Indy Trip

Well, we are back! Tucker's first roadtrip was a resounding success. For an infant, he travels pretty well. And, frankly, he has to if he wants to belong to this family. This was just the first of several big trips planned for the summer. We had a lot of fun, though. Aside from the wedding we went to, the most exciting parts were The Children's Museum of Indianapolis and the train ride through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It was a 3 hour loop from the top to the bottom and back up again. We all had a really great time, that is, until the Spongebob Squarepants popsicle fell apart and Jack fell apart with it. Oh well! Why does he even know who Spongebob is?

In true Amy fashion, we took the scenic route out there. We stopped in Cuyahoga Valley National Park on a whim to see the Brandywine Falls on the way down. That's where we learned about the train ride, but we didn't have time that day. Then, we stopped at Buck Creek State Park in Ohio for lunch. That was a very nice, out of the way location. Jack was bummed we couldn't go swimming. In fact, he was really bummed every time we got someplace, because inevitably we would have to leave to go to "the next cool place" and he was always having too much fun to go, especially since we could never elaborate on where or what that next cool place might be. It must be hard to be 2.

Our first major stop was in Terre Haute, Jack's birthplace. We took him past the hospital, his old brown house (which he wanted to stalk), to the Clabber Girl museum, Fowler Park, Rose-Hulman, and a few other locations. We saw lots of our old friends and generally had a really wonderful time. On Friday, we drove up to Indy and Auntie La came down from visiting her friends in Chicago just to watch the boys while Mike and I partied like it was 2008 at Corey and Antonia's wedding. :) We then dragged ourselves out of bed in the morning to take Jack to The Children's Museum. It is arguably the best museum of its kind in the world. There was SO MUCH stuff, and it is billed as the biggest and I think Parent's Magazine called it one of the best. It was really cool. The favorite exhibits were the dinosaurs (have you ever tried to drag a 2 year old out of a dinosaur digging sandbox? Not fun!), Rock Stars Cars Guitars exhibit, and I liked the Fireworks of Glass exhibit. There were lots of other cool things to see. Jack finally rode a carousel and cried because he didn't want to get off instead of the other way around. Dr. Noize had a concert. Mr. Etch a Sketch was there sketching (or is it etching?) masterpieces on actual toys. We meant to get out of town a little early, but we closed down the museum and were one of the last out of the parking garage. We had so much fun.

The next day, we stopped back at the Cuyahoga Valley NP for one last cool thing. We decided that, all things considered, Jack had been a pretty good kid and he definitely deserved a train ride. We rode from the Rockside station in the north, to the Northside station in the south, and all the way back up again for a 3 hour round trip. He had so much and it was a really great way to see the park. We got back late last night, and we are still looking forward to our other trips. I don't think we can ask for much more than that!