Leaving Detroit to Indianapolis to Lawrence KS!

Hello!

I just wanted to take a few minutes and blog about dinner tonight, as we’re going to be moving fast in the morning, and I don’t want to forget anything!  We met Sandy tonight at Salvatore Scallopini’s in Grosse Pointe Woods.  Excellent Italian restaurant; a small chain; I think they have about four restaurants in total.  We were seated at a nice large table in the front, which gave us plenty of room. 

Sandy and me at Salvatore Scallopini

R's minestrone

My salad

They start by bringing in bread with a plate of sugu which translates to sauce, which you spread on the bread.  According to Robert, it tasted just like his mom’s sauce when he was a kid!  Robert got the minestrone soup, which looked really good, and Sandy and my salads came with a wonderful creamy Romano dressing … could eat a lot of that dressing!  For mains, R got their shrimp scampi in a garlic and butter sauce over pasta shells, and he cleaned his plate!  I ordered a split order of lasagna and eggplant parmesan, and Sandy did a split plate with lasagna and shells stuffed with cheese.  Everything was great, and we all enjoyed very much!  Nobody had room for dessert after that, so we eventually waddled out of the restaurant, and we were back at the hotel by the start of the basketball game at 9 o’clock!

R's shrimp over shells

My ravioli and eggplant parmesan

Sandy's shells and lasagne

Heading to bed soon, as I want to be up early and on the road!

More later!

m

xxx

Tuesday, 13 June

Up this morning at 4:12 am in order to get to Indianapolis as early as possible.  We were ready to go and Robert went down to get a cart a few minutes to 5.  Problem!!  NO CARTS!  What?!  Apparently, there are five carts that are “lost” somewhere between floors 2 – 9 (we checked floor 10, where we were.)  Truly amazing.  If it wasn’t for the fact that we have two suitcases, camera bag, full crate, ice chest and large picnic basket, we’d be fine!  Finally, I took two suitcases and camera bag down, and notice that the “guy” who had promised to come to “help” obviously wasn’t going to show up.  So, I parked the cases behind the front desk, and went upstairs to help with the remaining articles.  Incredible…checked out, and then had to wait for the car.  Apparently, although there are parking lots right next door to the hotel, the cars get parked down the street.  Whatever…we finally got everything loaded into the car and ready to leave about 5:17 am.  Honestly, this was not a good way to end a nice visit to a hotel.

Indianapolis church

Indy monument

We wanted to get an early start for several reasons.  First, we wanted to spend as much time as we possibly could with my old friend Celeste and her husband David, who live in Indianapolis, and second, because the I-75 freeway is closed southbound to Toledo, right in the direction we were heading! (And apparently is going to remain closed for several years!!)   So, because of this, we had to take the I-94 Freeway toward Chicago and go out past Detroit Metro airport.  Then, we cut southeast on the I-275 to Toledo, and rejoined the I-75 south of the closure area.  From Toledo, we took US 24 toward Fort Wayne, and got on the I-469 ring road around Fort Wayne to Indianapolis.  All in all, we made great time, considering everything, and got to Cel & David’s house about 10 am. 

River and riverwalk

State Capital Building

Beautiful sculpture

White River running through Indianapolis

They live in a really lovely area south of downtown Indianapolis, in a beautiful brick house with beautiful landscaping!  Cel and David are the gardeners, and their yard is really lovely – lots of flowers blooming, as well as some stunning hostas. 

Motor Speedway!

Together in front of the Motor Speedway Museum

This one didn't win this year ...

It was SO wonderful to see Celeste!  It has literally been years and years.  We first met in Okinawa in 1975-1976, and have stayed in touch ever since.  This is the first time we met her wonderful husband David, who is now looking forward to retirement in the next couple of months.  They made a good lunch of BLT sandwiches, and about 2 pm we drove downtown to sign up for our Indianapolis Tour. 

Four of us in front of trophy!

Me in front of Borg Warner Trophy!

Indianapolis has some beautiful buildings!

Well … Indianapolis is really an interesting city, and much more than just the Lucas Oil Field where the Colts play!  Tim, our driver on the tour, said that Indianapolis has more war memorials (to all the various conflicts) than any other city in the U.S. other than Washington, DC.   Now that’s impressive.  He also drove us all out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and we got to stop for a really quick visit to the track museum.  I had never thought I would see the Borg Warner Trophy in person – it’s very impressive!  Lots of cars (naturally) including many of the race winners over the years.  There is also a lovely river running through the center of Indianapolis, with a beautiful river walk!  So many things to see and do there, and so little time!  Back to the house about 5 pm, and a lovely dinner of grilled chicken and grilled asparagus, served with baked potatoes and salad.  All excellent!  I’m not really sure where the day went, as we just kept talking and talking, but suddenly it was 9:30 pm and I was falling asleep on my feet!  Right to bed then, and up around 6 am.  David and Celeste made a lovely breakfast for us, and we got on the road about 8:30 am this morning. 

So … on to Lawrence, KS! 

You know, I had a meeting once in Kansas City, MO and flew to that one, but neither R nor I can remember ever being in Kansas other than that!  It seems like whenever we have driven, we either went higher – across Nebraska – or lower – across Oklahoma and Texas. 

Lots of agriculture!

Farm after farm!

 

Mississippi River

This was a real treat!  The route from Indianapolis through Illinois and Missouri was mostly rolling hills with lots of agriculture on all sides. Some downright beautiful and very thickly forested areas.  

Right as we were passing north of St. Louis on the ring road, we drove into a tremendous thunderstorm!  Very impressive!  Some cloud-to-ground lightning, and then a gully-washer of a storm.  Fortunately, it didn’t last too long, and we were able to come through it with a very well-washed car!  So much for the car wash in Detroit on Monday! 

We basically followed highway I-70 almost the entire way to Kansas City, MO.  Then, Emmy, our GPS directed that we should go right straight through the middle of town, but with rush hour on its way, we decided to go south of KC on a ring road, and then straight into Lawrence once we hit Kansas.  This route only added about 10 minutes to our trip, and we very thankfully pulled into our DoubleTree hotel about 4:15 pm.  Even with the one-hour time change, it still made for a long day of driving!

Upstairs to room 402, which has a lovely view of the trees and grass around the hotel.  We really hadn’t stopped for lunch, either, and were hungry, so did some TripAdvisor looking and decided on a restaurant named TEN for dinner, which was about 1.3 miles away.

Lovely restaurant TEN

Recovering after the drive...

R's steak and green beams

My salad

My steak and loaded potato!

Lawrence turns out to be the home of the University of Kansas JayHawks, and it seems like the entire town is entwined fairly thoroughly with all the different parts of the University.  And, just like Tucson, there seem to be many places with construction on-going.  Lawrence has a lovely main street with lots of nice restaurants and shops, but as R pointed out, as we are in the heart of the beef belt (?) it was only reasonable to expect to find a good steak!  Got to TEN, which is in the Edgerton Hotel on the town’s main street about 5:30 pm and were seated in a nice booth next to the window right away.  Molly, our waitress, was new at her job, and things were fairly slow at the beginning.  We both ordered salads to start – mine was their house salad with greens, tomatoes and onions and an excellent blue cheese dressing.  R had their Caesar salad.  We both ordered the 8 oz. filets, rare, R’s coming with green beans and mine with a loaded baked potato.  Really lovely meal, all washed down with glasses of sauvignon blanc.  We did stop at Dairy Queen on the way back to the hotel for a chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream cone, and of course I managed to make quite a mess with it before I could get things under control.  Emmy, our GPS wasn’t aware of some of Lawrence’s street construction, so we really had some winding around the Kansas campus until we could find a way to get back to our hotel.  Now in at 8:01 pm and I’m posting this so I can then go to bed early!

Tomorrow is another long driving day – 8 hours – but heading back into the beautiful Rocky Mountains and Denver, which we always love!

So, until tomorrow!

m

xxx