kitchtrips

Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
‘Til you spend half your life just coverin’ up

Born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
Born in the U.S.A

– Bruce Springsteen

Wednesday 24 May, 2023

No rest for the wicked, I guess. I got about six hours before my alarm went off at 3:00am. We were out of the Airbnb about forty-five minutes after that, and off to Boise Airport for our flight to Houston, where we would connect to another flight out to Indianapolis.

Thankfully, Boise isn’t a huge airport, so we didn’t have a long bus ride or anything from the rental car lot to the airport. Just a short walk, actually. And because it was just on 4:00am, there weren’t many other people around. Check-in was smooth (though I must admit to a little trepidation seeing my bag disappear down the conveyer belt, after what happened the last time we did this) and so was security. We didn’t need to take anything out of our carry-on luggage for scanning going through the checkpoint, which is always easier. Honestly, the last thing you want to do is unpack your bag and put it in big grey trays that early in the morning.

Needless to say, we slept well on the flight. I actually fell asleep before we started taxiing, and woke in time to unfortunately hear the news that our flight was delayed. Apparently we were overweight, and had to stand by for some special clearance. Thankfully no one (and no luggage) needed to be jettisoned, but we were about an hour late in leaving Boise, which was going to make things interesting as we only had about an hour and a half to make our connecting flight, which was taking off from a different terminal inside the enormous Houston International Airport. Nothing like a mad dash through the airport to get your blood pumping! (The real problem is, if you only just make your flight, there’s a very good chance your bags don’t, given the tight timeframe…)

As it turned out, everything was okay in that regard, as our Houston-Indianapolis flight, which was coming from Portland, Oregon, was delayed, so we ended up with about three hours sitting around the airport. We ate Mexican for lunch. It was okay, but it cost an outrageous $45USD for the three shrimp enchiladas with rice that I ordered. Everything was insanely expensive. Not cool.

In the end, we arrived at Indianapolis – the Racing Capital of the World – just after six o’clock. It was a crowded terminal (full of race car memorabilia) , as befitting a race that draws a crowd of over 350,000 people and sometimes more. We had a short wait for a rental car, and once we got one, a white Jeep Grand Cherokee, we drove downtown to meet my friend Ryan Myrehn for dinner – at an English pub of all places!

Ryan (whose surname is pronounced like you would say the United States Marine Corps) is one of the pit reporters for IndyCar Radio, and will talk to the winner of the 107th Indianapolis 500 in Victory Lane on Sunday. He is also looking after us with accommodation and race tickets this year. It’s been a while since we saw each other, and dinner was full of lots of IndyCar talk. I don’t get many opportunities outside the one race I attend a year to talk racing with people who understand it thoroughly, so I always take advantage. I’d like to think that Kat is a little more clued-in to IndyCar racing now, after our dinner.

We are staying with the Myrehn’s tonight and tomorrow night, and as more people come into town in their circle for the race weekend, we’ll move on to Ryan’s parents’ house out in Carmel for the weekend, where there is a big RV waiting for us.

Track tomorrow, can’t wait.