Hoosier Nation

 Along the way

 Me, Carter, Gwyn, Bradley and Bryan

Brings back intense memories and emotions.

On my old front porch after a visit to the bookstore.

The music school

329 N. Clark Street

 Tizzy attempting to steal an I.U. gnome from the neighbor's porch.  All I remember from the people who lived in the other sied of the duplex was that one of them was a law student named Ira J. Metrick.

 Nashville, Indiana

 Marie fixed us a special dinner because we got there too late.

 The bridge

 We took this for Scott, in honor of his tradition of crawling across the Brooklyn Bridge

Six hours after collapsing into our beds after the City Museum, we were up, at breakfast, and out the door.  By the way, our hotel was so nice.  Drury Inn at the Arch or something.  I already told you about it, but the lobby was old-school fancy, walnut and red velvet, but tasteful.  Nice.

We had a 3.5 hour drive to Indianapolis to my old roommate's house where she was to have lunch waiting.  I calculated wrong, so we were thinking we were an hour ahead of schedule until Gwyn reminded me that Indiana is on Eastern time right now, since they don't have daylight savings.  So we lost our extra hour and ended up right on time.  It was great to visit Gwyn and her family at their home.  That's one thing you miss when you're on a trip, being in a real home.  Gwyn was my first roommate in college.  She was a sophomore, so she showed me the ropes.  She is also a Hoosier, so she ended up taking me home with her a few weekends, since I was so far from home.  I got to know her family, and I played the violin at her wedding when she married her high school sweetheart, Bryan.  Now they have two teenage boys, and two dogs.  It's funny, we have always kept in touch through Christmas cards, but I have gotten to know their older son through Instagram and Facebook.  He is going to be a senior in high school, sharp guy, so it was fun to finally meet him.

Gwyn did have lunch all ready, hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, corn on the cob, the works.  We ate outside on their closed-in patio, steps away from one of those endless corn fields you see driving through the Midwest.  It couldn't have been more perfect, and the kids loved stretching out and playing with the dogs.

Next stop, an hour south, Bloomington, Indiana, where I went to college.  I was shocked at how much Bloomington has grown.  Parts of it were unrecognizable.  It's like Berkley now, very trendy.  But the house I lived in for 2 and a half years was still exactly the same.  The summer term is over and nobody was home, so we took pictures on the front porch, where I spent many Midwest summer nights watching the fireflies float up out of the grass and back down again.  Being there was bittersweet.  College was an intense time, emotional.  I wish Scott had been there today to see the infamous 414 South Ballantine house, and the music school.  Freestone wasn't all that impressed.  When I told them I was going to show them the house where I used to live, he muttered, "Of course you are."

Not to be deterred, I took the kids all over the music school, showing them the practice buildings and my teachers' studios and the attic where the violin makers hid.  It's all the same, except Joseph Gingold and Janos Starker are no longer there, sadly.  Mr. Starker recently passed away, and Mr. Gingold has been gone for quite some time.  All in all, I am satisfied that I went back to Bloomington.  I wish I had more time to mull over my time there, and how I have changed.  I think most people could relate to the feeling of being a tourist in your own skin in college, it's all so new and you're so young.  I loved college, as tumultuous as it was.  I never got over the feeling at the venerated Indiana University School of Music of, "I can't believe I'm really here.  I can't believe this is me, having this opportunity."  I was in awe of it all, and all the talent around me, the whole time.  I loved it.  Thanks, Mom and Dad.

After our whirlwind tour of Bloomington and my brief trip down memory lane, we headed out toward Louisville, only to get sidetracked in Brown County.  It's famous in Indiana as a weekend getaway, especially in the fall.  The leaves are beautiful.  So we strolled around the town of Nashville for a bit.  You know the type of place:  the fudge shop, the Christmas shop, the windchime shop, the pottery shop.  Soon enough, after some fudge, we were on our way to Louisville again.

Not soon enough, though, because we missed the free dinner at the hotel!  Curses!  Fortunately for us, the woman working the meal was very kind.  She warmed up a heaping plate of mac n cheese for us, along with some hot dogs.  I mean, we could have BOUGHT  dinner, but...  Ari said it was the best dinner we've ever had, because our new friend Maria, who told us she is part of a large Gambian-American community here in Louisville, was so nice to fix it for us.

After a quick swim, we got all dressed up and went down to the riverfront.  I couldn't just be here in Louisville and not go get a sense of the city, it's been so long since I was here.  (The last time was to see Msistislav Rostropovich play).  It turned out to be an exciting night on the riverfront, as there was a race going on where everyone was wearing glowsticks and crazy outfits, and running from one dance tent to the next.  Before long, all the kids were covered in glowsticks that people gave them.  We followed the crowd and ended up walking a loooooog way, through the park and across the pedestrian bridge over the Ohio River.  And just because one time Ari didn't bike ALL the way across the Golden Gate Bridge, but stopped and went back in the middle, she really felt like she needed to walk ALL the way across the bridge.  And why not?  When are we ever going to have another chance to walk all the way across the Ohio River?  Never.  Just tonight, and we did.  At one point, I thought, "What are we doing at 11:30 at night, walking across a bridge, covered in glowsticks?"  I looked around at the motley crowd and thought, "I don't know, but everyone in Louisville is doing the same thing!"  It's fun to be in on things like that, and the energy of the crowd got us back to our car and home to the hotel where the kids collapsed, just like I'm about to.  Incidentally, I left the cord in the car, that's why no pictures.