Woke up bright and early to drive to Columbus Indiana. Surprising as it sounds, this little town is one of the top “architectural” destinations in the US. Columbus is the home to Cummins Diesel which set up an endowment which would pay the architect’s fees for public buildings, providing that an architect from an approved list was used. As a result, there are buildings by Eero and Eiliel Sarrinen, Harry Weese, I.M. Pei, Roche & Dinkeloo, Thompson & Rose, landscape work by Dan Kiley and much more.

Our plan was to try to make a 10:00 bus tour of the town, but after we were on the road a while, it became obvious we weren’t going to make it, so we resigned ourselves to doing the walking tour on our own. We rolled into the parking lot at the visitor’s center around 10:45, fiddled around and got our stuff in order and headed inside. There we found the tour group gathering and ready to head out the door. Turns out we jumped time zones that morning and showed up on time instead of an hour late. I wish we could always do that…

We had a nice tour and were able to get inside several buildings. Afterward, we had lunch at Zaharako’s - a genuine soda fountain that’s hardly changed since 19-teens when it opened (see Roadfood guide). We had a couple grilled cheese-br-gr sandwiches, a great milkshake and a fresh mixed sarsaparilla.

Later on, still in Columbus, we stopped at a drive-in for the classic in-car dining experience. We feasted on hot dogs and root beer (which was brought to our car by a genuine car-hop) and then drove up to Indianapolis to spend the night.

We called ahead to make reservations at a motel which turned out to be pretty skanky. They only had smoking rooms left since the Brickyard 400 was to be run at the Speedway that weekend. We took one anyway, though we’re pretty sure the first room we were given had been a crime scene the night before. The night lock appeared to have been kicked in and there was something unknown (though it looked suspiciously like dried blood) spattered around the bathroom. We changed rooms and spent one stinky night in Indy.