Indianapolis
After 4 years, I finally made it to Indianapolis to visit Rachael in her new (ok not really) city. The drive was 4 hours from Emmanuel's and 5 from home. We lucked out and were able to buy gas only in Fort Wayne where we found a $3.73 price, only good in comparison to my fills for about $3.95 at home. The drive wasn't bad, except for the weather. I had to adjust the wipers or the A/C about every 2 minutes to keep up with the rain changing. It drizzled; it rained; it downpoured so that the road was really hard to see. At some points, it was sunny and raining at the same time or lightning clusters with no apparent thunder. Who knew the end of the world was in Indy? Based on what everyone else was wearing, my little blue dress seemed the most appropriate clothing choice. There are not so many places I feel comfortable wearing that and the red lipstick that went with it. We ended up being the people from the furthest away: I only know that because everybody reacted to us with "oh, you're the ones from Michigan." Rachael certainly thanked us enough, but I had a great time. Rachael had rented a party bus, complete with a TV to watch Michigan play Alabama and a pole. Our first destination was a drag show. They were very entertaining, though I wasn't crazy about the girl that practically gave me rug burn on my face. Don't ask. The music was hard to dance to but fun anyway. We ended up heading back to the bus because there was no free water, and we were joined shortly by the others returning. At bar #2 we went to the lobby and got our hands stamped then half of us went across the street to eat. We never made it back to club #2 but I heard it was a fun one. Despite that we had just met all the others, the conversation was easy and fun. By club #3, I was loosened up all the way and loved it. They had plans for bar #4, but we ended up just going back to Rachael's house. We spent maybe an hour catching up and all went to bed exhausted and slept in the next morning. Complements of Rachael's old waffle iron, we enjoyed some delicious pancake shaped waffles with pumpkin butter. After a long drive back, we managed to make it back to St. Mary in time for mass.