Eiteljorg Museum and Indianapolis Zoo

We awoke at the Sleep Inn around 6 am after sleeping well.  We watched the morning news and went down to the lobby for a nice breakfast.  After a shower and answering some email, we left for the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art which is next to the Indiana State Museum and along the canal.  We saw paintings and sculptures by western artists like Fredric Remington, C. M. Russell, Georgia O’Keefe and many others.  A room featured work by many contemporary western artists as well.  Upstairs we saw art by native people from antiquity as well as items produced by modern native artists.  There were several items from Maria and Julian Martinez of the San Ildefonso Pueblo near Santa Fe.  

I also saw several pots in the Mesa Verde patterns that I liked a lot.  Both of us saw a number of items that we liked and spent about three hours there.  We were also pleased that we received a AAA discount that took the $12 admission down to $10.  They also validated our parking pass which was worth $12 so our visit there was quite a bargain. 

After leaving the museum we went to the car in the underground parking garage below the museum and had a snack lunch of peanut butter and crackers that we had packed from home.  After our snack, we walked the short distance across the canal to the Indianapolis Zoo. 

When we checked in at the zoo we were told that our Cincinnati Zoo membership would get us a discount but the admission we were charged didn’t seem to reflect a discount.  Since the money was going to the zoo we didn’t protest.  We walked around the zoo for over three hours and really enjoyed the displays.  Although the zoo isn’t large, the animals are very well displayed.  Perhaps the Indianapolis Zoo’s feature animals are the orangutans.  They had six orangutans on display of all ages.  They seemed to enjoy their enclosure and entertained the human visitors.

The rhino’s exhibit was also very nice with three adult white rhinos.  While we were there two of the rhinos had an altercation and butted heads right in front of us.  The giraffe exhibit had three adult giraffes that were easy to see.  They had a polar bear, brown bears, a red panda and a number of African plains animals.  We stayed in the zoo until nearly 4:30 before walked the short distance to the White River Gardens and Hilbert Conservatory.  Although much of the growing season is over, there were many plants still in the gardens and conservatory.  We wished that more of the plants had identification labels but the gardens were very worth visiting and the admission is included in the zoo admission.

By 5 pm, we were very tired and ready to rest a bit before looking for a dinner spot so we walked back to the parking garage under the museums and made our way back to the Sleep Inn.  We expected traffic to be really heavy since we were leaving the museums at the height of rush hour.  However, we had little trouble making our way back the short distance to the motel.

After a short rest, we decided on a local drive-in, Mug-n-Bun, that has been in Indianapolis since 1960 serving the local favorite pork tenderloin sandwiches as well as other diner food choices.  We first heard about Mug-n-Bun from the Roadfood segment on NPR’s Splendid Table.  You can eat in your car or at a table under a shelter there so we got a table and ordered pork tenderloin sandwiches and onion rings with homemade root beer to drink.  Neither of us could finish our meals although they were very good. 

After leaving Mug-n-Bun we drove past the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the way back to the motel.  It was a very good day.  We are tired since we were on our feet all day but we enjoyed everything we saw and did today.

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Indianapolis Canals

We were able to sleep in a little at our motel.  The bed was comfortable and the room was very quiet.  We went to breakfast at 8:30 and we were pleased that the breakfast included scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, waffles, hash browns and fresh fruit.  It was much more than we expected from a motel in this price range.  We left the Sleep Inn after showering and drove around the city some.  We parked at the White River State Park and walked around the canal area and to the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument where we walked through a small but informative museum inside the monument.  

We had planned to go up in the monument tower but it was closed for maintenance.  We walked around the canal area of the city a little more past the gondoliers and paddle boat rentals.  The canal here is a restoration of one of Indiana’s many canals that were operating in the area in the 1830s to transport passengers and freight from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River.  

I was impressed by the steam powered clock by the museum.  Since much of Indianapolis is heated by steam, a clock was designed that is powered by steam.  At the quarter hour, the clock sends steam to pipes that play the Indiana state song.  It was quite a thing to see.  We grabbed a sandwich from Subway for lunch then walked to the Indiana State Museum which was near our car at White River State Park.

We were pleased that our membership card from the Cincinnati Museum Center got free admission for us at the Indiana State Museum saving us $26.  We did pay an extra $3 each to visit the exhibit on Prohibition.  The museum was large and very well displayed.  The Prohibition exhibit has only been open for a few days and included displays on the social and political background leading up to the 18^th Amendment then went into the growth of organized crime that characterized the period from 1920-1932.  There was a replica speakeasy and an instructional display on how to dance the Charleston.  

The cultural history section of the museum has many displays of the influence of Indianans on science, culture, commerce, politics and other fields.  Many manufacturers have operations in Indiana and have displays at the museum.  One of the better displays was on the canals of the state that included working models and sections of old canals that have been preserved and reconstructed for the museum.  The natural history area focuses on the geologic history of Indiana.  There were large interpretative displays of Indiana’s native rocks and fossils.  Maps show how Indiana changed over geologic time with the movement of continents.  We found this museum to be one of the better museums we have visited.

We crashed at the room for a bit after the museum just to rest our feet.  Mary did some searching for places to have dinner while we rested.  When we travel we try to avoid chain restaurants or at least chains that have locations in our area.  We like to find places that serve items that are popular in the area we are visiting.  Mary usually consults TripAdvisor for recommendations and we consider restaurants that are highly rated and have mostly positive comments.  We settled on the Rathskeller Biergarten in the Athenaeum Building near the historic Lockerbie Square area.  The menu was mostly German but had a nice selection of sandwiches and bar food as well.  They had a wide selection of German and domestic beers on tap.  The bread basket before our dinner had multigrain rolls and a great hot pretzel.  There was also a cup of hot mustard on the side.  There was so much horseradish in the mustard that it even made me take notice.  Mary had the rouladen which is thinly sliced beef wrapped around a pickle spear and covered in a light sauce. She had a house salad and red kraut on the side.  I had a pork tenderloin sandwich with a potato pancake on the side.  The tenderloin was basically a schnitzel on a bun.  The pork was pounded to an oval shape that is over ten inches long by 5 inches wide.  These tenderloin sandwiches are very popular in the Midwest from Indiana through Iowa.  Mary had a draft hard cider and I had a Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen draft with dinner. We both enjoyed our dinner and our drink.  We returned to the Sleep Inn and planned Monday’s visits to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and the Indianapolis Zoo.  

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