Yearly Trip To Indy

Yearly Trip To Indy - Chewie & PipI recently made my yearly trip back to the Hoosier State to see brother Pip.  As always the weekend went way to quick, but it was absolutely awesome to see Pip and Lauren again.  I look forward to this trip every year and it had been a while since I’ve made the journey.  Last year, instead of going to Indy for a weekend, we made the trip to Bloomington to be with Matt & Lauren on their wedding day.

I set out early on Friday mid-morning to get a jump on the traffic.  After be-bopping my way across “Corn Corridor” (IE, the most boring drive the in the world between Columbus and Indianapolis) I rolled in to Pip’s place around 3:00 or so.

After that drive, I’d seen more than my fair share of corn and we dove right in to the Star Wars flicks that were released that day on Blu-Ray and some Miller Lite 😉  After checking out the majority of the special features, Lauren got home from work and we sat down to some absolutely tremendous steaks… yummer.

Remember Century Club from when you partied?  Yeah… well, we didn’t do that.  Pip had created a Power Hour CD (a shot of beer ever minute, for 60 minutes) so we gave that a shot (no pun intended).  We must really be getting old cause dammit if we made it about 40 minutes before we threw in the towel.  Now to be fair I don’t think it was cause we were drunk as much as full from that wonderful dinner.  Perhaps next time.  Regardless it was fun as hell.

The View on the Yearly Trip

Corn On I-70
The typical view when driving on I-70 between Columbus and Indy.

Saturday started out as a rather domestic day.  Pip and I spent some time at Bed, Bath & Beyond and I needed a new Hoosier hat so we stopped at Dick’s to pick that up.

G In My IU Hat
G modeling my new IU hat

With our domestic quota more than met, we headed to BW3 for some beer, wings & football!  We got to watch the Hoosiers get a win and surprisingly got to hang out with a buddy that we went to IU with (Awesome to see you Weilhammmer-jammer-nutslammer).

After lunch & football, it was off to the main event.  We stopped over at Pip’s in-laws for a quick visit (good to see the lovely Brenna & Sara) and it was off to a joint called Nickel Plate.  Buford joined Mark, Pip and I and we proceeded to rip it up.  We were joined by another buddy of mine and his wife and we closed out the evening there.

Buford was nice (and sober) enough to give us a ride home and even gracious enough to deal with our Taco Bell request.  Unfortunately, the car had had enough of our bullshit and decided it was done for the evening.  With the dashboard lights flickers and the headlights off, we pulled into the first parking lot we found – Fishers United Methodist Church.  The irony here is simply ridiculous, so I won’t bother describing it.

Buford At The Hood
Buford pretending he’s in the pits at the Brickyard
Pip Shrugs
Pip giving in to the enevitable.

At the end of the night, Lauren picked us up and then Angela drove all the way across town to pick up Buf.  Thanks ladies.

Pip & Chewie At Nickel Plate
Bros @ Nickel Plate

And just like that… it was Sunday and time to get my ass on the road.  While I always have a blast on trips like this I’m always super excited to get home to A, G & C.

I decided I couldn’t handle the Corn Corridor again so I went the Northern route on the way home.  This is significant only in that I’ve been driving back and forth to Indiana now since 1994 and I’ve never gone this way before.  While there was certainly an abundance of corn on this route as well, it wasn’t nearly as boring as the I-70 strip between C-bus and Indy.  Definitely will be taking this route again.

Want to thank Pip and Lauren once again for their hospitality.  Love you guys.

And for those of you that are wondering… the 2012 version of The Beeramind will return when Pip makes his way to C-town in late March.  Already looking forward to it!

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