On the Way to Chicago

We recently were able to have our annual business trip to Chicago. We've seen Chicago a lot so this year we decided to not go into the city, but rather see what we could find on a drive up to Chicago. My mom recently mentioned that it was her goal to get to each state's capital building. I must be a little competitive because I decided to try and beat her at it. Here is Kentucky's State Capital Building. It's actually very pretty and I'm glad we were able to see it.

Our next stop was Louisville, KY and the home on Thomas Edison. What we failed to see when we saw the website for his home, was that he only lived here for about 6 months and it was really before he did anything cool. They did have a nice collection of his inventions in one of the 2 rooms this tour includes.

Lisa loves Louisville.

No trip to Louisville would be complete without a trip to the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum. There was a very sad moment for me though on this tour. There was a point where the tour guide asks what team members of the group are fans of. I stood out as a Cubs fan. There were some Cardinals fans, Tigers fans, and of course you can't go anywhere without running into those Yankees fans, but then the guide asked if there were any Braves fans. Lisa raised her hand. If that wasn't bad enough she even pronounced it, "I'm a Braves fan." Like I said, it was sad.

After Louisville we drove up into Indianapolis, IN where we stayed the night. The next morning we made sure to head to the Indiana State Capital Building. (I'd like to point out to my mom that there is photographic evidence on this blog from this year of the Colorado State Capital building in Denver and the Texas State Capital building in Austin.)

Monument Circle was under construction (getting ready for the 2012 Superbowl) but we were still able to see the sights.

Of course we went to Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the mighty Colts. There was no tour available but we did stop by the pro shop.

Don't laugh too much. I bought the hat.

Our next stop in Indianapolis was the home of President Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States. The tour was only supposed to be an hour, but it was surprisingly just the two of us so we got some extra time.

Lisa and the tour guide talked forever about quilts. I lost interest in the quilt talk but found the rest of the tour pretty good.

Lisa and I have set a goal to see the burial site of each president that has passed away. We've seen Polk, Jackson, Kennedy, Andrew Johnson, and now Benjamin Harrison. This cemetery was very unique. There were tons of very fancy headstones and monuments, and it went on forever. The president's was one of the simpler headstones.

While we were there, we also saw the burial place of John Dillinger, the bank robber from the Depression. We saw coins on the headstone so we joined in and added our own. When we researched it, we found it is a practice done to help those who may need some extra help getting into heaven. Maybe you can buy your way in.

We don't have pictures from the time in Chicago, since it was all business, and our drive home was just a straight shot with minimal stops. This was a fun way to spend a few days on the road.