it’s been two weeks since the last travelogue, but I will try the impossible and make it half as long for twice the time...because my MacBook died and I have to write this on an iPad and because I don’t want to overwhelm my patient readers. So no worries, my non-frisbee friends, I will not describe every point of every game my niece played at the Ultimate Worlds.
Last week we spent first with Ute‘s awesome sister Elke in Jeffersonville, IN and then Ute‘s fun friend Becky north of Indianapolis. After three weeks of moving around, it was nice to be slightly more stationary and to spend time with friends. Of course that does not mean we stopped exploring interesting places.
We got private tours at the Schmipff Candy Factory, at the Ohio Falls and at the Indiana State Capitol. The more state capitol buildings we visit, the more intrigued we get. There is always something interesting to learn about the state‘s history and it‘s current affairs. We had so many awesome tour guides in state capitols, it‘s almost ironic since state employees usually don’t have the reputation of being overly enthusiastic. We find state capitols to be very welcoming, so much so that in Indianapolis, they have a homeless, but talented gentleman “bless” the capitol every week for a full hour with a mix of singing and chanting. I guess it’s both; pleasant and annoying; depending on whether you hear him as a novelty on a tour or whether you are trying to get some work done in the office next to his performance.
From Jeffersonville we also ventured into Kentucky a few times, brining the number of states we have not been to down to five. We did not go there just to get another check mark, but to “learn” about Bourbon and to see where the Kentucky Derby takes place. So our few hours in Kentucky had some lasting effect. Now I want to go see a horse race and drink more Bourbon. The tours at the racetrack and at the distillery were very impressive, so ideally I want to see a race at Churchill Downs and drink Evan Williams bourbon. Elke had even arranged a tour of the stables in the back of the race track. Even after visiting the informative museum, I had no idea that there are 2000 people working in the stables, 700 of them actually living above the stables half of the year, moving around the country with the horse athletes.
We got to see Def Leppard & Journey in Louisville and Whitesnake & Foreigner in Noblesville. Some people might argue that all of these bands are about 30 years past their prime...but at least for Def Leppard and Foreigner, I beg to differ. The shows were amazing and we were up on our feet for their entire concerts, along with pretty much everybody else in the YUM! Center and the amphitheater in Noblesville. They sounded great and seemed to enjoy themselves just as much as we did, which is saying something if you’ve been doing this for around 40 years! The light and laser show of Def Leppard was the best I’ve ever seen, even better than at the Queen or U2 concerts I have seen. They might not jump around as much as they did in the 80’s, but they still put on a great show. And the fans seem to understand, after all: they are not getting any younger either. I had to laugh when I saw the line of wheelchairs and walkers at the elevator after the show. Not what you expect at a rock concert. But obviously, just because you need a walker or a wheelchair does not mean you change your music taste, they still want to rock and roll...
We also went to the Indianapolis Speedway, even though we are not really that interested in car racing. But walking on the track and seeing the original brick finish line was fun and after driving around the track in a tram at about 20mph, I am pretty impressed that the average speed of the race cars is more than 10 times as fast. If we are ever back here during the Indianapolis 500, I just might go, even though I expect it to be somewhat repetitive, but I am sure seeing the first and last round is pretty exciting.
We also went to the Indianapolis Children Museum. The part that we found most impressive was a talk by the son of a holocaust survivor in the Anne Frank exhibition. Maybe we have to admit that we are no kids anymore since this was our “favorite” part, not the dinosaurs or all the interactive games.
On the way to Cincinnati, we stopped at the birthplace of Wilburn Wright, one of the Wright Brothers. Besides the house he was born in, they also have a museum about early aviation history. I find it mind boggling that it took only 66 years to go from the very first flights, which were only a few dozen feet of the ground and only seconds in the air, to humans landing on the moon. Of course now we will also have to go to Kitty Hawk, whenever we make it back to North Carolina.
The past week, we spent in Cincinnati, mostly at the Ultimate frisbee world championships. We watched almost all of the games from Linnea’s Swiss ZUF team and several other games in the women’s, men’s and mixed divisions. On the one hand it made me miss playing Ultimate a little. On the other hand I realize that I was never good enough to be a handler at that level, that my time as a deep at that level are past and the best position for me now is with Sandra on the sideline as a proud uncle. ZUF had the “games of their lives” where they won against the Melbourne Ellipsis team, which was ranked about 25 teams ahead of them. They also had a really exciting comeback against the other Swiss women’s team and can now legitimately claim to be the best Swiss women’s team in the world. The rest of the games was a mixed bag and the last game was canceled because of a storm and Tornado warning, but they did finish in the top half of the field of 40 teams. After a week of hot, but beautiful and sunny weather it turned ugly just before the actual finals, so they were moved indoors. Not the same ambiance as the huge green grass with 30 fields, but congrats to the organizers for finding a solution. We actually had lightning struck right above Joy while driving in Cincinnati, so I understand that they did not want to take any chances.
After a few days in Cincinnati, we finally made it into town. The Riverfront is beautiful and even on a normal weekday, things were happening everywhere, including a party on the Purple People Bridge and a Reggae concert at the Fountain Square. Little did we know that this was the last of the sunny days for a while. The turn in the weather also made us pursue some indoor activities: A Presidential home (from William Taft in Cincinnati), two movies (the new ‘Mamma mia’ and the VERY different ‘Sorry to Bother You’) and the opening night of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. That’s the Opera(!) version. Not sure whether it took some getting used to having Pink Floyd performed as an Opera or whether the second act was really that different, but we both really enjoyed the Second part.
I had a little flu for a couple of days, let’s hope that Sandra and my MacBook are recovering just as easily. Poor Sandra is coughing and sniffing and the MacBook had some major hardware issue and is currently at the Apple hospital. Hopefully everybody and everything will be up and running again soon so we can enjoy our time with Linnea on the road. Instead of going to Chicago, we plan to head east from here. I hear the Swedish Consulate in DC is beautiful this time of the year...but that’s another story and I promised to keep this travelogue short...
Aloha from Cincinnati,
Chris & Sandra
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