Indianapolis

In early August we went to Indianapolis to go through the new Indianapolis Temple during its open house.  It turned out to be such a fun weekend.

There was some monster traffic on our way which delayed us quite a bit, but when we arrived, discovering that the pool in the hotel was open 24 hours, we decided to go swimming.  It was great after being in the car for so long.

The next morning we went to the temple.  It's a beautiful temple.  And I'm always impressed with the incredible attention to detail the Church puts into these buildings.  No corner or railing or frame or anything was too small or insignificant to have escaped their attention.  Truly magnificent.  There was a temporary tent set up next to the temple for visitors to come in and ask questions if they had them (since many visitors are not members of the church) and they had a small replica of the Christus statue.

We then headed to see the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the Indy 500 takes place.  They have a museum and gift shop.

Then it was off to walk around downtown Indianapolis.  It's a great downtown.  They have several very interesting buildings and war monuments.  It's a "great for walking around" kind of city.  In the middle of downtown, at the center of Monument Circle sits the Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monument.  It's almost 285 feet tall, and you can go up to the top and look out over the city.  You can climb the stairs (all 35 flights), or you can ride an elevator up to the 32nd floor, and climb the remaining 3 flights to the top.  I opted to take the elevator up, but Eric and Emma decided to climb.  Emma was really gung-ho about it too.  Whatever.  Turns out there is absolutely NO air circulation or flow in this thing, and this was a really warm day.  Everyone up there was just dripping with sweat, whether they climbed up or not.  It was like being in a sauna.  I think Eric and Emma wished they had taken the elevator up.  No matter how you get up there, you must take the elevator down.  The stairs are really narrow and wouldn't allow traffic going up and down.  It did offer some great views of the city though.

I liked this building because it sort of reminded me of the building in Ghostbusters.

This is the monument you could climb to the top of.

Looking up at the stairs and elevator shaft.

They made it!  This is how they wanted to feel. 

This is how they actually felt.  I'm tellin ya, 3 flights of stairs was way better than 35.

The capitol building was just down one of the side streets from the monument.

Enjoying some water on the steps of the monument.  Even though it was a warm day, the fresh air and relatively cooler temperature than inside the top of that tower felt amazing!

A few blocks of walking and these two decided they were still exhausted from their climb.

We had an early dinner at the Spaghetti Factory.  I was just excited to see one.  We don't have them here, so to get to enjoy some of their mizithra cheese spaghetti again was fantastic!

There was a  balloon guy wandering around the restaurant.  Emma got a sword, pirate hat, and a parrot.  I love the look on her face in this picture.  She's thinking, "Mom, why must you take my picture?"

After dinner, we went back to our hotel for some more swimming.  Then it was time for sleep.  It was short, but a truly fantastic weekend.

Emma enjoyed sleeping on the pull out sofa.  It was huge for just her!