Earlier this month, Jared and I drove to Indianapolis to participate in our first ever photography conference. We spent two days "resetting" at the Reset Conference. It was a mind-blowing experience, and we took away so much from it!
We tried to arrive in Indy early on Friday to explore the city, and to get a brain break, we spent some breaks and evenings walking around downtown Indianapolis. It was a terrific city! This might be crazy, but I think if we were to ever leave St. Louis (which I don't see happening!), we would move to downtown Indy. Everything was walkable. There were restaurant and sports centers (the girls Big 10 was happening while we were there). There was a movie theater, and a theater, and escape rooms galore! There was even a hidden mall! But beyond that, there was a ton of walkable space. Parks, a memorial area and a canal walkway. It was absolutely amazing. It's the type of downtown you could live it, and not ever need to leave, which is how downtown should be.
We really enjoyed our trip, and came back exhausted, but it was so worth it! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip!
This was essentially our view from the hotel … we were just 21 floors up. It overlooked Monument Circle and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. I loved the view … it looked so European!
It was quite the introduction to the city.
When we go to Indy on Friday, there was still a little bit of daylight, so we went wandering. There is SO much in their downtown area. We walked about a block from our hotel and ended up in, what I can only describe as being, a mini version the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Monuments and statues galore! It’s called the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza. The first thing we came across was the Depew Memorial Fountain, and a few statues that surrounded it. The next building was huge! I thought maybe it was the governmental building, but it wasn’t. It was the Indiana War Memorial. And it was HUGE! And there was a crazy person exercising on the stairs, running up and down dozens of them sideways! (Now that’s a workout!)
It was an absolutely stunning building.
At the front of it was this statue, Pro Patria. We really loved the detail on all of it, as well as this view in the right picture, looking back towards Monument Circle.
The Indiana War Memorial building is just stunning! To give you some perspective, there’s my over-six-foot-tall husband looking up at it.
I was really interested in seeing the Scottish Rite Cathedral, but they apparently don’t do tours on the weekend, which was super disappointing. But isn’t that an impressive building?! Across from the cathedral is the American Legion Mall, which housed memorials for World War I, World War II and Korean and Vietnam.
The plaza is laid out in an amazing way. With the Indiana War Memorial building at the south and the sunken garden (which memorializes the nation’s first casualty of World War I) at the north, the other memorials fill in within the plaza. All of the memorials featured a background of what happened, as well as letters from real-life people who fought in each war. This is the World War II Memorial.
As we started to lose the sun, and what little warmth we had left, we went on the hunt for food. (There were some really great restaurants, too!) We saw this wonderful book exchange in front of the stores in Monument Circle. People can borrow a new book whenever they walk by. Such a great idea to put in the middle of the downtown area! Before we left on Sunday, we went on the hunt for dessert and found out that, between all of the restaurants and buildings, there was a mall. Like, a shopping mall. The different areas of the mall were connected with a big circle in between. When we drove underneath it when we arrived Friday, we didn't think of anything of it. So to find out it was a mall! Crazy! And super cool!
This is how we spent our later evenings at the conference. We had stayed out until past 2 a.m. the night before we left trying to find a Nintendo Switch for Jared when it came out at midnight. We were unsuccessful, and I felt horrible! But, as we were getting ready to leave Friday morning, I thought of Best Buy … they hadn’t been open at midnight. So I sent Jared there right when they opened and, to our great surprise, he was able to get one! (It was a crazy story I won’t relay, but we got one!) So I didn’t want him to have to wait until after we got home to play, so I let him take it with us.
This is him getting it set up and playing Zelda for the first time!
Saturday night after the conference, there really wasn’t a lot of time before dark, but we’d heard of this canal walk and we were curious. So we Ubered over and, man, what another amazing sight! There was this stories-tall design at the beginning of the canal. I haven’t been able to find out anything about it, so I’m curious if any of you know!
So we took a picture in front of it! :) From there we went out and walked to the canal. It was super nice. There were more monument and the pathway went over White River and led to the Zoo! It was closed, but we loved how connected everything was. That’s how you do downtown!
On our final day, during lunch and a few breaks, we got out and just walked. The weather was beautiful, and I hadn’t really gotten any pictures of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, so we walked around a bit and enjoyed the sun and sights!
And we took a few pictures, too! :)
At the end of the conference, a super nice attendee was willing to take our picture in front of the Reset sign provided by Simply Color Lab. In addition to all of the great views, it was a terrific conference!