2023 Spring Road Trip Day 1 Travel Log: Wandering West Central Indiana

My 5-day trip in April took me to Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Owensboro, a part of Old Route 66, and many other places along the way. I enjoyed it a lot! I made 27 unique stops in the 5 days, and putting it all under one report just isn’t going to do. So I have my travel log broken up into each day, to give you in idea of what it was like behind the driver’s seat.

Link to Facebook Photo Gallery (Days 1 and 2)

Day 1: Indianapolis and more

This whole trip was planned after my fall 2021 trip was aborted after 1 day of 4. Since then, I altered and expanded the remaining portion to make it is own adventure. This trip wasn’t going to be dictated with a schedule, but rather doing what I wanted to do no matter how long it would take. Helping in this was having a week-and-a-half off from work.

I chose to take a rental car for this trip. It’s my first rental car experience, and I drove all of this with a 2021 Nissan Altima. My current car, a 2007 Ford Focus, had been experiencing some problems with the gear switch after rain water got to it (a problem since fixed).

I start road trips a unique way. I like to be at my very first outdoor destination at the crack of dawn. In this case, there was nothing for me to see in Illinois, so I drove through it at night.

The first place I wanted to see was the I&I State Line Tavern outside of Danville, IL on Us 136. At this bar, you can celebrate the New Year twice of you put your mind to it. The bar, which was closed for the day when I arrived at 7am, sits on the Illinois side of the state line, separated by a road. The state line also is the time zone line between the Central and Eastern time zones. You could walk across the road to ring in one new year, and then an hour later ring in the very same new year at the bar. I actually went on a somewhat similar trip in 2014/2015 near Michigan City, IN.

Instead of driving down Interstate 74 to Indianapolis, I took Route 136 across. Yes, it’s slower than being on the interstate, but I had time to kill and there’s more to see on a two-lane road than the interstate.

Indiana highways are more rustic in nature than those in Illinois. Back home, highways are wide, shoulders are wide, and you can tell that it’s more of a highway than a striped road. US 136 had a neat “side road” feel to it, and still serves as a good way to connect these towns.

One of the biggest problems about driving in the morning is when you’re driving east. You’re right into the sun. As I’m driving along, there may have been a couple of things that I missed. Sorry, Covington, IN. By the time I got to my next stop, the sun wasn’t a problem.

Veedersburg was where the famous bricks from Indianapolis Motor Speedway came from. The plant has since been closed and razed, but a state historic marker has been erected there, along with a gazebo and some Veedersburg Paver bricks along a sidewalk. In going toward Indianapolis on 136, I took the same route the bricks took on their way to the track.

Crawfordsville was the next stop. It is home to one of the few historic rotary jails in the country, and was home to Lew Wallace of “Ben-Hur” fame. Since it was still early, I wasn’t able to visit them properly, but was glad to see what they looked like. Another neat attraction is the Indy Road Pub, also on 136; it has a lot of retro items and things of the past on display. Signs leading up to the 1980s are posted outside. Again, it was closed when I arrived. With all of that said, I plan to make Crawfordsville a destination for a future trip that way for a more proper visit. It is fun, though, when trips influence other trips.

While I didn’t stop anywhere between Crawfordsville and the Indianapolis area, there were a few interesting things along the way. The “welcome” sign to Hillsboro, for example, read that it was “The home of 600 happy people and a few old soreheads.” Another “boro” along the way, Pittsboro, was where NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon grew up; I actually visited his high school in 2021 in nearby Lizton, and would see another NASCAR legend’s alma mater in Day 3.

US 136 ends at the I-465 beltway just before the town of Speedway. For those who don’t know, the actual Indianapolis Motor Speedway is in a town called Speedway, which developed around the popular racing destination. It has it’s own downtown and high school. The fire hydrants are colored in black-and-white and are in checkered flag patterns.

Dawson’s on Main is a restaurant in downtown Speedway. It is there where I had lunch with my friend Rex, who I met during my 2021 trip to the “Hoosiers” movie gym in Knightstown, where he is a volunteer tour guide. We have come to know each other through being Facebook friends, and we have a lot in common when it comes to high school sports and history. Another thing he really enjoys is a good pork tenderloin sandwich. It works out for me because I’m trying to cut back on beef. Rex told me that Dawson’s has one of the best tenderloins in Indiana, and so does a Sunoco gas station in Crawfordsville (another reason for me to go back there one day). Rex and I talked a lot about our similar passions for wandering road trips, sports, and “Hoosiers.” It was great to see him, and anyone else along my journeys (I also met up with another sports friend of mine, Dave, on a trip through Kirkwood, Missouri, a few years ago).

As far as the actual speedway goes, I got to visit it with my family when I was young; we got to see the inside of the track and the museum that is there as well. Somewhere in my attic is a picture of me inside a model Indy Car.

The next stop in Indianapolis wound up being my last stop of the day: the NCAA Hall of Champions. This exhibit and interactive museum at the NCAA headquarters overlooking the White River in downtown. I heard about it during my fall 2021 trip, and planned to make that a visit the next time I came around. So here I am. The NCAA headquarters is also next to the National Federation of State High School Associations office (the NFHS), but there’s nothing to see there. So the Hall of Champions it was.

The Hall of Champions (I will write a longer detailing of it in the near future) is a small museum with displays that tell personal stories of athletes in each of the sports that the NCAA offers – from football and basketball to fencing and rowing – and a gallery of honorees of its prestigious awards. Video testimonials of the NCAA’s impact on athletes also are shown, and the first of a few interactive exhibits is on the ground floor of “What is Your Dream,” a feature that allows people to write down their dreams on sticky notes and post them on a board for others to see. Here’s mine:

The second floor of the Hall of Champions is made up of hands-on activities that people can try: such as shooting hoops, practicing fencing and jumping to measure your vertical. Since I just wanted to see things, I didn’t partake in anything, but it’s cool that they’re there. The small one-on-one basketball court also has stickers on the ground from locations of memorable March Madness shots, such as Michael Jordan’s buzzer-beating jumper to pull North Carolina over Georgetown, and Kris Jenkins’ buzzer-beater over the Tarheels in the 2016 final for Villanova.

The NCAA headquarters is part of a collection of attractions that make up White River State Park. A canal and a greenspace also make up the park’s beauty. An amphitheater and a children’s maze also are within the park, and the Indiana State Museum and Eiteljorg Museum of Native American and Western Art also are nearby. One parking lot can give you access to it all.

Walking around museums can make me tired, but I pull it off. Walking to and from the car in the parking lot isn’t easy for me as it is for other people. So when I finally got back to the car, I was ready for the hotel room. I did, however, make one additional minor stop – and this one’s for the cartographers and road trip geeks: The English Avenue Bridge over I-465.

To explain this stop, I’ll need to explain what makes I-465 unique. Indianapolis is one of the few major cities that has an interstate highway ring around it. Several interstates, federal (U.S.) routes and state routes lead to Indianapolis. This 52-mile ring also makes it so that travelers of those highways don’t have to actually go through Indianapolis if they so choose. So this beltway collects numerous highways and distributes them like tentacles on an octopus. At the English Avenue overpass going over the beltway, it goes over the following: Interstate 465, US routes 31, 36, 40, 52 and 421; and Indiana routes 37 and 67. Imagine those eight highway signs staring at you at once. Thankfully for travelers on the beltway, there is no group of emblems plastered on a sign; however, if you’re just passing through, you might be thinking twice about whether you’re still on the correct highway.

As for this Altima, it drives real nice. It feels like I’m floating. I have to watch my speed, though. I think I want one for my next car – if I can afford it!

Explaining it further would be confusing, so I’ll save it. Time for the hotel room. First stop on Day 2 is the baseball field where Baseball Hall of Famer Chuck Klein (may) have played on, followed by the Milan ’54 Museum, and a neat roadside attraction Rex told me about.