Category Archives: Indiana

Sundown at Fair Oaks Farms

May 27, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Cow gas station mural!

For the discerning traveler on the mooove.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This week I turned 47 without entering true Midlife Crisis mode yet, and managed not to whine about it. Much. Not out loud, anyway. The more I stare at our recent convention photos, the more gray hairs I see taunting me and trying to convince me I am, in fact, an old adult and not a mature teenager.

For the past several years my wife and I have made a tradition of going somewhere new for each of our birthdays. One-day road trips and events such as last year’s Garfield Quest give me the gift of new experiences and distracts me from the physical decay at hand. As it happens, we’ll spending my birthday weekend helping a relative move, which means we’ve had to postpone my official birthday outing till next weekend. I’m grown-up enough to handle delayed gratification, and am at peace with the notion of serving others this weekend instead of indulging myself…

On Memorial Day weekend we found our opportunity to get out of town to celebrate my birthday with a special activity alluded to in another previous entry. Friday after work we drove partway to Chicago through holiday traffic — including an irritating one-hour delay and 11-mile detour resulting from an accident on I-65 Nortb — and spent the night on the grounds of an Indiana attraction. It wasn’t our primary objective, but we scoped out our surroundings for exercise and fun, in that order.

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The Columbus 2010 Architecture Birthday Walkabout, Before Hollywood Came to Town

May 26, 2019 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Eos!

“Eos” by Dessa Kirk, 2006.

Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas of Indiana we’ve never experienced before. (Usually Indiana, anyway.) We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Once upon a time on October 12, 2010, the two of us drove a quick hour south from Indianapolis to the city of Columbus. Though it’s much the same size as a lot of other Indiana cities we’ve visited statewide over the years, its visuals aren’t interchangeable. Thanks to a combination of factors — including significant funding from Cummins, the local engine manufacturer of considerable size — Columbus has become a haven for Modernist architecture, some of it overseen by big names in the field. It quite sincerely looks like no other town around.

Large Arch and Us!

What does this photo have to do with recent headline news? The answer might just surprise you!


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Birthday 47: Primo Pizza and Pointless Pondering

May 17, 2019 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Thai and Creole!

The top half is Thai-inspired. The bottom half is Creole-esque. All of it is coated in smoked Gouda with no objection from me.

It’s that time again! This week I turned 47 without entering true Midlife Crisis mode yet, and managed not to whine about it. Much. Not out loud, anyway. The more I stare at our recent convention photos, the more gray hairs I see taunting me and trying to convince me I am, in fact, an old adult and not a mature teenager.

Fun useless trivia: I share my birthday with Dennis Hopper, Bill Paxton, Trent Reznor, Sugar Ray Leonard, Craig Ferguson, Howard Ashman, Bob Saget, Jordan Knight, and Dave Sim. Yet we never get together and combine parties. Sure, two of my birth-twins are no longer among the living, but still.

For the past several years my wife and I have made a tradition of going somewhere new for each of our birthdays. One-day road trips and events such as last year’s Garfield Quest give me the gift of new experiences and distracts me from the physical decay at hand. As it happens, we’ll spending my birthday weekend helping a relative move, which means we’ve had to postpone my official birthday outing till next weekend. I’m grown-up enough to handle delayed gratification, and am at peace with the notion of serving others this weekend instead of indulging myself.

In the meantime, today had its happy distractions, mostly in the form of food. Friends and family kept my mind off the aging process for most, if not all, of the day.

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48 Stories Over Indianapolis

March 15, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Monument Circle!

Monument Circle, the center of Indianapolis. Don’t asl me why someone built a little house on one of those rooftops.

At 49 stories, Indianapolis’ Salesforce Tower is the tallest building in town. Once upon a time it was Chase Tower; the time before that, it was the Bank One Tower. I’m old enough to remember a time before it was added to our downtown skyline and made the formerly insultingly labeled “Naptown” feel all the smaller as we tried to catch up with fifteen or twenty other, larger cities nationwide. Measured by population we rank 16th; measured in skyscrapers, we earn a “Participant” ribbon. But we cherish our ribbon.

Longtime MCC readers may recall we’ve been in taller buildings — more famous ones such as One World Trade Center, Willis Tower, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which for some unsightly reason is now called the Comcast Building, which would be a terrible name for a sitcom. All of these pale before the magnificence of Pikes Peak, but that’s neither here nor there.

For Hoosiers, Salesforce Tower is as high as we can get without wings or catapults. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a work-related function on their 48th floor. Of course I took photos of my surroundings. Prominent features are labeled where visible and remembered.

Our skyline may not be an iconic fixture in pop culture, but to us it’s home.

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Our 2019 Super Bowl Deserted Restaurant Getaway

February 3, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Cuban Creme Brulee!

I’m a grown-up and I can skip to the dessert photo if I wanna. Behold the Cuban Creme Brûlée — espresso custard topped with caramelized sugar, Chantilly cream, shaved chocolate, and raspberries. 11/10 would gladly eat first next time.

Each year our family has indulged in our own special Super Bowl tradition: while the rest of the world is watching football and swapping snacks and beers with best friends and chatting about The Sports, we have dinner at a fancy restaurant. Between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., anyplace without a large-screen TV is usually empty and totally ours for the taking.

Usually we’ll try someplace we’ve never been elsewhere in town, but this year we stuck to Indianapolis’ west side and head up the road to Rick’s Cafe Boatyard, where my son and I hadn’t been in many, many years. Once known as Rick’s Café Americain Restaurant, it’s located on the shore of sometimes scenic Eagle Creek Reservoir. Over half their menu is seafood, but they also offer chicken specialties, artisan pizzas, and fancy sandwiches to pacify any fish-haters or tag-along allergic diners.

As expected, only a few other families were on the premises. For lack of competing tables, service was speedy and friendly. We did our best to ignore the half-dozen TVs hanging from the ceiling and threatening to keep us in the loop on a sport none of us follows. We did catch a glimpse of Gladys Knight singing the National Anthem, but otherwise focused on fun conversation and mostly fine food.

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Of Gods and Gilding: Gamboling (Not Gambling) in French Lick

November 17, 2018 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
hotel hallway!

Probably our deepest selfie ever.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Twice each year my wife Anne and I drive down to southern Indiana. Usually it’s for the sake of visiting relatives, helping family keep in touch, doing something nice for others, that sort of thing. Usually it consists of one three-hour drive down slow highways behind lackadaisical drivers, four to six hours of sitting and chatting and letting the older folks enjoy each other’s company while we might or might not nod off, then another three-hour drive home. We’re adult enough to accept not every weekend can be a convention or even a trip to the movie theater.

Dateline: October 24, 2015. My aunt suggested we break routine and get together for a bit of Indiana tourism. We headed out to the twin towns of French Lick and West Baden. When I was a kid we drove through them frequently but rarely stopped in either of them except for gas. Fast-forward four decades later, and now each town has a special attraction to boast as their own. For West Baden, it’s the enormous West Baden Springs Hotel, a structure with a history dating back to 1855 filled with frequently changing ownerships, periods of disuse, extensive restoration funded by multiple donors, and a new life today as a premier getaway in the southern Indiana area…

Next door to the West Baden Springs Hotel is their sister establishment, the French Lick Springs Hotel. Though they occupy adjacent lots, together they’re a joint resort as inseparable as the two towns themselves, united around a single establishment: the French Lick Springs Casino.

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An Autumn Walk Through Woods in West Baden

November 4, 2018 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
arches and autumn!

Gateway to a previously un-shared photo gallery…

Twice each year my wife Anne and I drive down to southern Indiana. Usually it’s for the sake of visiting relatives, helping family keep in touch, doing something nice for others, that sort of thing. Usually it consists of one three-hour drive down slow highways behind lackadaisical drivers, four to six hours of sitting and chatting and letting the older folks enjoy each other’s company while we might or might not nod off, then another three-hour drive home. We’re adult enough to accept not every weekend can be a convention or even a trip to the movie theater.

Dateline: October 24, 2015. My aunt suggested we break routine and get together for a bit of Indiana tourism. We headed out to the twin towns of French Lick and West Baden. When I was a kid we drove through them frequently but rarely stopped in either of them except for gas. Fast-forward four decades later, and now each town has a special attraction to boast as their own. For West Baden, it’s the enormous West Baden Springs Hotel, a structure with a history dating back to 1855 filled with frequently changing ownerships, periods of disuse, extensive restoration funded by multiple donors, and a new life today as a premier getaway in the southern Indiana area.

Once upon a time in the early ’80s my aunt took us inside for a quick look around. As I recall, beneath its large dome was a massive rotunda exquisitely detailed by proud artisans in styles hearkening to ages of yore. Back then we didn’t carry cameras around. We have no record of that visit. I thought it was a wonderful idea to return and see what’s been done with the place.

One little problem: upon our arrival we learned the entire facility had been rented out for the day for a fancy wedding. No uninvited visitors were allowed inside.

So this Saturday afternoon exploratory jaunt turned into a brisk autumn walk around the grounds, viewing the exterior features and digging the fascinating colors that nature shows off in southern Indiana every year ’round this time. Not quite the full West Baden Springs experience, but it would have to do.

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Halloween Stats 2018: 78 Minutes of Human Connection and Candy

October 31, 2018 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Lowes Witch!

When the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations all compete for shelf space at the same time, it gets hard to remember which holiday is WITCH. EEEEEEH-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEEEEEEEE!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year since 2008 I’ve kept statistics on the number of trick-or-treaters brave enough to approach our doorstep during the Halloween celebration of neighborhood unity and beneficent snack donation. I began tracking our numbers partly for future candy inventory purposes and partly out of curiosity, so now it’s a tradition for me. Like many bloggers there’s a stats junkie in me that thrives on taking head counts, no matter how discouraging the results.

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The Birthday Cemetery: Our 2012 Crown Hill Tour, Part 2 of 2

October 29, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
goddess!

To approach this crypt you must first pass the Trial of the Stone Goddess!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas of Indiana we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Once upon a time in 2012, we willfully stayed in town for a change and spent a Saturday at a pair of nearby attractions with connections to the Halloween season. It’s not her favorite holiday, but October is her birth month and she had her motives. The first half of that fun-filled day was spent driving around the most famous final resting place in all of Indianapolis, Crown Hill Cemetery. A renowned institution since 1864, Crown Hill houses several of the Circle City’s bigger names in history and/or local government, as well as the highest elevation point in central Indy…

Our feature presentation was the gravesite of Benjamin Harrison, the only American President buried in Indiana. We also found the burials of a number of Hoosier Vice Presidents and other famous figures and contributors to society. Beyond the purview of our preceding photo gallery, a number of other Crown Hill tombstones, crypts, and special features caught our eyes as we wandered the grounds, took in the sights, tried to be respectful, and hopefully angered no vengeful spirits.

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Hall of Heroes Comic Con 2018 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Cosplay Dance Party!

September 9, 2018 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
RWBY!

Guarding the front door were Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna from RWBY.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in March 2017 my wife Anne and I attended the inaugural Hall of Heroes Comic Con in Elkhart, Indiana. Under the same ownership as the nearby Hall of Heroes Museum (which we’d visited the year before), HoHCC was a two-day convention contained entirely in Elkhart’s historic Lerner Theatre, a beautiful 94-year-old venue for live plays and other cultural events. The organizers made creative use of the available spaces and had the assistance of a bevy of friendly volunteers. Initial response from fans statewide and beyond was so overwhelming, they earned themselves an encore presentation, this year in a much warmer September as opposed to that wintry March.

Before we narrate any further, once again we lead off a new convention miniseries with the mandatory cosplay photos. For logistical reasons (a bit more on that in Part 2) we were only able to attend Sunday this year, traditionally a less crowded and activity-filled day at comic cons. That means we fell far short of our usual goal of catching at least 5,000 different cosplayers in one day. To be fair, we never meet that goal, but I like to think it’s nice that we have goals. In the meantime, quite a few fascinating folks caught our eyes…

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Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dissonance & Dissent: Ska Night at the Vogue

August 23, 2018 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Mighty Mighty Bosstones!

Never, ever let them forget your band’s name.

Dateline: August 21, 2018 — Tuesday night I found myself once again ignoring my social awkwardness issues and venturing out solo to the Vogue, Indianapolis’ number one nightclub for hosting bands that were in heavy rotation on my CD player throughout the ’90s. My wife Anne and I share a lot of important commonalities, but one of our smaller Venn diagrams is “musical preferences”. Nearly everyone I know with similar tastes lives in other states. Therefore I can either attend concerts alone, attend only when Anne wants to (not impossible but rare), make new friends to attend concerts with, or never experience live music again. Once every 1-2 years, I let option A win.

This year’s reason for me to leave the house and touch a dance floor: the Mighty Mighty Bosstones! If you don’t know the name offhand, your best chance of hearing them was the 1997 single “The Impression That I Get“, which achieved modest airplay beyond the usual alt-rock channels. They were among the first and few ska bands I listened to back in the day, still have four of their first five albums, but had lost track of them and countless other bands over the past 10-15 years. It was great to get reacquainted and find out they’re still recording and touring.

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Indiana State Fair 2018 Photos #4 of 4: Random Acts of State Fairing

August 17, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Spongebob and pineapple!

Spongebob and his fruit drink stand weren’t new, but I will never get tired of them.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually we’re all about the food…

…but as the old Indiana Beach commercials used to say: There’s more than corn in Indiana!

It always annoyed me that we as a state felt we had to say that, after years of corn-heavy culture that our ancestors apparently endorsed and enforced. Some of them made the Hoosier State what it is today, but we used to take a lot of heat from other states for all that corny corn-corn-cornity-cornadocious corn talk. By the same token, food isn’t the only reason to attend our State Fair! It’s my favorite reason, but our annual explorations go beyond just eating, more eating, and the walks that connect the eating moments.

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Indiana State Fair 2018 Photos #3: The Art of the Fair

August 14, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Where Does My Poop Go?

Every great scientist starts with an inquisitive mind. And every inquisitive mind has to start somewhere.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually we’re all about the food…

…but we’re also excited to see what new works of paint, photography, building blocks, and science have been offered up for the various competitions. The State Fair holds its massive celebrations on behalf of our farmers, but Indiana has no shortage of artists, either. They come from all demographics, work in multiple media, bring ideas from pop culture as well as from their own home life, and all contribute in their own ways to the Hoosier State hometown legacy.

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Indiana State Fair 2018 Photos #2: The Year of the Circus

August 11, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
human cannonballs!

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Human Cannonball!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually we’re all about the food…

…but when we’re full, or encounter long stretches of walking between food stands, we also get a kick out of visiting the various exhibit halls. Whether it’s handiwork by kids in 4-H, local adult artists, and/or innovative collectives, artists a-plenty have their creations tucked away all throughout the land. Sometimes there’ll also be featured historical collections, which is nice and often incidentally educational.

After going for a year or two without any discernible theme, this year our state fair landed on celebrating The Year of the Circus. A variety of contributors played along with that motif, inspired entirely by the real live circus that planted their Big Top on the north end of the fairgrounds and offered three performances every day for the entirety of the fair, included basically free with the price of fair admission. For anyone who loves the concept, it was a brilliant bit of entertainment synergy.

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Indiana State Fair 2018 Photos #1: Our Year in Food

August 7, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
turkey tips!

Turkey tips, marinated in a house rub and drowned in an eminently lickable barbecue sauce.

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually we’re all about the food. Each year a new lineup of “Taste of the Fair” offerings showcases new ideas from assorted food vendors in hopes of luring in foodies and/or impressing attendees who want to do more every year than simply eating the same tenderloin again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This year’s edibles expedition had a couple of setbacks, but we made the most of our day anyway. For one, this year’s Indiana State Fair app failed me in the precisely one job I asked of it. The Map function was ostensibly designed with an option to pin the locations of any and all participating “Taste of the Fair” stands. I pressed the correct buttons and received zero (0) results. The option to show all restaurants worked fine but was unhelpful. By and large the State Fair’s vendors go by their boring, adjectiveless company names that describe none of their products and aren’t even featured on their signs. Perfect example: the official Taste of the Fair site lists two new items from a company called Urick Concessions, but hopeful diners could spend days wandering the fairgrounds searching in vain for “URICK CONCESSIONS” banners. Worse still, Urick has more than one booth. We found both items, but at separate booths on opposite ends of the fairgrounds. You’d never know any of this from that failed app.

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Birthday Quest 2018, Part 6 of 6: House of the Cool Cats

July 31, 2018 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Garfield @ Fairmount!

#11 of 11, “Cool Cat”.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I have a tradition of spending our respective birthdays together on one-day outings to some new place or attraction — partly as an excuse to spend time together in honor of our special days, partly to explore areas of Indiana (or in neighboring states) that we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In brainstorming my options this year, I returned to the idea of the Garfield Trail. Thirty to sixty minutes northwest of Jim Davis’ offices at Paws Inc. near Muncie, a dozen Garfield statues stand in front of various businesses in nine cities and towns as tributes to his entertainment value, to his merchandising power, and to some of the personal accomplishments that make those locales proud. In my mind the Garfield Trail was not just a basic road trip to view some roadside attractions, but a live-action side quest. No controllers, no trophies, no monsters to fight, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter —- just the two of us, a series of “levels”, and a checklist of eleven items to “collect” (minus one Garfield down for repairs)…

Our grand finale awaited us in the town of Fairmount. Yet another Indiana town that dates back to the mid-1800s and once prospered from the Trenton Gas Field around the turn of the 20th century, Fairmount today is largely a commuter town, a popular living space for folks working elsewhere nearby. Garfield creator Jim Davis was raised there and still lives and works not too far away.

Some in Fairmount might argue Davis isn’t their most famous son. After we completed our Garfield collection, a few feet to our right was another familiar face waiting to welcome us to town.

James Dean standee!

You might remember him from such films as East of — wait, we already did that joke.

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Birthday Quest 2018, Part 5 of 6: Four Far-Flung Felines

July 30, 2018 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Garfield EXTREEEME!

EXTREEEME GARFIELD.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I have a tradition of spending our respective birthdays together on one-day outings to some new place or attraction — partly as an excuse to spend time together in honor of our special days, partly to explore areas of Indiana (or in neighboring states) that we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In brainstorming my options this year, I returned to the idea of the Garfield Trail. Thirty to sixty minutes northwest of Jim Davis’ offices at Paws Inc. near Muncie, a dozen Garfield statues stand in front of various businesses in nine cities and towns as tributes to his entertainment value, to his merchandising power, and to some of the personal accomplishments that make those locales proud. In my mind the Garfield Trail was not just a basic road trip to view some roadside attractions, but a live-action side quest. No controllers, no trophies, no monsters to fight, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter —- just the two of us, a series of “levels”, and a checklist of eleven items to “collect” (minus one Garfield down for repairs)…

After hitting that four-pack of Garfields in Marion, the next four were each in separate towns, not all of them next door to each other, and would feel like more of a slog in comparison. The overall path for all eleven Garfields was close to circular — more like a backwards ‘P’ if viewed from above. The path from Garfields #7 through #10 formed the western-facing bowl of the rather large P.

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Birthday Quest 2018, Part 3 of 6: Three Cats, the Marion Kind

July 27, 2018 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Dr. Garfield!

Dr. Garfield ready to perform his next CAT scan. (I…I’m sorry. I really am.)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I have a tradition of spending our respective birthdays together on one-day outings to some new place or attraction — partly as an excuse to spend time together in honor of our special days, partly to explore areas of Indiana (or in neighboring states) that we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In brainstorming my options this year, I returned to the idea of the Garfield Trail. Thirty to sixty minutes northwest of Jim Davis’ offices at Paws Inc. near Muncie, a dozen Garfield statues stand in front of various businesses in nine cities and towns as tributes to his entertainment value, to his merchandising power, and to some of the personal accomplishments that make those locales proud. In my mind the Garfield Trail was not just a basic road trip to view some roadside attractions, but a live-action side quest. No controllers, no trophies, no monsters to fight, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter —- just the two of us, a series of “levels”, and a checklist of eleven items to “collect” (minus one Garfield down for repairs)…

From the Pawnee-inspired digression we headed twenty miles west to the city of Marion, the only locale on our itinerary with a population over 6,000. If we’d had an appetite for lunch yet, it would’ve been the most likely place to find a bite, but artisan breakfast and ice cream kept us going well beyond that stop. Apropos of our objective, Marion was the birthplace of Garfield creator Jim Davis as well as one legendary actor…whose history inspired yet another non-Garfield-related detour.

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Birthday Quest 2018, Part 2 of 6: The “Parks & Recreation” Giants

July 25, 2018 By in Indiana, Travel, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Indian Chief...

“High-five to the first tourists of the day! And possibly the month!”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I have a tradition of spending our respective birthdays together on one-day outings to some new place or attraction — partly as an excuse to spend time together in honor of our special days, partly to explore areas of Indiana (or in neighboring states) that we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In brainstorming my options this year, I returned to the idea of the Garfield Trail. Thirty to sixty minutes northwest of Jim Davis’ offices at Paws Inc. near Muncie, a dozen Garfield statues stand in front of various businesses in nine cities and towns as tributes to his entertainment value, to his merchandising power, and to some of the personal accomplishments that make those locales proud. In my mind the Garfield Trail was not just a basic road trip to view some roadside attractions, but a live-action side quest. No controllers, no trophies, no monsters to fight, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter —- just the two of us, a series of “levels”, and a checklist of eleven items to “collect” (minus one Garfield down for repairs)…

From a narrative standpoint in a tale of Garfield statues, it may be counterintuitive to have a Chapter 2 that contains exactly zero Garfields. Our research phase brought up a limited number of bonus attractions in the same general vicinity, but two in particular immediately stoked our interest upon discovery. It’s not often you’re in a small town that can lay claim to an As Seen On TV artifact, let alone two of them. It’s rarer to find such objects related to a TV show we both really, really liked. And we had to be honest: how likely were we to venture out this far again in the near future? Or the oh-so-distant future, even? Why not catch them while we’re up here anyway?

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Birthday Quest 2018, Part 1 of 6: Garfields of Dreams

July 24, 2018 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Garfield @ Upland!

Arguably our first-ever photo of a “jazz paw”.

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a tradition of spending our respective birthdays together on one-day outings to some new place or attraction — partly as an excuse to spend time together in honor of our special days, partly to explore areas of Indiana (or in neighboring states) that we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

For my birthday last year we drove all the way to Michigan for a comic convention. That’s an average expedition for us, but this one required a five-hour drive that proved a bit much to cram into a single weekend. The con itself was a fabulous experience; the next several fatigued work days after, not remotely so. I wouldn’t mind doing that show again someday, but not as an annual event.

This time I decided to keep us slightly closer to home. The answer still involved comics, though not the “book” kind. It was a direct sequel to a previous birthday trip. And it was loosely inspired by video games.

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