This last week Greg had a historic preservation conference in Indianapolis during the Halloween time. It was a good conference and Ogden High received a national award for the restoration work done on it. That was not the reason I was at the conference but it was a bonus. I arrived at my hotel, the Crown Plaza which is a restored train terminal turned into a hotel. There is still an active railroad track to the side of the building so you do hear trains go by. On the 2nd and 3rd floors they even have some of the rooms along the outside in converted rail cars.
The red brick building to the side of the hotel is the Union Station which was one of the first in the country. It has beautiful stain glass at the ends and in the ceiling and this is where the conference was held.
That evening I went over to the Indiana Pacers field house while they had a game going on. You could walk into the main lobby without a ticket and could watch the game on a video board and could look into the stadium, though you could not see the floor. It was a very interesting building.
The first day I did some tours of historic areas and we talked with people who live in the areas. We also went to Butler University and to the Hinckle Field House. We were greeted by Butler's mascot.
It was built in the 1920's and originally seated 15,000 people. (It now seats 11,000.) It is where the Indiana state basketball tournaments were held and the site of the movie "Hoosiers". The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and they told us about the restoration work they did on the building.
I even got to shoot some baskets. They wanted me to play for the team after my shooting but I told them I had other commitments.
We went to some other areas around the city and I took some pictures of the beautiful stain glass work in them.
The day was overcast with low clouds and I took this picture in the evening from the War Memorial which is n the center of downtown to show how low the clouds were.
Did I mention they like sports and especially basketball? I came across this statue for John Wooden who was from Indiana along Georgia street which connects the basketball arena with the convention center.
The next day it rained all day and in the evening they had strong winds so they postponed Halloween. Good thing I had indoor classes all day. Friday was a bike tour of the city and various sites. They have a great downtown bike trail. It was partly sunny which made it better than the day before.
We went out to some neighborhoods and then finished at the Monument Circle where we learned about its construction. It is 12 feet shorter than the statue of Liberty. Down one street from the circle is the State capitol building.
From there we went over to Market Place and had lunch.
The afternoon I went along the canal that connects to the White River which runs through town and saw how they did development along this canal.
The evening was the award ceremony in the Scottish Rite Cathedral. It is the tall grey building on the left side in the picture. It was amazing inside. North of the Monument Circle are several monuments and a big green space which is interesting.
That evening on the way back to the hotel there was one building on the circle that had lights in the window celebrating the season.
It was time to go home back to my loving Cindy that I missed for the week. On the way home I took these two pictures. One of the Grand Canyon as we flew over it and the other of the Bingham Canyon mine.
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