Eat fresh and RUN!
We may not have been allowed to leave the state in search of roadside attractions, but Indiana is no slouch in that department if you do the research and hunt them down like Mulder and Scully tracking aliens, except we do it to admire creativity and imagination rather than save the earth from world domination, even when the attraction’s origin is exactly the size you’d expect invaders from beyond to be.
“FEED ME, JONAH!”
If you enjoyed our previous chapters at Shades State Park, Spring Mill State Park, and George Rogers Clark National Historical Park…well, this one’s for all you fans of walks in parks.
Someone set us up the BA53 thermonuclear bomb. Presumably all the fissile materials were removed after these were retired in the 1990s.
Up near the town of Peru, Indiana, Grissom Air Museum on the grounds of Grissom Air Reserve Base had an impressive collection of airplanes representing numerous eras in American aviation. Other artifacts and scenes around the grounds provided an in-depth look into our nation’s history, as well as telling glimpses of our present that will one day tell a story of their own.
Hollywood prop alert: Passionate Paulette here is a B-25J, one of eighteen used in the filming of Mike Nichols’ 1970 adaptation of Catch-22. B-25s have also appeared in Pearl Harbor, Sucker Punch, and other, better films.
Yes, yes, I know we were just showing you an airplane collection earlier, but these are totally different planes at a completely different museum on the opposite end of the state. Well, not the far end, but comparatively opposite.
Cut ’em out! Ride ’em in! RAWHIDE!
At the end of a long day of road tripping, after hours of walking and perusing and appreciating and photographing and learning and gawping and filling your head with new mental notes about memories-to-be and storytelling to come, sometimes all you want to do is return to the car and head straight home without stopping, not even for bathrooms or snacks.
Then you pass one last roadside attraction that catches your eye and won’t let go. It lassos your brain, sweet-talks your sense of exploration, and hollers like a rowdy bartender, “I reckon y’all could spare us just a few minutes ‘fore ya head for the hills, can’t ya?” Next thing you know you’re piling outta the car and takin’ a look-see at what they wanna show ya, if’n you ain’t yella-bellied and if you don’t get up too much gumption to ask why the voice’s southern accent is more cornpone than Rogue’s dialogue in old issues of Uncanny X-Men.
Hey, slapstick fans! Learn how to pratfall in three easy steps! Practice several times on this very stage until you can do it without breaking any bones, just like a professional Hollywood stuntman or classic entertainer!
One of my favorite stops on our 2020 vacation was the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy in his hometown of Vincennes. The exhibits cover his seventy years in the entertainment business from early theater to post-retirement art, provide context for visitors with little to no knowledge of The Way Things Used to Be in Hollywood mass media, and, if you string enough leftover photos in just the right sequence, build your own template to a successful comedy career. All you need is patience, talent, and/or an idol to copycat. That’s not how Skelton did it, but he isn’t around to stop you, now is he?
The many faces of Red Skelton covered an October 1967 edition of the LA Herald-Examiner‘s TV section. Art by Bob Bentovoja.
Throughout our years of travel we’ve visited a variety of specialized museums off the beaten paths, institutions of all sizes that focused intensely on subjects we know a little about, subjects firmly within our respective wheelhouses, and subjects about which we know next to nothing. We’ve enjoyed quite a few opportunities for education, for eye-opening, and for amusement. Despite our ever-advancing ages we still have a lot to learn about any number of subjects and personalities whose heydays were well before our time. If they should happen to provide broader context in some of the past movies, books, and TV shows we’ve consumed over the years, so much the better.
The Lincoln Memorial Bridge spans the Wabash River from Indiana to Illinois.
As a consequence of my unusual workplace situation, I’m basically not allowed to leave the state of Indiana until and unless killer nanobots hunt The Virus to extinction or my employers exile me to work-from-home, which would pose problems to multiple parties. 2020 is the first year we haven’t crossed the state line since at least 1998. It may have been longer, but we’ve been to Kings Island in Ohio so many times that I’ve lost track of which years were which.
The closest we’ve come to exiting Indiana since New Year’s was the city of Vincennes. Standing between us and Illinois was the Wabash River, known locally as the star of our state song, “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away”. You’d think our state song would be “Back Home Again in Indiana”, which Jim Nabors used to sing before the start of every Indy 500, and which they actually taught us to sing in grade school. “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” was a big hit on the pop charts in 1897, long before there was pop, charts, hits, or catchy electric guitar hooks, and is sung today in the occasional State Fair hootenanny and nowhere else. I just now listened to it for what I’m reasonably sure was the first time in my entire 48 years, and I suspect I’ll forget it by morning. Not on purpose, mind you. But I know how my brain works.
Our view of the Wabash itself, by contrast, should prove eminently more memorable. Vincennes likewise had its share of nifty imagery about town, from fixtures to food.
Time gives the kill order on Saddam Hussein.
War. What is it good for?
For inspiring movies, TV shows, novels, video games, a few board games, protest songs, and museums about war.
Your move, Edwin Starr.
Time gives the kill order on Adolf Hitler.
Anyone who really knows Anne is well aware of her long-standing interests in American history in general and World War II in particular, with an intense specialization in the European theater. When opportunities arise to learn more about it and to view its remnants in person, those tend to rise near the top of our travel to-do lists. And so it went in Vincennes.
A TM-76B Mace cruise missile, previously stored at Air Force bases in Warner Robins and Orlando, welcomes you to the Indiana Military Museum!
I consider myself generally antiwar, but when faced with collections of giant machines larger than cars, some part of my brain interprets them not as armed conflict tools or purveyors of bloody destruction, but as really cool, super-sized toys. Maybe it’s some primeval boyhood attachment to the Matchbox and Hot Wheels collections I gave away in junior high. Maybe I subconsciously perceive sleek steel mechanisms as an extension of 1980s macho action flicks. Maybe the part of me that loves fast driving yearns for some opportunity to sit behind the controls of any fantastical vehicle that can exceed 100 mph without legal retribution or instant crashing. All I know is it’s fun to look at planes up close.
Longtime MCC readers have seen airplane galleries from past vacation stops such as the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, the National WWII Aviation Museum in Colorado Springs, and the USS Intrepid Museum in Manhattan. But we didn’t have to leave our home state to see more examples of vehicles our nation’s massive defense budget purchased throughout the last century.
This statue of Christ on a cross with its own runway is actually part of a cemetery.
One of our biggest regrets about our annual road trips is we always fail to make time for church services on Sunday. Occasionally we’ll happen near a church that’s built up enough exterior decor that it counts as a tourist attraction, but we’re never in a position to attend services. We’ve visited such houses of worships in New Orleans, Colorado Springs, and New York City, among others.
So it went in Vincennes as our walk took us slightly adjacent to George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, where we found holy grounds whose history predates Clark’s arrival in the area, not to mention the American Revolution itself. It was a Tuesday and we aren’t Catholic, but we appreciated a chance to spend a few minutes with our minds pointed more toward God.
This place has everything: murals, markers, dioramas, statues, American history, and a guard with a mask!
I’m assuming the tradition continues today, albeit in virtual mode among the saner schools out there, but back in the ancient times of my childhood, every fourth-grade social studies class here in the Hoosier State had to include at least one full unit of Indiana history. We learned about the famous personalities who contributed to our formative years, and covered happenings from the tribal lands that white guys renamed the Northwest Territory to our official statehood in 1816. We sighed a bit to hear about severe underdog William Henry Harrison. Then we skipped a lot of locally uneventful decades until we got to more interesting subjects such as sports legends, Michael Jackson, and the original One Day at a Time.
In that semester’s specialized curriculum, teachers made sure to cover a Revolutionary War hero named George Rogers Clark. He may not mean much to most states, and he didn’t mean much to us after fourth grade, but we were told we needed to know about him anyway because he was on the test. Naturally there’s a memorial for him.
Nothing but respect for my Princess Peach.
When we tell anyone who’ll listen about our annual road-trip tradition, they don’t ask about dignified museums or American history or ordinary nature hikes. They want to know about the kitsch we’ve seen, the outlandish art and eccentric curation and super-sized foods and things beginning with “World’s Largest”. We hadn’t planned any such stops for this vacation, but whenever one happens to stand in our path, far be it from us to veer around like we’re too good for it.
Summer life underground.
We’d spent much of our morning with the summertime sun trying to light our skin on fire. We were still in the mood to spend more time with nature. We also would have loved some air conditioning or something like it. Anne had a brilliant idea that combined the best of both whims. So we went underground.
Mitchell putting the “rock” in “rocket”.
We had one last stop planned in the town of Mitchell before we moved on. As it happens, the Virgil “Gus” Grissom Museum inside Spring Mill State Park isn’t their only tribute to the hometown legend who was chosen to become one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts in America’s fledgling space program. When the place you’re from thinks that highly of you, sometimes one salute isn’t enough.
Of all the vacation pics we shared with friends and family at the time, this was the favorite — Anne and an entire batter-fried animal on a bun.
Remember the good ol’ days when the most lethal forces you had to worry about at any given family restaurant were calories, fat, carbs, grease, and sugar? And not uncontrolled international pandemics whose rampaging microbes could destroy your organs from within like an exotic assassin’s poison made from extinct jungle predators? One nifty little cafe in the town of Mitchell sure does.
“Okay, fine, I’ll say the stupid line: HONK. HONK HONK HONK. There, ya happy? Can I go now?”
No disrespect intended to Gus Grissom or those who made Spring Mill State Park possible, but our most fascinating moment on the park grounds was that time we hung out at the beach with a goose.
That’s us chasing waterfalls. Why stick to the rivers and the lakes that we’re used to?
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Every year since 1999 my wife Anne and I have taken a trip to a different part of the United States and visited attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. Then came 2020 A.D.
Even in an ordinary average year, sometimes you really need to get away from it all. In a year like this, escape is more important than ever if you can find yourself one — no matter how short it lasts, no matter how limited your boundaries are. Anne and I had two choices: either skip our tradition for 2020 and resign ourselves to a week-long staycation that looks and feels exactly like our typical weekend quarantines; or see how much we could accomplish within my prescribed limitations. We decided to expand on that and check out points of interest in multiple Indiana towns in assorted directions. We’d visited many towns over the years, but not all of them yet.
In addition to our usual personal rules, we had two simple additions in light of All This: don’t get killed, and don’t get others killed…
We’d come all the way to Mitchell to see the Gus Grissom museum at Spring Mill State Park. It seemed a shame not to enjoy the park itself while we were there. Despite our debilitating incident at Shades State Park, we still had use for more exercise. This time we chose the least rugged trail possible, a gentle lap sketched around Spring Mill Lake. Best of all, nary another human came within a hundred yards of us on our serenely maskless expedition.
Gus Grissom’s space suit from the Gemini III mission.
On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 1984, give or take four years, my family decided to take a two-hour Sunday drive and visit a museum that I might think was cool. The only thing I remember about that day is my petty bitterness at missing out on my friends’ annual tradition of listening to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio in our backyards. Of course it was a year that our favorite driver Rick Mears won again. At the time I resented the imposition and refused to enjoy myself.
Thirty-six years later I tried again, but in a much better mood.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 