50 States Day 111

Day 111  Rochester to Indianapolis to Greenfield, 134 Miles

"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."

~ Mark Twain

The day dawned blue and clear, the lightning and rain a dim memory. In fact, today is supposed to set a temperature record-for lows! Forty-five tonight. But Mr. Sun is out and is certainly our friend today.

We loaded up our gear, most of which had dried. The rest we would wear and blow dry. Simple living, indeed.

It's difficult to order parts and pick them up, so we looked ahead and ordered parts for QG's helmet two weeks ago (The hinges fell apart and since we were at it, we got her a tinted face shield too). Our first major breakdown. Dreyer's (not ice cream but Honda) hooked us up. I contacted them by e-mail and they ordered the parts and had them waiting for us. And Shannon at the parts counter removed the bad ones and replaced them. Congratulations, Dreyer Honda and Shannon, you rock!

Indianapolis features the capitol, as it is the...capitol city. Here's a suggestion for all you states out there: Make your capitol in an average sized city. Big city capitols are hard to access and expensive. You don't want your legislators wasting taxpayer money at a $400 per night hotel while they are...wasting taxpayer money by the jillions. Enough ranting.

We entered the peasant's entrance in the back of the building and were strip searched. Next we wandered through the bottom floor of the building, surrounded by decay and poor quality. QG gave it first place for worst entrance. "We're number one! Yeah!"

Upstairs we got a much better building. Sandy gave us the grand tour and she proved to be an upper echelon tour-guide. The hallways had been refurbished a few years ago and were fabulous. Good job. And the state of Indiana, the first state to do so, kept the Supreme Court in the building. A sign indicated a convicted child molester would be heard because of prosecutorial negligence and a poor defense. Wonderful.

To accommodate the Supremes, they refurbished the House and Senate and downsized them to generate more offices, and they did a good job of making it look not remodeled. Very cool.

If you'd like to be married in the Indiana Capitol you can. Well, if you lived in Indiana, I guess. They had two all set up. What a great venue to get hitched.

Surprise, we found that Indianapolis hosts the MotoGP this weekend. That's sport bike racing, for you who suffer without motorcycle passion. We'll tour the track tomorrow (if we can) and check it out. I may attend the races on Sunday and provide a full report. I'll take one for the team so you can read about it.  It's the cross I'll have to bear.

We rode to (PP!) El Nopal Restaurant for dinner and QG claimed it to be the best Mexican food she'd ever eaten. And I say it was the best accordion music I'd heard in a week. They took an old bank, complete with drive up window and vault, and converted it. Someone had vision, that's for sure.

We settled in at the (PP!) KOA and the sun has dropped behind the trees, with blue skies and long shadows. And, throwing KOA under the... golf cart, they consistently reside near highways and freeways. Perfect setting, save the noise.

We'll hit the Speedway tomorrow, and hopefully I can take a hot lap on the Gold Wing. Okay, maybe not. My lap time would probably be slower than the MotoGP bikes by, oh, a week or so.

See you tomorrow, and thanks for riding along.

Oh, sorry. I didn't issue the Product Placement warning for Dreyer's Honda. If you've found yourself at Dreyer's, buying a Honda t-shirt, or perhaps a bike, I apologize. I'll try to give you a chance to get your buying guards up.