Corn and colleges...

... but first, I want to get all the road signs out of the way since they are all kind of boring, and there weren't that many on this leg of the journey. Illinois state line (also first time driving into Illinois), first signs referencing a city in Iowa, the Iowa state line (well, technically the Mississippi is the state line, but close enough) and then the signs for Des Moines, my home for the next six months. Also first time I saw signs for Kansas City and Minneapolis.

















Anyways, I got to Indianapolis on Monday night and went to my good friend Hongson's house to spend the night. I got to meet his son for the first time. I was invited to his 100 days party, but since I was going to be driving through now, I did not attend. To say that he is cute is an understatement. They live in Carmel, a northern suburb on Indianapolis. It is pronounced CAR-mel. His wife Angie told me that Indianans have a habit of taking place names from around the world and then pronouncing them phonetically. See if you can do it for Monticello (as in "sell" and not the instrument) and Milan (MIL-an).

















We ate dinner at Bubs Burger and Ice Cream. Since the kid is only a few months old, we had to go someplace a little loud, which was fine with me. He actually behaved really well the whole time I was around. Hongsun and I had the elk burger, and while clearly better for you, the lack of fat and cholesterol definitely robbed it of some taste.

The other picture in the quad-array is the fountain across from Pats and Colts star kicker Adam Vinatieri's house. It was apparently in some commercial where he kicks the ball over the fountain. I tried to take a picture of his house, which looks like it is from the Addams family, but when I tried to slow down some old fat dude in a golf cart (I'm guessing a relative, but I guess it could have been a guard) kind of ran toward my car so, even though I probably would have been fine, I just drove away.









Above is Hongsun's mansion. He lives in the same development as Adam Vinatieri, so suffice to say it is in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Indianapolis area. It cost about the same as his two bedroom condominium in Arlington. And he lives on a lake with actual fish in it. Crazy.









Okay, I have a game for you. One of the above pictures is from Indiana, and the other is from Iowa. Guess which is which. Heck, I don't even think I can tell. Suffice it to say, that from just outside Indianapolis all the way to Des Moines, this is what I saw 95% of the time. In a way, it was kind of cool, but we'll see what I say six months from now.

















Along the way, I passed Champaign-Urbana, IL, so since I had a little bit of time to kill, I stopped by to visit the University of Illinois. The top two pictures are of the main quad. The sign in the bottom left picture speaks for itself. I didn't know what to make of the bears, but for some reason it was located across from the corn thing.









The building on the left is the world famous Assembly Hall basketball arena, supposedly one of the top ten home court advantages in the country, while the building on the right is Memorial Stadium, the home of the hapless, perennial doormat, Fighting Illini football team. The stadium is actually very beautiful, but they are currently doing massive renovations on it, so this was the best shot I could get.
















This was probably the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. Crossing the Mississippi. I tried to get a picture going the other way, but there was too much concrete.









I leave you with some pictures of the University of Iowa located in Iowa City. The town is nicer than Urbana-Champaign, but I think Illinois' campus was more impressive. Then again, I didn't spend as much time here because I will be back.