23 October 2011; 7:10 PM - Portland International Airport. Virginia backed her black sedan into our driveway at 3:45 PM and popped open her trunk. We threw in our bags and she drove us to the Kelso Amtrak station. We arrived in Portland at 5:45, and walked to the MAX station a half block away for light rail to PDX. With a quick self-check (we printed the boarding passes at home), we were ready to fly. We both cleared security on the first try. We leave tonight at 11:10 to arrive midmorning in Indianapolis.
The hardest part of the day has been getting my compression socks on. This is a part of a plan to NOT develop a massive blister on the arthritic joint of my right foot, one I typically struggle with until we return home, a month or more later.
Same Day; 5:51 PM - Room 604, University Center Hotel. We rode the city Green Line express from the airport and decided, after considering a vague map, to to walk to our hotel. We left without taxi or transit numbers and it was a smooth, easy, and delightful fall walk, aided and abetted by several IU-Purdue students. The good people here let us into our room at 1:30 rather than hold to the 3:00 check in. We slept the interim. I see it a good sign that we drew an all-nighter which included two hours at the Detroit airport and came out no worse than we did when we weren’t this old.
Tuesday, 25 October. The forecast for today was for 74F, clear, and windy. It was accurate and gave us a marvelous day. We walked from our hotel to the Visitors Center at White River State Park, much of it through the Indiana University-Purdue campus. There, we registered for the walk, studied the map, bought the necessary postcards, and chatted with the Center staff before we walked off on one of the most pleasant and enjoyable walks of all the states. Undoubtedly the balmy weather helped.
Indianapolis is a veritable anthill of activity: street work, painting buildings - workers busy everywhere. A large part of this is preparation for the Super Bowl next year. It seems another major part is simply a city expressing its belief they have a nice place to live and let’s spiff it up a bit more.
Almost half the 11K (6.9 miles) walk was on the Central Canal stretching from the White River to 11th St., on the far border of the downtown. Dug in the early 1800s as part of a commercial transport system, the canal has been reworked several times previous to its emergence as a delightful recreational part of the community. The autumn leaf littered green-blue water gently flows between bricked walkways, most fronted by homes, apartments, and condos.
Today, we walked the small shops and eateries of Massachusetts Avenue. At a small nearby mall, Pat collected some Asian food and I an Italian beef sub from a small cafe called Fresco. We ate in an adjacent park where we spoke with Lois, a woman who raised her children during the 1970s in a small house she bought from her mother, often feeding the family fish caught just off their back porch in the Central Canal.
Thursday, 27 October, 11:20 PM. Yesterday we secured tickets for the Indiana History Museum and for the 2001 IMAX film of Shackleton’s Endurance The hotel shuttle ferried us and our bags to Amtrak where we stored the luggage then walked back to the museum.
The exhibits were overwhelming. The natural history portion had room after room of geological exhibits telling the vast history of Indiana’s magnificent rocks. Millions of years later a special exhibit depicted through photographs, video, and sound recording, the presence of notable Indianans: John Mellancamp, Dave Letterman, Jane Pauley, Kurt Vonnegut, Red Skelton, sports figures, military leaders, etc., etc.
The Endurance was less than an hour in length. Most are familiar with the incredible story of Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica. Rather than attempt to retell it, here’s a passage from the American Museum of Natural History:
Just one day's sail from the continent, the ship Endurance became trapped in sea ice. Frozen fast for ten months, the ship was crushed and destroyed by ice pressure, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island's remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all of the men he had left behind.
Friday, 28 October, 6:50 PM, Room 404, Columbus OH Comfort Inn. We wandered downtown after the viewing, roamed like teenagers at the Circle Mall and then had a snack and beer (Buttfaced Amber and Pumpkin Spice Ale) at the Ram Brewery, just a few blocks from the train station. We hung around as long as we could stand the noise and walked to the station.
We arrived a few minutes early at Cincinnati (3:10 AM) and were the next five hours in the 1933 Art Deco station, making several forays into the large hall and other rooms to view heroic mosaics, intricate wood work, and - later - to look for viewpoints for a brilliant red dawning sky. Finally, we rode a taxi to the Greyhound station for our bus ride here, to Columbus.
What is so exciting about this is that we will do this overnight ordeal again, only in reverse, when we return to Cincinnati from Columbus for our train ride to Charleston, WV.
