Last Harley Davidson Museum pic. I like this old poster.

This, too.

Possibly a little too ostentatious for the Kona neighborhood.

Various & Sundry.

War years.

So. The Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. For people who like motorcycles, this is....um....the Louvre. If you don’t like motorcycles, maybe best to just skip ahead.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Yep, Wisconsin.

Lots of brats etc, on the grills by the local tailgaters. Wish they would allow this at Dodger Stadium, this parking lot smelled great!

My first time in a domed stadium, although with the mild weather, the roof was open. The mechanics to open and close it look like pretty amazing engineering!

Miller Park, Milwaukee - Brewers vs Cardinals. I mixed it up a little this time, and got seats in the first level up.

One clue that we’re not in the Confederacy any more.

Indiana is state #8 on our road trip. (with Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky & Ohio)

Drive day today. We drove through Crown Point, Indiana, where Barbara grew up. She pointed out the movie theater she went every Saturday afternoon, her schools, and several other memories. Her childhood house, at 316 Pettibone St.

Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

After the race, we came back and cooled off - oh, it was just SO HOT - after long cool showers and a teeny nap, we had a wonderful Asian dinner up the street. And after *that*, we came back to the room.....and are now watching the race all over again on TV replay.

There are a lot of wheels around here.

Well. The 500 is just overwhelming. You are a tiny little human in a cosmic mass of 300,000+ humans. And yet, it’s just so satisfying. “They call it the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, which seems hyperbolic before you’re here, but tame after you’ve experienced it. This ear-splitting sound is the sweetest music ever devised by humans.

With racing, as opposed to some other sports, the higher the seat, the better. We are in the top row!

Of course, you’d have to be a billionaire (or a politician) to actually have these seats for the race......

We were shown some of the tech stuff and monitors at Timing & Scoring, at the finish line. The track is embeddd with receivers, which get signals from each car’s transponders. And the cameras take 10,000 pictures per second. Which comes in handy when there’s a race when one car wins, at 200 mph, by about 3 inches.

Then, we were taken up into the upper floors of the Pagoda, the Inner Sanctum of race-watching.

First off, the Museum.

We have arrived at The Temple of Speed.

Walking to dinner tonight, standing at a street corner we stood next to Roger Penske, who was walking in the opposite direction. (Barbara saw him, I almost never notice other people......by design). I realize that not all readers will realize the magnitude of this moment 😎. Indy royalty, and near the top.

More Netherland Hotel.

And looking up....

Almost forgot....while in Cincinnati we stopped by the Netherland Hotel. If you’re a fan of Art Deco design from the teens and 20’s (and we both are), it’s an absolute masterpiece.

Ok, it’s late Fri afternoon, and we’ve arrived in Indianapolis for the Holy Grail of the trip, the Indy 500. This is the event around which the rest of the trip-plan evolved (over the last 25 years or so) so pardon any hyperbolic gushing from me over the next 48 hours.

At Cincinnati’s “Great American Ball Park”. As far as hot dog ranking: “Better‘n most, not as good as some”

We have left the Confederacy behind, and are now in Union territory. Barbara visited some friends for lunch, while I played hookey and went to the Cincinnati/Pittsburgh game. Two ballgames in three days is pretty good. But three out of three would be even better. The Reds beat the Pirates 5-4, all nine runs scored on home runs.

It was “bring your dog to the ballpark” night.

We went to another minor league baseball game, this a titanic struggle between the mighty Bowling Green (Kentucky) Hot Rods and the intrepid Great Lakes (Michigan) Loons (which is a Dodger affiliate). It was just short of a sellout.

Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace. I noted a “TripAdvisor” review by someone of perhaps limited potential, who scolded the National Park Service for placing this site too far from Louisville or Lexington, “out in the middle of nowhere”. Ah, well.

At the Kentucky Horse Park, Barbara scratched under Mackenzie’s chin, and his eyes glazed over. I tried it a few minutes later, he shook, and didn’t want any part of it. Then this was a few minutes later, from Barbara. Hey, ok - most all dogs like me, maybe it’s pretty different with horses.

Attn: Jamie - We wanted to visit Affirmed’s grave, but couldn’t get in. This is the best we could do.