Indianapolis

We awoke in Indiana and had breakfast at the first Waffle House of the trip. Get the grits. We then drove to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indy 500 amongst other races. Now I’m not a huge racing fan, but when I got my first glimpse of the speedway my inner child came out. First of all, this place is huge. Much bigger than it seems on the rare occasion I see it on TV. The Hall of Fame Museum is in the middle of the track and you drive under the track to get to it. 

This building is in the middle of the track...crazy!

We got there early enough that we had time to check out the museum before our tour started. What a collection of racing history. Probably the coolest part was the large amount of Indy 500 winners they had there, including the first and most recent winners next to each other.

Some of the cars in the museum

Finally our tour was announced and we got on the bus. When we had originally arrived, we saw they offered two tours and weren’t sure if we made the right choice. We soon realized that our tour was the good one. Our tour began with us driving around the track all the while getting history lesson after history lesson. When we got to the start/finish line, we were allowed out of the bus and onto the track. 

One of the many interesting things about the track is that while it used to be entirely brick, it was paved over with asphalt leaving a strip of brick visible at the finish line. We were then brought through the press conference room, media center, winner’s circle and scoring/broadcasting booths.

Josh at the Press Conference desk

We were then brought through the various garage and storage areas. All in all, the tour was completely worth it being about 2.5 hours long and only costing $25 each including admission to the Hall of Fame Museum.

Indy Track Shots

On our way to Illinois we saw signs for the world’s largest wind chime. Obviously we had to stop. The world’s largest anything is interesting. It wasn’t far off the highway that we found ourselves in Casey, IL. On the way, we saw signs for the world’s largest golf tee. Time was short, however, and our day wasn’t big enough for two of the world’s largest anythings, so on we went. The wind chime was huge and you could pull a chain to get it going. (You’d need something pretty strong gusts to get that thing going otherwise.) It turns out the wind chime is on the property of this quaint little café (where they sell wind chimes and wind chime memorabilia). Feeling guilty just gawking and running we went in and bought some cookies. I asked them about the world’s largest golf tee and if the townspeople were just going about making as many of the world’s largest things they could. She didn’t deny it.

Josh in front of World's Largest Windchime

We then headed out to our next campsite before St. Louis. Like every other KOA, the people were friendly, the grounds were attractive and the facilities were clean. The only issue with our stay was there seemed to be some type of racing going on nearby till QUITE late in the evening. Oh well. At least there was no rain. Off to St. Louis!