Indianapolis and White River State Park

On the last day of their visit, we went to Indianapolis. We got lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Naturally, there was rock music playing. Dallin conducted.

 And Connor danced.

The picture doesn't quite capture how hilarious/cute his dance is. He moves his fists back and forth while moving his whole upper body and head. It cracks me up!

 We had an awesome, straight out of the 60s, hippie waitress.

The boys followed behind her as she danced around the restaurant.

(It was an early lunch on a weekday so the place was practically empty.)

 Then we went to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, our first visit there.

We've lived in Indiana 3 years now and been to Indy several times, but I'm still surprised at how many things we have yet to do here.

This is at the very heart of downtown.

It's in the middle of a roundabout street with cars driving around it all the time.

Looking at the water feature on the monument.

You can go up to the top of the monument and look out over the city. It costs $2.00 to ride the elevator up, or you can walk up the 32 flights of stairs for free. Which one do you think we did?? 

 It was cool to walk all the way to the top, but I definitely got tired and had to take several breaks.

It didn't help that we were usually carrying one of the boys. Exhausted and nearing the top on a part of the steps without air conditioning, the $2 elevator ticket didn't seem so bad after all.

But we kept going and we made it to the top!

 The view was pretty awesome.

The walk back down the steps wasn't as exhausting, but still tired my muscles. I could definitely feel it the next day. And the day after that... 

 Next we went to White River State Park. The White river runs right through Indianapolis and there is a beautiful, wide open park around it.

We wanted to tour the park in style so we went to a bicycle rental kiosk. They have several different kinds of bikes. From a one seater like this one... 

 ...to this six seater.

Yes, we rode all over the park in a four-pedaler bicycle with two kids in a basket. It was awesome. Seriously, this probably makes my top ten list for most fun tourist adventures. 

Each adult seat had foot pedals to power the bike. Mckay's "driver" seat had the steering wheel that actually controlled our direction. My seat had a faux wheel, which kept throwing me off when I'd try to steer but the bike didn't listen.

Dallin and Connor were in heaven.

We rode down a beautiful scenic pathway.

We stopped for a break to take a picture,

and to let the boys try driving.

There is a canal off the river with a walkway along it for a few miles.

You can rent gondola boats to take you down the canal, but we stayed on our bike along the canal walkway.

The bike rental lasted an hour, but I think we all could have kept going.

We found a grassy area and flew some some wooden airplanes: a parting gift from Grandma and Grandpa.

I love these action shots of Connor.

I can't tell if Connor is excited to fly the plane in this picture or throwing a tantrum because Mckay is trying to take it from him. Given Mckay's face and the talking-to it looks like he's about to give, I'd guess it's the latter.

We explored a few more beautiful places in the park.

Then it was time for Grandma and Grandpa Easton to head over to the airport to catch their flight. We loved having them visit us. We always have such a great time showing of our state.