Christmas Road Trip 2006

For the price of two round trip plane tickets to that holiday hot spot: Des Moines, Iowa we have just returned home from a week long road trip. As usual we left home in the evening and drove all night. When I say we I mean we were both in the car since My Beloved does 90 percent of the driving day or night. As usual we planned to spend the morning in an interesting spot and this time we chose Columbus Indiana. Yes, Columbus Indiana! You mean you didn't know there was a Columbus in Indiana? We'll neither did we until we saw a write up in Dwell my favorite home design magazine. Columbus has quite a collection of modernist buildings and a huge collection of public art in part subsidized by the Cummins family whose deisel engine company is headquartered there.
So we rolled into town around 5am I think and napped in the car for a while. Next we lined up with the locals at a diner which started serving at 6am. I failed to notice the name of the place but had the best road tea I've ever had. Unfortunately the people up at that hour were impressively ignorant about their city so we went over to the Columbus Inn and got a two dollar self-guided tour map. The pictures of Columbus on the Dwell website are probably better but mine have that special quality only the freaking crack of dawn can confer.