Flight out to Indianapolis started with a thud. Let’s set the scene: Spirit flight, full, I am on the aisle, middle guy is a weirdo, and the window is a lady decked out in mask, face shield, gloves...clearly, someone being cautious. The plane ride itself was uneventful. When we begin deplaning COVID-prep lady at the window freaks out. She screamed, “LET ME OUT.” With all her gear on it was super muffled and no one paid her any attention. She seemed embarrassed as it’s clear she was expecting a reaction. The guy in the middle turns to her and asks, “Where would you like me to go?” She didn’t care...”I can climb over you. Let me out.” His response, “Go, ahead...” Shocked- she just waited with everyone else.
Best part. As the middle guy was exiting down the tarmac, he noticed her behind him and being a total jerk slowed down on purpose. She balls up her fists and swipes at the guy's face. She yells, “Don’t play with me. I ain’t to be played with.” Spirit! Good ole spirit! Alive and well.
Layover in Vegas for 45 minutes. Next flight to Indianapolis. I try and sweet talk the gate agent for a free upgrade. No deal. I end up just buying it. Try to go to my upgraded seat 1F and it’s already taken. The people behind me are in 2D and 2F and their seats are taken as well. A nice family is sitting there fully settled. The attendant asks for their tickets and they rummage through their phones. Excuse. Excuse. Horrible Airline later...turns out they had the seats earlier in the day, but the gate agent who checked them in accidentally/on-purpose removed their premium seats and put them in the very last row of the plane. Evidently, they ticked someone off real good. Spirit! Good ole spirit! Alive and well.
I took the red-eye/early morning trip and landed at 6:00 am Friday to Indianapolis. Got my rental car. They upgraded my car from an economy to an SUV and took off to get a nap at the hotel. By 10 am, I was ready to go having slept a few hours on the plane.
The first stop was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was actually kind of cool because they actually let you inside the facility and you could get right next to the track. I might have zoomed and revved my engine a bit to be more in the moment.
After that, I went to Mug N’ Bun, which is Indiana’s oldest drive-in. It is what I imagined Sonic was like back in the day as you had to turn on your headlights to signify you wanted someone to take your order rather than go through the drive-thru. The food was awful, but if your a fan of root beer it was stellar. They make their own and probably the best I have ever had. Next, I drove down to the City Farmers Market and got some grub down there. The tamale shop was a surprise hit! Recommend getting the Pork in Banana Leaf the next time you are in Indy. Yummy.
Indianapolis’s downtown is extremely walkable. I checked out the Soldier’s Monument, their capital, and the stadiums the Colts and Pacers stadiums. Grant was flying into Louisville to join me at 4 pm so I packed it up and drove from Indy to Louisville (2 hours) to meet him there.
We quickly checked into our hotel and rented scooters to tour the downtown. Note to everyone: never ride scooters with Grant as he is bad luck. Something always happens to his scooters and he tries to steal yours. Hahaha! The city was a ghost town as there were some streets that we didn't see another soul. By Louisville Slugger Museum, it was so quiet that our voices echoed off the buildings. Creepy.
Since nothing was open we decided to create our own food tour. We went to NuLu, which is the new Louisville with the trendy restaurants. We started at Harvest with appetizers, however, there claim to fame is chicken. We didn’t order it because I stubbornly refused to pay $30 for a piece of fried chicken no matter how good it was. Next, we ate a feast at Feast BBQ and followed it up with Nashville Hot Chicken at Royals Chicken. I finally got Grant to eat hot chicken not cooked by me and he hated it. He said it tasted like the one I made. I think that was supposed to be a diss, but I took it as a compliment that I made such a similar recipe.
With most things closed, we wanted to get out of Louisville as soon as possible. Our next stop was supposed to be Santa Claus, Indiana. Along the way, Grant saw a sign that read Butt Drugs and he demanded that I get a picture of him in front of it. So we made a pit stop in Corydon. A small sleepy town that was propped up by the fact that they housed Indiana Caves near them.
We stopped to grab our picture. I thought they didn’t know the name was a joke so I told Grant to be a bit cautious about getting a picture. Then we walked in and realized they were in on the joke. In fact, they even made a hilarious video that was on Ellen below:
After grabbing a quick bite at 1816 (a surprisingly great stop) we made our way to Santa Claus to go to Holiday World and Splashin Safari. A wild and crazy theme and water park in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields. While we both enjoyed it...we are slowly realizing that it is getting harder to ride roller coasters. Grant said this—not me—I am still young as he technically is a year older.
Grant hadn’t seen Indianapolis so he wanted to check it out. We decided to take a different route back and that let us make a quick pitstop through Bloomington. We figured we are probably never going to be in this area again or at least not for a long while so why not see as much of it as possible. It was a cute college town with a square similar to Denton where Grant and I went to college.
We finally made it back to Indianapolis and checked into our amazing hotel. We stayed at the Crown Plaza Downtown/ Union Station. They converted an old train station into a hotel. What was even cooler was before they sealed the building they rolled in old train cars and converted them into hotel rooms. When I saw that I had to stay there. They were super accommodating and let us stay there without any upcharge. I don’t think I will ever sleep on a train car again without comparing it to this experience!
We rented scooters, I showed Grant around a bit, ate some lunch, and then headed to the airport. This flight was pretty uneventful although the women next to me was a character that kept me entertained. She was praying profusely and with all the rocking method her wig liner started to ride up and it was not a good look. She told me that she hopped on this flight from Indy to move to Las Vegas without a plan. I tried to give her some advice about the things to do, but she said she just wanted to party. I didn’t have the heart tell her that it was 108 degrees out and most everything was closed...I do hope she found her party.
Upon landing in Vegas, we hopped an Uber and made it over to Paris. We ate at Mon Ami Gabi again like last time, gambled— I won $87 on the slots and we high tailed it back to the airport to not lose anymore. Boarded the last Spirit flight plane and headed home.
The last flight was a bit of a thriller without a satisfactory climax. The lady next to me, who loved Kim Kardashians' look, sat down in the middle seat with myself on the aisle. She openly let me know that she was pregnant and had thrown up on the way out there. Her husband who was in front of her turned around and joked...be careful it went everywhere. I politely offered her my barf bag, but looking at how small the bag was in comparison to an adult mouth— I was anxious. Fortunately, we made it through without any incident, but I was on the edge of my seat— literally— the entire flight.