excitement. Keep reading.)
We decided that we would spend our first day at Connor Prairie, a wonderful living history museum just down the road from us. After finally rousting the last rackmonster from their bed and feeding the masses their lunch, we loaded into Blanca (Our van. Yes. We name things. We are, um, unconventional. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.) and headed down the road. As we went along, we tried to explain to Mary some of the things she would see. She hadn't been there since she was in a stroller and couldn't remember it. Once we arrived we noticed the parking lot was nearly empty.
"Must be all the people gone on Spring Break," I mused.
"YEAH!" Maggie retorted. "Everybody but us is somewhere warm and getting a tan."
In my motherly wisdom, which makes appearances now and then, I let that slide.
"Geez, I hope it's not closed," I said. "I didn't check."
Guess what?!
Did you guess that Connor Prairie is closed on Mondays? You did? You are much better at this game than me.
I apologized and my beloved joked that he was going to have to get all Clark Griswold up on that place. He suggested we hit a sporting goods store so that he might purchase a BB gun and we could gain entry that way, certain that there would be a John Candy-like security guard.
I reminded him that there are no roller coasters in Connor Prairie, so it probably wasn't worth a felony arrest record.
We pondered for a bit about what to do since we didn't want to go back home. We decided we'd head downtown to the Canal since it was a beautiful day.
Once there, we saw other people out on rented bikes, bike/surreys, and paddle boats. Having paddle boated there before, we opted to get a bike/surrey. Unfortunately, all of the 6 person surreys were out, so we divided up and the boys took a recumbent-type bike while the girls took a two person surrey. Both bikes had spots for passengers--for the boys, it was a basket on the back of the bike, for us, it was on the front. Which was perfect, as it allowed Mary to be a front-seat driver and and "oh no you're headed for the water" alarmist. It was her calling. She was a true genius at it.
I should mention first that I worked out this morning. And my friends, I worked hard. I left it all at the gym. And our surrey? It was kind of heavy. And not geared. And we spent a good deal of time going up hill. Or at least that's what it felt like to my legs.
Before we got on our surrey bike, one of the bike rental guys (that's an official title) gave Maggie and I instructions on how to operate the brake and made certain to tell us to take it easy on corners--not to go too fast around them and to go wide. I noticed that the boys (including my beloved) were already gone.
We found them awhile later in the middle of the pedestrian bridge spanning the White River. They asked why we were so slow and I told them that our bike was heavier. And also that they should feel free to jump in the river. We started to race a bit and then my legs gave out, so we watched them as they cruised on.
As we were starting to make our turn at the far end of the bridge, we saw the boys' bike ahead of us. They were going much too fast and cornering much too close and then suddenly there was a crash and their bike was on its side.
I braked our bike, Maggie jumped out and ran to their bike just as they were climbing out. They were banged and bruised up, but not badly hurt. (Although my beloved's big toe looks pretty gross.) Fortunately there were no missing teeth or broken bones. Just some bruised egos to go along with their bruised bodies.
We rode for another 20 minutes or so, by which point I was doing all the pedaling because Maggie's ankle was twisted when she ran to the boys' bike. My quads? They are not speaking to me tonight.
All-in-all, today was rather a bust. Tomorrow we are headed to the zoo. Hopefully it will be a better day. And I'm praying that all the animals stay in their cages.
Here, look! Photos! I did not include a picture of Patrick's gross toe. You're welcome.
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| My favorite sculpture. It's called The Tent. It's two-sided like a simple tent. The middle is shiny. All of the colored blocks move in the wind. |
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| Sculptures along the White River pedestrian bridge. |
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| I love this. Seriously. I think I could find several color palettes for my house on this thing. |
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| The NCAA museum. No, we didn't visit. With our luck, it would've been closed. |
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| Miss Mary Rose, navigator extraordinaire. You follow her directions or suffer the consequences. |
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| The boys on their bike--pre-crash. |
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| A view along part of the canal. |
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The ride is over. Sean was not ready to smile after the terror of the crash. ( He might be a little dramatic. I have no idea where he gets that from.)
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| My view. Except when we were down by the canal. And then my view was of Mary's face telling me I was too close to the water. |
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| He spent a ridiculous amount of time seeing how far he could jump from things. |
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| Can you tell he's ready to leave? |
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| She saw her brother jumping from things and would not be outdone. |
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| They were pretending to be a statue. |
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| Gratuitous skyline shot! |
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You know what happens when there has been a traumatic bike crash? Ice cream for everyone!!
Hmm..Maybe I am hoping for some escaped animals tomorrow. I could probably get out of cooking dinner... |
