R and J in the USA

While Ryan was enjoying some time at home with his mom, Julie ventured into Indiana, another state about which she knew basically nothing and had no sense of what to expect.

She took in the beautiful views from the overlooks at Brown County State Park and was delighted to stumble upon the nearby town of Nashville, an artists’ village that had developed into a lovely tourist town. She took in a few of the local art galleries and got to chat with a young man and artist who had ventured out beyond Indiana and made his way back to his hometown. You can read more about him in our People Along the Way section.

After an edge-of-your-seat, will-she-make-it-in-time thriller ride through miles of backroads and uphills through the park without a functioning GPS and a fuel gauge that red less than E, Julie made it to a gas pump in the nick of time. After that adrenaline infusion, she enjoyed the tremendous peace and solitude of a night at Brown County State Park’s campground and a run through the park.

She took in the sights of Indianapolis, from the massive and impressive state capitol building to the obelisk in the center of the city. The architecture, the vibe, and the massive mural to the Colts all impressed her. Boba tea was, of course, located, as was a much-needed massage chair in a mall, where she dove into reading one of her newly acquired books from the Indiana State Historical society bookstore about the resurgence of the KKK in Indiana in the 1920’s.  

She saw a museum exhibit about an Indiana resident who had survived the Holocaust, Eva Kor. One of the “Mengele twins”, she had, amazingly, dedicated her life to healing and forgiveness. She also saw an exhibit about Cole Porter, who contributed countless standards to the American songbook, as well as a song about how the students at Notre Dame had stood up to the KKK to put a stop to its 1920s resurgence. 

She had little time to take in the State History Museum and ended up rushing through what proved to be one of the best she had seen so far, enabling her to learn a lot in the relatively little time she had there. She took in gorgeous and educational art of native people from here and throughout the west at the Eiteljorg Art Museum.

And, of course, she headed over to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the town of Speedway, Indiana, to take a tour of the home of the iconic Indianapolis 500. 

Exhausted, hot, sticky, and hungry, she forced herself to stop and do a load of laundry before heading to her Harvest Host in the middle of beautiful rural Indiana at a lovely spot just outside of Peru, Indiana.

The time flew by and, before she knew it, she got to reunite with Ryan at the South Bend airport, where she retrieved him before heading off to check out the University of Notre Dame. We took in the campus, the stadium, and the grotto before heading west to the Indiana Dunes National Park.

We took a hike with a park ranger and learned about the history and geology of the dunes. From atop a dune we grabbed a view of the Chicago skyline about forty miles across and up Lake Michigan.

We ended our time in Indiana in Gary at the Go for Gary 5K, which you can read about in our 5K section. We hopped on our bikes after the run for a short ride around the race course and popped over to the sandy beach for a dip in Lake Michigan, this time from Indiana’s piece of its shores. 

We came to Indiana with no preconceived notions of what to expect and what we found was a lovely place filled with welcoming people that, despite not being ours, had a warm feeling of home.