In the true spirit of Indiana...

Location: Oxford, OH

So after spending only a day in Illinois, we've already blown through Indiana like bats out of hell. (Well, it's the midwest...so close enough.) Or at least NASCARs around the speedway.

In Terra Haute, we had a fun karaoke and dance party friendship visit at Happiness Bag, Inc. and we even got these obnoxious yellow shirts with their logo on it. They're pretty sweet, not gonna lie. It's funny how sometimes I will not be in the mood for a visit, but then once we're there you can't help but have a ton of fun.

In Bloomington, we got a chance to stay at the Alpha Psi chapter -- the thing was HUGE. I think they're rolling like 150 guys deep in that place (only 95 in the house, but still). Makes me a bit ashamed at how teeny and decrepit our house in Seattle is... They even have six full-time staff during the year. Namely, a maintenance guy which would be AMAZING to have at good ol' Alpha Delta chapter. We also met an initiate from 1933! That's an old Pi Kapp.

We've also had a great visit with the Stone Belt Arc, complete with lunch, crafts, waterballoons, and games (bingo!). But perhaps even more impressive was the incredibly organized and well-executed visit at Noble of Indiana. It was so structured and we weren't used to that, they had something for everyone to do and it gave us a chance to see almost everything they did at the facility. I was lucky enough to be on Team #2 with the seniors and we made some sort of berry pound cake with tons of sugar and Cool Whip which was de-lish. And did some bean-bag tossin', as well.

We also had two days in Indianapolis -- the second of which was a day off the bike and a 9:30am wake up. Talk about sleeping in! So a bunch of us went to the Howl at the Moon dueling piano bar. That was a lot of fun. We even had a couple of our guys get up on stage and play:

Ryan Shippy busted out a solo on the piano to the amazement of the crowd and the members of the band. (We were kind of amazed too; he's usually pretty shy but looked pretty at-home up there on stage!)

And Andrew Lewis played a few songs on the drums. He's actually our TV star: he's a member of a percussion act called The Cadence and is competing on America's Got Talent. (We got a chance to see him for the first time on Tuesday at the Alpha Psi house -- he hasn't been able to tell us anything because he's under contract, so it was really cool to see him on television!) You can see his act from this past week on YouTube by clicking here. I highly recommend it, even though the act itself was 90 seconds. He's the clean-shaven blond guy on this episode. They actually got a really long portion of the show, which was really neat. Spoiler: they made it past this round so keep watching and voting for him if/when the time comes!

We left the IUPUI (pronounced "ooey-pooey" apparently) dorms this morning (thank goodness...they were kind of crappy) for the Ohio border, so now here we are! The ride today was so much better than the last one into Indy -- we only made it 30 of the scheduled 55 miles due to flats and bike troubles that day -- although I know it's only going to get more humid.

Anyway, Cincinnati tomorrow! I'm excited to go back to the place where I won national medals back in high school (most notably, the gold). I want to try and go back to William Harsha Lake where the races were just to see it again, but I doubt I'll be able to. It's a really short day tomorrow, but I'm beat nonetheless so I'm off to bed. Until next time!