Day 19: Friday (Inde to Indy)

Like that clever title? Me, too.

The Framingham crew were up and out more quickly than the Rowan crew Friday morning in order to facilitate a much-desired visit to the birthplace of Harry S. Truman. Throughout this journey, we have been bringing journals and national parks service passports to all the visitor centers at the parks we visit in order to get an official stamp. It's an awesome way to keep record of places we visit. The cousins were kind enough to pick up a stamp for us, despite our missing the trip.

We had another long day of driving without too much to see. That is, until we finalized a plan to visit our dear friend on the road through Saint Louis. Right at 1pm we rolled into the city, parked by the old cathedral, met up with Liz Mochen Rolwes and her 4 youngest and had a delightful picnic alongside the Gateway Arch. Her husband Larry even ducked out of a meeting across the street to join us. It was awesome. She made the picnicking a lot easier by bringing homemade sandwiches, popcorn, and lots of Gatorade. It was fantastic seeing her and meeting her youngest and marveling at how much they had a grown. (Her baby Henry is exactly one week younger than Mary!) (Background for those not blessed to know Liz: she was in my sister Betsy's class at our tiny school, Montrose, a grade above me, so we have known each other for, oh, 23 years. What?! Seriously.)

After saying our goodbyes, we returned to our blessed air conditioning for the ride across Illinois and Indiana. We split with the Framingham crew west of Indianapolis so that they could head south to Cincinnati to visit with Jen's amazing grandmother and we could get an earlier bedtime under our belts. We stayed in downtown Indy which was so incredibly pleasant! With the exception of the uneasy feeling of having a cop or two on every corner and all the street parking blocked off, we had a lovely visit. (it turns out there was some big outdoor concert going on requiring lots of police presence. Phew!) We fed the kids, ordered takeout from a Weber Grill restaurant (so tasty!), and finally got to bed excited that we'd be in our own beds soon!