Indianapolis

I’m not going to write about  the 4th  of July.  I don’t care about the 4th of July.  Of course, it’s a holiday like all holidays, a day off work for many, and any day off work is a good day.  I don’t mind fireworks, although I’m not a particular fan, and cooking outdoors is a fun activity.  I’ve nothing against drinking, either, although I don’t do it any more.  I don’t even object to a little bit of patriotism, it’s good to be proud of one’s country and celebrate the positive aspects of its history.  The thing that bothers me about the 4th, and about America in general, and that’s one  of the reasons I chose to live abroad, is the aggressive, we can beat up every other country and that makes us the best type of patriotism.  Heard a lot of that on the country music stations we were picking up all day today on our drive from New Virginia, Iowa, to Indianapolis.

It had its interesting moments.  We stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Des Moines for breakfast, something we’ve been trying to do since we were in Missouri, 4 days ago.  Had lunch at a KFC in Illinois, and that family bucket was larger  than we expected.  We had chicken to go.
Then the sky opened up and it poured down – dangerously.  We were doing less than 40 on the freeway and any more would have been reckless.  Some cars pulled over to the shoulder and we considered  the same but gutted it out and it was soon over.

Got to Indianapolis with plenty of  light left so  toured the statuary park around the art museum, home of the ‘funky bones’ featured in John Greene’s ‘Fault in Our Stars.’  It was a very cool park and I mentioned to Sam that it was much better than Clark’s tower in Winterset, which we visited yesterday, and he was glad to be credited with a point.

Tomorrow we’ll get up early and try to get back to New Jersey  before it’s too late.