INDIANA - KOKOMO, INDIANAPOLIS, SOUTH BEND, ET AL

Our crossing from Kenosha to Michigan City was perfect until the bitter end at which point it got rather windy.  Fortunately, the wind was on our port side hip and did not cause any real problems or discomfort.  We slid into the outter harbor (and I do mean slid, as there as a spot where the water was only 4.5 feet deep before it got plenty deep again) and cut the hard left into the basin where all the docks are.  This is a pretty nice spot.

When we got there, Brenda's folks, Larry and Bonnie, were there waiting for us.  It sure is nice to pull into a harbor and see familiar faces waving to you as you are pulling into the slip.  We took some time on the trip across the lake to organize the boat, so we were not long until we hopped in the car and headed out for an early dinner and drinks. 

We haven't really explored Michigan City yet, but it is a rather depressed little town situated next to a nuclear power plant, the cooling tower of which spews steam day and night.  And there is a perpetual and ubiquitous hummmmmmmm coming from the power plant.  That has to affect a person.  From what I can see so far, Indiana is a very industrial state.



Larry and Bonnie picked us up in the morning and we took off for Kokomo.  We packed the cats in the car too as we did not want to leave them alone on the boat for 3-4 days (I did, but Brenda was not having it at all).  So for the next couple hours, we all got to enjoy listening to Tarmac whine and complain.  Actually, it sounded from time to time like she was actually speaking.  She has an interesting kink in the top of her tail.  I think she is part Siamese and this explains why she is such a "talkative" beast.  Tarmac also has very round eyes, almost human.  When she stares at you, those eyes can be rather disturbing to the uninitiated.  I have two friends who are veterinarians (Val and JD).  Perhaps they can tell me what the hell is wrong with this cat!!!  Runway, on the other hand, is a well adjusted little princess who never does anything wrong.

So, we have the black cat, Tarmac, with human eyes, a kinky tail, and who lives like a tightly wound spring at all times and who can manage to "hoark" on everything and anything at a moment, seemingly effortlessly or at will, who makes more noise than a diesel engine when she wants to, and who is more demanding than a teenage girl; and then you have Runway, the white cat, who is quiet, cuddly, soft, reasonably cat-like in demeanor, and who is completely malleable.  I really don't know how you get two such different "children" coming from the same household.  Very strange.  Anyway............

Once we got out of Michigan City, the countryside changed quite a bit.  This part of Indiana is all rolling hills and fields of corn and soy bean intersperced with groves of trees all shedding their leaves and changing colors.  It's really pretty.

We stopped for lunch at this place that looked like an old log cabin.  There was a big sign on the front that said, "Restaurant".  When we went in, we sat and reviewed the menu.  We have seen this a number of times;  the menu is a billboard for local advertisers, as are the placemats.  It's all very quaint. 

So as we are sitting there conversing, I was almost knocked out by a wave of smell that reminded me of the floor of a cow pen.  It smelled like a fertilizer factory moved in next door.  Then, I noticed it was coming from the next table at which four rather large men had just reposed.  One glance told the story.  They were employees of a local dairy farm.  No wonder the stink!  They all came in with their boots on and they did not look clean.  It was pretty funny.  Soon enough, my eyes stopped watering and I was able to enjoy the brisket sandwich I was having for lunch.

This is a blow up of the sign in front of this restaurant.  I love it.

After lunch, we continued down the road to Kokomo.  The first thing we did, however, was get the hotel rooms squared away and the cats delivered.  Then, we went out to explore the town.  Brenda's mom was tour guide as she was born in this town. 

Kokomo is not a big town, but it is busy.  There is an east-west bound highway as well as a north-south bound highway running through the town, so it is a busy place.  There is a lot of manufacturing going on here.  The manufacturing plants appear to be fabricating parts for automobiles.  I suspect these parts are then shipped to Detroit where the cars are finally assembled.  I'm not entirely sure of all this, but this is what it looked like. 



Unlike some of the other places we have visited, there was not much of that mixture of old and new - just old and older.  Everyone in town works for a factory or works in support of a factory.  If one of these factories goes out, a big part of the community will go with it.  At the moment, things appear to be pretty stable, but I suspect it is a tenuous stability.

Nevertheless, we went to this very cool park, Highland Park, where there are a couple famous "Kokomoan"monuments housed in buildings there adjacent to a covered bridge that looks like one that someone stole from Vemont. 

There is this really big tree stump.  Not sure of the whole story on this thing, but it is huge and it is now protected inside a structure and you view it through glass. 

Kokomo is known as the "City of Firsts." So it should be no surprise Kokomo is the FIRST city
 to turn a giant sycamore tree stump into a monument and encase it in glass. In fact,
 it's the World's Largest Sycamore Stump, 57 feet in circumference and 12 feet
 high. Once a massive Sycamore tree shading Kokomo,
 it was nearly 800 years old before storms broke it down.  The stump survived
 and extended its role as a Kokomoan gathering place. For several years, a telephone
booth, large enough to accommodate more than a dozen people at a time, was
housed inside it.  The stump has been displayed in Highland Park since 1916.

Then there is Big Ben, the stuffed cross bred steer who was better than 5000 lbs when he died.  I remember visiting a friend in Oklahoma and being introduced to "Goatzilla" (a goat so big it could stand up against the side of the trailer and eat the grass out of the rain gutters.....no really!), but this is definitely "Cowzilla".  This dude is huge!

For over 90 years, a 2.5-ton stuffed steer named Old Ben has been on
display in a big glass box in Highland Park.

In February 1910, Ben slipped on some ice and broke his leg. With understandable
 reluctance, his owners called in a veterinarian and had him shot.
 His hide was sent to a taxidermist in New York and stuffed and mounted.
The beef was shipped to Indianapolis, where it was converted into hotdogs.

We then rolled over to a house that had been convereted into a museum.  It is the home of Elwood Haynes.  I had never heard of him before.  As it turns out, I probably should have.  This man's contributions to science and industry are every bit as big as guys like Edison, Ford, Westinghouse, et al. 

Haynes was a pioneer in the American automobile industry.  He was born in 1857 and died in 1925.  In his time, Haynes designed and built one of the first automobiles powered by a gasoline internal combustion engine.  In 1898 Haynes co-founded the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company. Haynes continued to manufacture automobiles until 1924. He also held a number of metallurgical patents (Stelite)  and built the Stellite Corporation.  Ultimately, he built the Stelite Corporation (which is still in Kokomo today) into a multimillion dollar enterprise manufacturing an early form of stainless steel.  While I admire his automobile building enterprise, I find his metallurgical work far more interesting.

Haynes developed a methodology to make stainless steel as well as cobalt-base alloys; alloys that today, we call "space age."  These alloys are capable of withstanding tremendous heat and stress and are virtually corrosion proof.  It just so happened that his inventions came in time to permit the United States to tool up for the great industrial revolution spurned on by two world wars.  Obviously, his business took off.  His alloys, referred to as Stellite, are in use even today for such things as the turbine blades in fuel pumps that power Atlas rockets.  His metal is used in nuclear submarine construction for valves and other parts subjected to enormous heat and stress.  His alloys are used to make the leading edges of helicopter rotors.  Clearly, Haynes was a man of great success and achievement in the Kokomo area and elsewhere.



The story does not end, here, however.  Apparently, Haynes' automobile firm collapsed in 1924 due to a slump in the auto sales market and his refusal to budge from building luxury automobiles.  Moreover, Haynes apparently earned himself a reputation as a factory owner who was unconcerned with worker safety.  There are stories of how injuries were a daily occurrence in his factories and the company's safety record never improved.  He is also alleged to have been very "stingy", paying his workers less than 18 cents per hour in 1915 for 11 hour days, six days per week.   



Haynes did manage to make himself a very wealthy man, however.  In 1920, Haynes transferred his interest in the Stellite Company to Union Carbide for $160 million in stock, with the dividends providing him income of over $500,000 per year.  That was a lot of bread in 1920.

The Elwood Haynes Museum was dedicated in 1967 and stands as a reminder that Kokomo is actually the home of several industrial wizards which emerged and changed the way we live our lives.  Regardless of the names of the individuals involved, Kokomo is known as "The City of Firsts".  Here are just a few:

1894 - the first commercially built automobile
1894 - the first pneumatic rubber tires
1895 - the first aluminum casting
1902 - the first carburator
1906 - the first stellite cobalt-base alloy
1912 - the first stainless steel
1918 - the first howitzer shell
1918 - the first aerial bomb with fins
1920's - the first mechanical corn picker
1926 - Dirilyte Golden Hued Tableware
1928 - the first canned tomato juice
1938 - the first push-button car radio
1941 - the first all metal life boats and rafts
1946 - the first national bank
1947 - the first signal seeking car radio
1957 - the first all transistor car radio

and many, many others.  In less than a 24 hour period, my whole perspective of the State of Indiana changed.  I had no idea this was a state where so much innovation occurred.

At the end of the day, we stopped in to visit with Bonnie's Uncle Jim.  He is a very nice fellow who welcomed us into his home.  We sat and talked a while and made plans to see him again in the very near future when his kids were around and could spend some time visiting as well.

Then it was off to dinner.  Great steaks here in Indiana. 

Today, we will go to Indianapolis.  I hope to see the speedway, and some of the downtown area. 

More later.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

These are the words spoken at the start of every Indianapolis 500.    All I can say about the Indianapolis Speedway is WOW!  I have watched the event on television several times, but you do not get the size of this place on tv.  The fact of a 2.5 mile track is completely lost in the translation as you do not really get just how big a place with a 2.5 mile oval track really is.  This place is very impressive.

The Speedway was constructed in the very early 1900's to essentially test new cars being built.  There was no place really to do it as the roads in Indiana were all dirt, at the time.  You have to remember that, in those days, Indiana was home to most of the automobile makers of the day.  Having a track where new vehicles being designed and built could be stretched out to their limits was important so the makers could see how they were doing.  A couple years later, they started racing events.  And with rare exception, the Indy 500 has been run every year since 1911.  Now, they also run a NASCAR race there (the Brickyard 400) and a motorcycle race.  It is interesting that there are not more racing events, but it is the track owners' perogative.  I didn't know that the track is wholly privately owned and has never cost a single tax dollar.

The museum/racing hall of fame is very cool.  Inside there is a collection of each of the cars that have won the Indy 500. It is astonishing to see the variations in technological development that have taken place over the years, and it is important to appreciate that all of these innovations and automotive advancements have ultimately trickled down to us regular road drivers to make our vehicles safer and better. 

The two big trophies are there too. There are photographs of all the race car drivers.  There is even a car you can sit in to have your photograph taken.  It's a lot harder to get out than you might think.

Brickyard 400 Trophy

Indy 500 Trophy

Perhaps the best part of the visit is the bus ride.  For the price of a 6 pack of beer, you can hop on a bus and take a lap around the big track.  Again, television does nothing to convey the sense of how big a 2.5 mile oval track is, or how narrow it is in the straight aways, or how steep the banked turns are.  Television simply does not convey the sheer enormity of it all.

This is one of Riichard Petty's cars.

The very old

When the track was originally built, the surface was made of crushed rock, sand, gravel, and some clay, all held together with water.  This didn't hold up too well, so a decision was made to bring in more than 3 million bricks.  Thus, the place became known as "The Brickyard."  All the bricks were made right here in Indiana. 

The very new

This is the car that won the very first indy 500 in 1911.

Later, as the bricks began to decay, asphalt was poured right on top of the bricks and a new surface was had.  Now it is very well maintained asphalt all the way around.  Interestingly, the new surface is on top of the old two.  History is simply buried here. 

Obviously the surface is of great importance insofar as the cars racing there today hit speeds approaching 240 miles per hour!

This is the start/finish line - the only bricks remaining from the original setting.

This is the platform hanging over the track from which the guy waves the
different colored flags including the checkered flag.

And you really do not appreciate when watching the event on television just how small pit row really is and how little space the crews have to work when they change four tires, add fuel, clean the window, the grill, adjust the suspension, water the driver, etc., all in less than 10 seconds.  Due to the size of pit row, it is a process that requires the ultimate in coordination and teamwork.  It is amazing more pit crewmen are not run over in the process given how small their space to work really is.



So, we saw victory lane, Gasoline Alley, the start/finish line (the only bricks left), as well as the observation suites, the score tower, and all the other items of legend at the Speedway.  It was an exceptional time.  I plan on watching the next event next year.  Our bus driver just attended his 50th Indy 500.  Racing is alive and well.







We then took a quick road tour of downtown Indianapolis before heading back to the Kokomo area to visit with family members, and then ended the day at none other than Whitecastles.  You have to do Whitecastles when in the mid west.

Tomorrow, we will head back north to South Bend where we will visit and tour Larry Donovan's favorite football enterprise - Notre Dame University.


The weather is looking pretty good in terms of it allowing us to get from Michigan City to Chicago this weekend.  However, it also looks like another front is headed our way.

More later.



Well, we didn't quite make it to tour South Bend and Notre Dame University today.  However, we did quite a bit of road travel.  We travelled from Kokomo all the way to Auburn, which is right near Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Larry Donovan has a friend there named Carl, who is getting up in years and who unfortunately, injured himself.  So since we were all here, it made sense to drop in and visit with Carl.






Carl lives some distance off the main highway on a large piece of land on which he has acres and acres of corn fields and acres of very dense woods.  Although he is not a farmer by trade, he did it for fun for many years.  He had a barn full of tractors and farm implements that were intersting to see as well.

Carl took Brenda and I out for a ride in the Polaris - basically a gasoline powered, lifted, 4 wheel drive, golf cart with a roll cage, and showed us the property.  The corn is just about ready to harvest.  It never occurred to me that the best condition for the corn to be harvested in is dead and dry.  This is not the kind of corn we city folk imagine eating with butter dripping down our chins.  This is corn that will get sold to a Grain Elevator, and then on the open commodity market.  It is the kind of corn that will be used for all things other than eating.  However, it might very well be used to make an ingredient for something you might eat (i.e. corn starch, corn syrup, corn oil), or it might be used to make some fuel you cook with, or an implement you use to eat or to cook corn with.  What an amazing product.  It has so many uses. 



It seems corn and soy bean are the main crops around here.  So much of it goes to waste.  Our goverment actually pays farmers not to farm.  We are capable of feeding the world, and certainly our own citizens, but I guess there are larger concerns of which I am not fully aware.  Frankly I am not interested.  We should be feeding our own people in any way we can.




Anyway, there are a lot of Amish folks who live out in the area where Carl lives.  In fact, he had an Amish crew building a barn on a portion of his property.  These are apparently very hard working folks.  They came to work at 0600 to pour the slab and by 1300 already had half the roof up. 

Then as we drove down the road, we saw numerous buggies pulled by gorgeous black horses.  The buggies were loaded with the Amish men and women going to work or wherever they go.  It's nice to see that there are folks out there hell bent on preserving their old traditions and their old ways.  It's just hard to gather that, in this world of the information superhighway, the WWW, and smart phones, etc., they can live without electricity.  I hate to think of what would happen to them in the event of a major natural catastrophe where advance information made the difference between life and death.  Well, I suppose they would probably do ok, as they seem to have been doing so since they came to this land in the 17th century.  I guess technology is not always what it is cut out to be.



Speaking of which, we were saddened to hear of the death of Steve Jobs.  He was an innovator whose work will always be remembered and which made a difference in all of our lives.  I can only imagine what a conversation would be like between Steve Jobs and the members of an Amish household.  That would be quite interesting.

Well, today, we will visit Notre Dame University before making our way back to the boat.  Our plan is to leave for Chicago on Saturday morning, stay a couple days, and then start making our way down the river system, to Lulu's in Gulf Shores, Alabama where we will close our loop.

More later from the home of the Fighting Irish.

This is homegame weekend.  There are fans all over the place.  The motel where we were staying was crawling with fans of the Fighting Irish.  Everyone of them was wearing something that said Notre Dame or Irish on it.  The fan following is quite serious.  When a hotel is full, it means they are coming from all over the place for this weekend's game against Air Force.  Well, we had a nice time wandering around the campus and seeing some of its more impressive sites.

Notre Dame Stadium. 

Notre Dame is a rather old institution as American academic institutions go.  It was founded in 1842.  It was not as big back then as it is now.  Today, the university encompases over 1200 acres.  The one thing you notice right away is just how beautiful the campus is.  The archetecture is largely gothic and the landscape is park-like.  There is beautiful artwork in the form of sculpture and archetecture all over the campus.

This mural is referred to as "Touchdown Jesus" and appears on
 the south wall of the main library.

It is said that, "Notre Dame has a unique spirit. It is traditional, yet open to change. It is dedicated to religious belief no less than scientific knowledge. It has always stood for values in a world of facts."
You really get this impression when you walk around the campus.  The kids are in school now, so there is momentum all over the campus.  This and the fact that today is Friday before a home game against Air Force, and there is an energy that is motivating.

The field is ready for Saturday's game against Air Force.

The bookstore was full with patrons buying up all kinds of Notre Dame gear.  Everthing from sweatshirts and shorts to baby bibs and shot glasses with the emblem of the Fighting Irish is for sale.  The marketing effort is extraordinary and like nothing I can recall seeing.

Notre Dame's Mission Statement:  "The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice."

Moreover, the current President of the University said, “Promoting truly great teaching and scholarship while preserving and enhancing our Catholic character are my top priorities as president of Notre Dame,” he said. “The University’s tradition of excellence in research and commitment to address the complex issues facing society – guided by our faith and desire to remain true to our Catholic heritage – spurs us to think, speak and act in ways that will guide, inspire and heal … not just for our students and fellow followers of the Catholic faith, but for all of our neighbors in the nation and around the world.”Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s 17th president, July 1, 2005.

I felt the distinct impression that those things said by the president and in the institution's mission statement are alive and well.

"The gilded Golden Dome and statue of Mary atop the Main Building proclaim the Notre Dame campus as a place where faith is treasured and diverse traditions shared and respected."

Clearly, Notre Dame is one of the foremost universities in the country and seems to be always ranked amongst the top 10 best universities in the country.  This school places a huge emphasis on research and scholarship while promoting the best in terms of its undergraduate schools.  Many universities, on the other hand focus all their big money on the graduate institutes on campus.  I did not know that Notre Dame is where pioneering research and development in the fields of glider aerodynamics, transmission of wireless messages, and the formulae for synthetic rubber took place.  In other words there is a lot more going on around here than football.

This is the first building on the Notre Dame campus. 

Well, our week in Indiana is over and we are back on the boat, preparing to leave for Chicago in the morning. 

It was really nice meeting relatives I have never met before.  Uncle Frank is a character and a half as is Uncle Jim and Aunt Marge.  Their kids are wonderful as well.  They could not have been more friendly.  It's always great to talk to folks from other walks of life and other places and to learn about how they live and think. 

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank Larry and Bonnie for a great adventure.  They both could not have been more accomodating and helpful.  It is absolutely wonderful knowing they are on our side and are perhaps our greatest supporters in this effort we are engaged in.  We really appreciate them for all they have done.  I am sure glad to have Larry and Bonnie as my parents-in-law. 

That's it for now. 

Oh by the way, at the book store, I was able to get Brenda a pair of Fighting Irish deck boots.  The plan is to get her onto the foredeck with a scrub brush from time to time now that she has no concern with getting wet feet.  Only time will tell.  Yeah right!