Ummm well, a funny thing happened on the way to Lightroom today. I stumbled on the missing set of Phoadtography pictures we took on our Indianapolis trip. I knew there were pictures of a couple of signs that stuck out on the trip, and by stuck out I mean we actually made a conscious effort to snap some pictures when we came back through the town. The mystery was solved when they showed up in a secondary file in our Lightroom catalog. As a result, this series actually grew by one (see Part 1 Link and Part 2 Link). Depending on how things are looking toward the end of the month this particular post may not get included in the quota requirement giving you a bonus (yeah) month. Do not get too excited, my record so far hasn’t exactly been too stellar… but in my best Dumb and Dumber .. “so you’re saying there’s a chance”.

On a personal front, I’m under a week to my big event – after 4 or 5 more miles, the worrying and fretting will begin.

Starting out the third and final (I promise) Indy Phoadtography set, I give you one of the three best sign shots from the trip.

Linda gets credit for spotting this and actually the ones below.  Of course, she kept pointing them out to me when we are under 2 car lengths from them making it nearly impossible to get a good Phoadtography shot.  The final A-Count on the sign shots ended up being 4.  That’s right, it took a whopping 4 attempts to actually get the shot (and as the case above, a crooked shot still).  How embarrassing.  I should send myself back to the minors.  At least the next shot in the sign series is at least straight.. a little degrading to men.. but still straight.

Not sure if the “Primitives” sign was just piling on the insults or it was a coincidence with the outdoor decor.   Someone at this particular Hucks has some serious issues or there is a friendly man vs woman jesting going on.  As we passed the sign from the front (okay, okay, it was the 4th time) I happened to notice the other side also had lettering on it so I snapped it.  My exposure was not set right causing it to be a on the blurry side but you can still make out the jab.

For the record, that is NOT a cop car parked suspiciously behind the sign.  It is just a large white car with a giant flag on it… I wonder if Hucks sells donuts? ack.. nevermind.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the pictures

If you recall from the previous Indy Phoadtography posts, I was questioning where the Apollo astronaut  Grissom Memorial was.  Well, this picture pretty much puts that question to bed.  Turns out it was at the Spring Mill State Park, not at the Brown State Park.

Ironically, after seeing this sign it reminded me to do an upcoming blog post on a grain mill we went to see at Wildcat Den State Park in Iowa.  Thanks to the American Pickers show, I had learned all about the grind stones used in these mills (yes, I had to watch the d*mn episode with Captain Kirk even though Star Trek makes me ill).  Next thing I know I’m taking photo excursions at two sites that have a mill on them.

Speaking of American Pickers, this reminds me of some of their free-styling shows.  I have no idea where this was, but any weird statues sitting outside houses with loaded porches will always find the business end of my camera.   On a Phoadtography quality scale, this particular shot gets about a 4.5 of 10.  The shot is nice and straight, but I managed to chop off both the arms and legs of this famous lady and the sharpness could be better on the bottom.

But a shot is a shot and you still get the feel for how strange this looked from the open road.  Unnoticed at the time the shot was taken, either she has a habit of wandering off or she is trying to lose weight with one of those old tummy oscillating belts.

Keeping with the theme, here is another odd statue sitting outside a house.  The whole yard was filled with those gazing balls which is the primary reason I attempted to get the shot.  They were spread out too far for my zoom to get them all in one shot.  At the last moment, I noticed the strange little guy sitting in the midst of the colored balls so I recomposed.  I can envision it now.  The homeowner has just purchased her 40th gazing ball and then thinks to herself “what would go perfect with this yard?.. how about a Paul Revere gnome… ah, perfection”.  This would be quickly followed by “now where are my meds?”.

Not sure if I mentioned this in the previous sets or not, but this trip had an unusually high number of anti-aircraft gun sightings.  We must have seen no less than 5 or 6 of these weapon monuments scattered amount the cities we passed through.  This could just be memorials to the local national guard or army units in the area, but it seems out of place in the heart of the Midwest.  If the enemy planes had made it this far, it would probably be toooo late to hold back the invasion.

I mentioned there were a few sightings of the horse and buggy transportation in the region.  This shot provides a nice composition of their lifestyle with the modern world.  We have the literal interpretation of horsepower compared to the modern day gas engine equivalents (in both 4 wheel and 2 wheel models).  Adding to the framing, the lady and horse are confined by modern day power lines from the top and phone lines to the side (although one pole looks about 10 degrees from kissing the ground.  The church sign on the left almost seems to beckoning her to safety.

Here is the other sighting of a horse and buggy.  How fast do you think those buggies go?  Maybe 10 to 20 mphs on a good hay day.. You would think at that reduced speed I could have taken a non-blurry shot!

In closing, here is a distant shot of the hotel we stayed at in French Lick.  Oddly enough it looked a little bit like a circus building…. wait for it… wait for it.

WHAAAAAT!!!!  WE BOOKED A #!@%@$^@^ ROOM AT A CIRCUS BUIDLING!!  Imagine if you will the frenzy that was taking place inside the SUV.  Panic taking over, profuse sweating, uncontrollable muscle spasms, teeth gnashing, blood boiling and the overwhelming desire to locate a weapon.  STOP!!! there are @#%!%@ clowns in those guard towers, get me the HELL OUT!  [Linda]  Breathe into this bag, calm down, go to your happy place [me] – my happy places are all gone], [Linda] breathe, relax, it’s shaped like the Colt’s dome, the clowns were all rounded up and slaughtered years ago [me] promise? [Linda] yes  [me] I’m going in armed.

By the way, since I’m on the topic of the hotel, Linda and I took some time to take some pictures around the grounds.  It was pretty hot that day and we decided to take a rest on their large porch.  At some point Linda motions to the railing with an inquisitive look.  It took me a few seconds, but eventually I figured out what she was pointing out.

There are few symbols out there that tend to trigger a reaction.  This particular symbol is one of those notorious icons and not one you would expect to find in the middle of Indiana.

Later I did a little research because something about it didn’t seem right, but I was unable to rationalize it at the moment – possibly thinking the direction was not right for the Nazi symbol.  After a little bit of Wikipedia, I confirmed the direction was correct, but the Swastika was rotated 45 degrees for the German symbol.  It was apparently based on an ancient Buddhist and Hindu symbol which possibly went the other direction – hard to tell based on the cursory reading.  Regardless, thanks to a dark time in our history, the symbol will always be viewed in disgust.

Of course, the more horrific vision is this place may have been the headquarters of Nazi Clowns.

Good lord, I’m gonna have nightmares for months.