First Part

I meant to start with the first part of our trip, which was Indianapolis (Indiana-POLIS), but forgot about the adventure before we left home. There was a Vatican Exhibit over in the city that Mom really wanted to see - I did too. There were priceless artifacts, paintings and sculptures there. Some of them had never been displayed outside of Vatican City. My favorite section was on the Renaissance. I prefer the art during that period over the Baroque period.
Most of the really famous artists come from the earlier period, and...

Oh really, it's just because anytime I see the word "baroque" I think of that line from Beauty And The Beast: "And as I always say, if it's not ba-roque, don't fix it!"
Yes, I highly doubt I will ever grow up. :)

My only disappointment of the Vatican Exhibit was that the curators couldn't figure out a way to remove the ceiling from the Sistine Chapel and bring it to America. It would be nice to look at that marvelous painting without getting a stiff neck, don't you think?
I was not disappointed with the scant coverage/explanation of the Reformation. They're Roman Catholics, for crying out loud - I didn't expect them to use half their exhibit to display artifacts on Luther, et. al.

We saw the exhibit on Friday, September 3rd, and left the next morning for Indy. It was late in the morning - we took our time. It's not a bad drive over there. Gorgeous weather, too. The entire week was actually gorgeous. We only ran through rain once - on our way back west. Of course it was in Ohio. There are some times that I don't really miss living there...:)

There is a suburb in Indy called West Clay that Mom and Dad wanted me to see. It's fascinating. It's a planned village, totally built by developers. The houses are all different models, and they're all very close together. The point of the closeness is that the people living there live as a community. Sort of like a throwback to the 1950s, when everyone knew their neighbors or something. (I kind of doubt that every place in the past was a perfect community.)
It is contrived, but I appreciate the idea behind places like West Clay. I just doubt if building a perfect-looking community can actually, you know, bring people together. I'm sure that the lure of such a place brings in people who would be more willing to participate in a close community. But over the long run, I'm not so sure. And the perfection of the place was slightly unnerving to me after a while. There were trash cans, but I don't remember seeing a single piece of loose trash anywhere. Even a stray plastic bag blowing across the street would have looked more normal.
That being said, it was very beautiful to see! I think living there would be above my income level too, come to think of it...

On Sunday before we drove to Ohio we went to church only a few miles from our hotel. My older nephew's godmother goes to that church, and it was lovely to see her again!
It's a blessing to see friends after a long gap, or short ones, for that matter.

And then it was on to the place (as my college choir director described it) that's round on the ends and high in the middle...The Buckeye State.

Sunday afternoon was spent shopping, which I don't do a lot of. A couple of cute new shirts, on clearance, began it. Then it was on to the Apple Store. As my brother put it, "You've joined the 21st century!"

I got an Ipod Touch. Technology is an amazing thing. Thousands of songs and multiple hours of video that fit into an object smaller than my hand. I love it.

We met up with Brother and SIL for dinner. We ate outside - another advantage of the fabulous weather was the amount of time spent eating outside. Then it was on to Starbucks before ending up at their home in Lancaster. That Sunday was the 2S day (two Starbucks).

Monday, Labor Day, was perfect - I didn't work. Slept in, had a fantastic butterbraid that SIL very nicely made that morning, then spent several hours on a website Brother showed me and Dad that has all kinds of quizzes on it. Some are standard (Name the 50 states!) and others are obscure (name all the All-Star goalies from all the NHL teams!). It is possible to lose several centuries on websites like that.
Later, we picked up sandwiches and took them to the local park. Beautiful place; hilly, lots of woods, lots of people. After the picnic, we went back home, gathered the rest of our accumulated belongings, and headed for Pennsylvania.

Next stop: Pittsburgh.