Diners and Columns, Buildings and Boys

And so my spring breaklet winds down. I worked a couple of days this week but took off Wed-Fri so we could all hang out together. Last year we did our French Lick/New Harmony outing. This year I decided on Columbus, Indiana. I had never been although I had read about its architecture for years. Starting the in the 1940's I believe, the owner of a major company there offered to pay the architect's fees of buildings in the town if the architects were chosen from a list of important architects. Thus the relatively small town is full of buildings by likes of Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Harry Weese, Richard Meijer, Robert Venturi, etc. I'm not actually that hard core of a Mid-Century person....it's the 18th and 19th century buildings that tend to make me weak in the knees, but I do love architecture of all periods. Buildings speak to me, so I was utterly smitten with Columbus. These buildings are often quiet, it's a beauty of simplicity and clean lines, so the town just has a quiet, peaceful beauty. I highly recommend a trip there!

We took off Wednesday morning, moving kind of slowly. Then there were multiple stops at Radio Shacks and Best Buy because of various earbud emergencies. I love my teenagers though. We moseyed along, stopping at the Oasis Diner in Plainfield, Indiana for lunch. A classic diner, and the sign...well, the SIGN! I decided to go with the tenderloin sandwich as it's a classic Indiana dish that I'd never had. Look at this thing....that's supposed to fit onto a bun. I assure you I did not eat it all. Service was great, food was great diner food and the place was sparkling. It made me supremely happy.

Between changing to Eastern time, the ear bud and adapter emergencies and lunch...we managed to hit Columbus many hours late but we didn't really care. We wandered into town about 4:00 pm. That gave us time to stop into the visitors' center (replete with Chihuly) and watch a well done introductory video to the town and grab a map. We wandered a bit, walking and then driving a bit, before tumbling into our hotel. It was a Hotel Indigo and we were quite pleased with it. The boys love hunkering down in a hotel room so Ernie and I went out, found a spot for a drink, and then explored a little more. The next day we planned to get up early and take lots of pictures. Well by the time we'd had a somewhat questionable diner breakfast it was starting to rain. I love rain but it did curtail our walking and picture taking. We persevered...I loved the Cummins headquarters (Kevin Roche) and I was walking along the stone tiles in the grass, under the pergola, I did a classic Cynthia and went BAM onto the ground. I must say that if I ever am doubting that my guys love me I should just trip and fall. They came running, panicked and full of concern. Ernie was trying to help me up and I just kept bleating, "Is the camera o.k? Is the camera o.k?" It appeared to be and apart from a scraped knee and palm and a bit of wounded dignity since I had managed to do this in front of the building's cafeteria with big glass windows full of people....I was fine too. It started to rain a lot harder but made it to the car without getting completely soaked. I was sad because I hadn't gotten photos of the Veteran's Memorial (Thompson and Rose). Owen offered to go take pictures of it in the rain for me (see what a fall does?) but we decided to all go in the rain. It is powerful. Huge limestone columns with details of letters written by soldiers along with the date of their death. Truly powerful. And yet again, standing there in the rain with all three of my guys, surrounded by these columns of loss, I thought about how lucky we are.

 

Almost more than the buildings, I love the landscape design and artwork of the town. Unfortunately we chose a day when the Miller House and Gardens weren't open...oh well...next time.... A few random grey day pictures.....