Ronald McDonald House – Indianapolis

Indiana – Friday, May 31

My donation today was going to the Ronald McDonald House in Indianapolis – the Crossroads of America. So I headed to the store and shopped for items on their wish list, which included window cleaner, styrofoam plates, laundry detergent and dryer sheets, and individual foods/snacks like cereal, chips, pretzels, Little Debbie desserts, granola bars, poptarts and microwavable meals. I loaded it in the car and headed for the Ronald McDonald House, which was located downtown right by the hospitals. It was a huge house – they have 46 rooms and 6 apartments for families, and they’re always full. They’ve been providing a comfortable place for families of sick kids to stay for 30 years.

One of the people there told me how to find the canal walk that goes right through part of Indianapolis, and despite heavy gray skies, I found a good parking lot, and Tula and I set off with an umbrella. It was a fun canal walk, winding its way a mile and a half through downtown (3 miles roundtrip); under bridges and alongside both commercial and residential buildings. We started off dry, but then the clouds finally burst, and we ended up being out in a downpour. I was happy to have my umbrella, which did a pretty good job of keeping me relatively dry, but Tula got soaked, as did my feet. We waited under bridges a couple times while the worst of it passed. There were a couple gondolas tied up under one of the bridges. The hardest rain hit when we were about as far away from the car as I was going (of course!) so we didn’t have much choice except to keep mushing our soggy way through the rain! It finally began to let up for our last half mile or so, and we covered nearly 4 miles by the time we walked by all the museums back to the parking lot. Tula did great – she didn’t show any signs of fatigue (she likes water anyway), and she was scampering after ducks in the canal, and at one point even jumped up on a 3 foot high ledge to investigate a garden. I was happy to see her acting more like her usual self 🙂

After I toweled Tula off, I left her in the car while I headed out on another walk along the White River, which was part of the White River State Park. I crossed the river a couple times on bridges and walked on both sides of it, getting almost 3 more miles of walking in, and there were only a few sprinkles this time, but it was still very gray out.

By then I’d had enough city time, and headed out of Indianapolis to the Eagle Creek Greenway north of town. I walked for another mile and a half, dodging some raindrops, and finished all 8 miles today. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that with the rain, but all the thunder and lightning held off during the day, although it did storm later at night.