October 30th, 2007
On Tuesday we made the trek to Indianapolis for the Haunted Hotel. We found out right before we left that the otel had “friendly” and “frightening” hours. The friendly hours ended at 3:30 so, there was no time to make it for them. Max was still gung ho for frightening and Jack was unsure. After Max and I bought two tickets, Jack changed his mind and we made it a foursome. oth boys repeated the matra of “I’m not afraid” and “This isn’t going to scare me” all the ay up to the entrance. After the first person lept out at us, Jack did his best remora imitation and glommed onto Lisa leg. But he wasn’t afraid he said. He was just being careful (it was dark after all). The Hotel was a Haunted House at my speed. Lots of dark rooms and the scariest thing was some compressed air and shadowy figures shouting “boo.”
We wove our way through the maze of rooms for about 20 minutes before exiting through a large rotating tube. A nice touch of disorientation to top things off. Once outside, Max bought some green glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth, Jack got a multicolor spinning light and I bought a big gross squishy eye (seems fitting given my current project). There was about 15 minutes left before the museum closed and Max and Jack wanted to visit the Robots+ Us exhibit. More specifically, they wanted to visit the kiosk showing the classic Donal Duck cartoon “Mordern Marvels” )or something like that). I’m glad to see they are cultivating the proper priorities.
The cartoon finished just at closing and we joined the parade of partrons marching out. Seems this parade (with flags, etc) is the best way to get folks out. It made us all miss Huntingdon, PA. They just don’t have parades out here like they do back home.
Needlesss to say, we were all hungry and headed off to find someplace to eat. We drove up Meridian street to 86th (about 50 blocks) and in the process discovered that Max loves to navigate. Map in hand, he gleefully charted our progress past various landmarks, Lisa was relieved to finally have someone else to take over navigation chores when I am driving.
Jack had been pleading to go to Applebees for some reason, and it just so happens we found one; conveniently across the street from a Half Price Bookstore. Lisa and I couldn’t eat fast enough.
I took the first shift with the boys as Lisa looked around and, as usual in a public place, they both had to go to the bathroom. Have I mentioned our potty trips? They are usually quite extensive and involve deep conversation that divert attention from the task at hand. Both boys had to sit down, which meant we were in for about 10 minutes each (if I was lucky). In that time we talked about the nature of “number 2″, the height of the toilet paper dispenser and the loudness of the hand dryer. Both boys usually finish in the first minute, but enjoy sitting and talking. I, however, get quite anxious. There are three of us in one stall and I was paddled as a kindergartener for being part of a cadre of boys using the same same toilet (we ha just been warned not to do this, and frankly, none of us had considered it until the idea was put in our heads).
The trip home was uneventful. Except for the fact that Jack kept turning on his flashing light and I felt repeated surges of fear that I was about to be pulled over. At home, I put my new eyeball over my eye and inadvertently scared the willies out of Jack (he jumped and screamed). The upside was that he snuggled up to me that night when he went to bed, not something he has ever tended to do with me. All I had to do was give him the creeps.
