Road trip, Day Three

Well, we had the most wonderful morning, thanks to our Lehman’s tour.

First of all, the day dawned clear as a bell (though very cold — 23F). The rain that had followed us all day yesterday had completely disappeared.

We had an appointment to meet our Lehman’s contacts the moment the store opened up, at 9 am. It was so wonderful to put faces to the names of the people I’d cyber-worked with over the last couple of years.

The tour was too lengthy and in-depth to go into details now — look for a future post on the visit — but suffice it to say the store was every bit as wonderful as I remember from my last visit. Even more so, actually, since I now know some of the history and background behind it.

After our Lehman’s excursion, we made our way toward Highway 70, which will be our home away from home for the next several days.

We passed countless beautiful farms.

Barn envy. I realized Pennsylvania and Ohio left me with a serious case of barn envy.

We departed Ohio and entered Indiana under an arch which said “Ohio — come back soon.”

Several mindless hours of driving later, we started entering the outskirts of Indianapolis at rush hour, complete with rush-hour traffic.

The downtown skyline at dusk was quite lovely.

Our plan was to get to the other side of Indianapolis before stopping for the night, which we did. Older Daughter was craving some Panda Express food for dinner, so she used her GPS to guide us to the nearest restaurant to where we were stopping for the night. As it turns out, this dinner excursion took us through a surreal landscape known as Plainfield, Indiana. (No photos, sorry, it was too dark.)

Honestly, it seemed like a sort of dystopian city straight out of A Wrinkle in Time‘s city of Camazotz. Everywhere we looked, there were ginormous warehouses (including an Amazon fulfillment center). Past the warehouses were apartment blocks, clearly designed for the workers. Past that was the shopping district (including our Panda Express outlet). On the way back to the highway we saw schools, medical centers, and retirement homes. Everything was neatly laid out and scrupulously clean and provided cradle-to-grave goods and services for everyone who lived there, but it seemed very … dystopian in its rigid perfection.

My apologies to anyone who lives in Plainfield for this impression. The Wikipedia entry indicates the city has a long and venerable history, but it sure wasn’t visible from the one road we took in and out.

Anyway, that was our excitement for the day. Tomorrow the REAL driving begins.