Indy

This week Kurtis took four days off from work... yea! During each service that he's on he can only take off a certain number of days. Since being here the upper-level residents frequently encourage the interns to "Take time off while you can." Good advice, considering most residents never use up all of their allotted PTO days each year. Also good advice since despite taking the four days off, he still managed to log 30 hours of work time... oh the joys.

With the time off, we decided to take some fun little day trips. On Tuesday we went down to Indianapolis, a.k.a. Indy (the full word is apparently a little too long and the various pronunciations are too much for the locals to handle). We thought it would be good to explore the "big city" a little, since we haven't spent much time down there. Muncie isn't really a "cultural Mecca", so whenever we talk to people about fun things to do around here, everyone always suggests, "Go to Indy." There are all sorts of museums and restaurants there. We also went to an awesome concert there a few months ago, Pete Yorn.


For our trip to Indy we visited the Indiana State Museum. It's a museum exploring Indiana from the beginning of time... literally. The first part of the museum ("The Birth of the Earth") shows Indiana on a map of the ever-changing and moving land masses (Pangea and all) until it found it's way to it's current home on the North American continent. We saw a lot of old rock formations, fossils, and artifacts. The museum also has a section about Indians, and the role their life played in Indiana (who would have thought?!). It's interesting to see historians theories about how Native Americans came to the Americas; you just can't help but add in your own commentary of Lehi and his family. What?! Land-bridge? No Book of Mormons on display? Who runs this place?

The canal that runs through Indy, near the Whiteriver State Park

Another room was full of photos of famous people who were born in, or have Indiana roots: The Jackson family (yes, Michael, Janet, Tito, their psychopath of a father, and the whole clan) was from Gary Indiana, Shelly Long, Kurt Vonnegut, David Letterman, Florence Henderson, and a couple of honorary Hoosiers, like Bobby Knight and Reggie Miller.

There was also an old section of a lock from the Eerie Canal, it was awesome! We also saw an IMAX film about Mummies (not that they have anything to do with Indiana, just a cool movie). Kurtis and I were the only people in the whole theatre, 6 story screen, popcorn, and all; it was great.

Then we explored the city center a little bit. There's a big roundabout with a monument to sailors and soldiers. It was a fun day. Go Hooisers!

The State Capitol in the background