Going all the way to St. Louis for a tournament Jacob couldn't even play in felt a little crazy, but after passing through last month and seeing the Arch in person, and knowing there was a Chihuly exhibit in town, I was on board. Jacob had expressed an interest in stopping in New Castle, IN along the way because there's a massive high school gym there as well as the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, so he still really wanted to go. Once Craig's season ended and he was free to come with us to reduce the driving load and stay with Jacob while Carter and I did all the things, the trip was a go!
I was struggling a bit leading up to it--simultaneously excited but nervous, making plans but also not doing the normal amount of prep ahead that I normally do. I don't know if I thought something was going to ruin it (probably) or if I was just busy (that didn't help), but I didn't pack until the last minute and needed the half day I took before we left to get myself together. I suppose we didn't do great on some food/snacks, but we tried, and overall I guess we got lucky I didn't forget anything big.
We left as soon as we could after picking Carter up from school at dismissal. I think in the end it was around 4:30? Not as soon as I wanted to get going but within the realm of what I expected. I drove the first leg to Erie where we stopped for dinner. I wasn't feeling particularly great--I had actually gone to the doctor for some stomach pain the day before (just because I didn't want it to get worse while we were gone if it was an easy fix). I never did figure out exactly what it was, but I had an antibiotic just in case. The pain subsided ahead of the antibiotic, but my system still felt a little off and my stomach gurgled a lot en route. Luckily it ended up not being anything but a giant gas bubble, but the last few minutes before stopping I was getting nervous!
Our goal was to get to Columbus that night. It was about six hours from home, and due to our slightly late start and Craig's preference to stay and eat at the restaurant, we were going to be getting there late. I booked a last minute hotel on the nearer side of Columbus to save us a little time. We had another stop or two along the way, so in the end we didn't get to the hotel until closer to 11:30. But we didn't have to get up too early the next day, so it was fine...and it was a Holiday Inn Express, so yay for cinnamon rolls in the morning! But of course the next morning took longer than would have been ideal, and we didn't get on the road quite as early as we would have preferred. Our main concern was the option to go to the Cardinals game that night, but it would depend on us getting into town by dinner time. It became clear pretty quickly that likely wouldn't be happening because we had six hours of driving plus a stop that would take a bit, and once we added in lunch, it was almost impossible.
We got off the highway in New Castle and headed toward the high school. We found it, but it turns out the giant gym is sort of sunk into the ground so there wasn't much we could see from the road. Plus, it was a school day so we thought it might be sketchy to look around. We drove past it and continued on around the corner to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. We never even knew it existed until 2018 when we were searching for info on the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts when we traveled to a tournament nearby. Craig saw this cool picture online but then realized it wasn't of that hall, but rather the Indiana one. We sort of tucked that thought in the back of our minds in case we ever happened to pass through, and after we drove directly through New Castle on our trip home from Springfield, I think Jacob decided we needed to go next time through.
We arrived to a nearly empty parking lot--no surprise since it was a Friday morning--and of course had to get a picture with the giant shoe outside!
This was the front. Notice the Indiana pavers in the circle.
Initially the entry way was low-key--just a bunch of display cases and a guy at the desk that was probably surprised to see people!
Their collections are impressive, and only about a quarter of what they have is on display! They're planning on expanding. They had everything--banners, mascots, scoreboards, old hoops, uniforms, varsity jackets, balls, trophies...just anything you could imagine from the history of Indiana basketball. We first watched a 15 minute movie about the sport's history in the state, which was actually a nice intro to some of the names and other state-specific things we'd see referenced around the hall.
They had this cool hallway downstairs that had an old-school concession stand and a bunch of information on the Indiana State Champions.
I loved this display of state champion pennants--there were a couple sets of them--but they looked cool.
There was so much to see, and with our limited time we couldn't really look closely, but it was truly impressive.
Around the back there was a shooting activity where you could recreate a last-second state championship-winning shot. There were five seconds on the clock to hit it. Of course Jacob was up first!
He missed his first but pretty quickly made one. And much to everyone's surprise, I walked up and made mine on the first shot!
We all eventually made it and each earned a ribbon like this!
We had the place all to ourselves and ended up getting a lot of individual attention from the workers there. One was cleaning it and the other was her husband, but they both had a lot of stories and facts to share! They were so friendly and while the husband was talking Craig's ear off, I wandered around so I could catch anything important we needed to see before taking off. I found a Larry Bird corner...
...and his plaque among the many, many plaques on display.
I could share a ton of pictures because the place was really amazing. They took a picture of us before we left because they like getting people from out of state! Oh, and before we left they suggested going to a nearby town, Knightstown, to see the actual gym used in the filming of Hoosiers. When they said it was free, it was hard to say no. I knew it meant no baseball game (but the rain was coming anyway, so it wasn't likely we'd be able to go regardless), and I knew Jacob would probably really appreciate it. So off we went!
We found the spot but outside it looked pretty unassuming. We parked on the street and walked in.
I'll admit I've probably never watched the movie the entire way through, but it was still pretty neat to see the gym in person, complete with the Hickory Championship banner on the wall. Most of it is the same as the movie other than the scoreboard and a couple other things they needed to tweak in order to keep it as a functional high school basketball facility. They have games all the time!
We even got a tour down in the locker room. It was pretty rustic, which grossed Carter out a bit! The jerseys on display are left behind by teams that play there.
The boys were excited to be able to shoot on the court!
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| Jacob got cleared to resume activities (slowly) a couple days before |
Once again, there was almost no one else there so we got a lot of personal attention from the workers. Craig was really into it and trust me, our souvenir haul more than paid "admission"! It was a really neat experience, and Jacob kept talking about going back again on our way home. Alas, our timing wouldn't quite have worked, but I'm glad we made the detour.
It was already past lunch time so we stopped at a Chipotle outside Indianapolis for lunch and then got back on the road for the last four hours. We passed Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. I had only seen it in the dark last time and been very impressed, so it was cool to see in the day. Craig agreed it did look huge!
The rest of Indiana and Illinois seemed to take forever. I think by that point we were just eager to get there, and we hit some heavy rain as well. I did catch a picture of the giant cross we saw in the dark last time, too! It's almost 200 feet tall. Notice I'm taking this from the driver's side...but I'm not driving. Jacob--being super tall--kept snagging the front seat for periods of time. Annoying, but I'll allow it because even my little legs didn't appreciate the back for too long.
Finally we got to St. Louis. Carter was excited to see the Arch, and despite the rain, the baseball game was happening as we passed through the city.
We also saw the St. Louis Blues' arena.
We got settled in at the team hotel and then tried to quickly figure out dinner. We found a Firehouse Subs nearby and got there just in time. In fact, they took our trash over the counter at the end so they could empty the bins before we were done. By that point we were having some issues with plans for the morning--Jacob wanted to find a gluten-free place, but between distance and timing and his general lack of an ability to get ready on time, it wasn't working out and he was cranky. It got worse when Starbucks was already closed and he couldn't get his usual snacks there. We didn't end on a particularly high note that night as a result. It had been a long day of driving with a couple cool things, though, which meant the trip already looked worthwhile and gave me hope for the rest of the weekend.
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