Day 5: Indianapolis

Indiana!

I am just a blogging machine today. This is how much I love you, my bloggy readers--I'm writing this blogpost instead of reading my brand-spanking new copy of Mockingjay, a book that I have been waiting to read since November 2008. FEEL THE LOVE!

I so am going to read this book. A LOT.

Today was a funny sort of day. Instead of being on the road for half the day we woke up in Indianapolis and had the morning to stroll around until Mark went to meet with the one of his coworkers at the Indianapolis office of his organization. We dropped by the Indiana State Museum and then parked Tali near Monument Circle. I walked Mark to the office, bought an enormous salad (it was from the salad bar at a grocery store and I may have overestimated the amount of spinach I can eat in one sitting), did some blogging, and ran around taking pictures of Atticus in front of the sites of Indianapolis.

Atticus in front of the Indiana sculpture by Robert Indiana.

Atticus in front of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument.

Atticus with the State Capitol on his head.

After the enormous salad and the tourism I met up with Mark and we went to Kids Ink. We got there a little early, so we walked across the street to a path that ran next to a canal. In the canal were a whole lot of ducks, and I kind of lost my mind and took ten thousand pictures of them.

Oooh! Look! Ducks!! Doing ducky things! So exciting!!

Wow! WOW!!! They just keep swimming and eating! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!

I'VE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED!!! THESE DUCKS!!! DOING DUCK THINGS!!!!! Yeah, I pretty much went completely bonkers for about ten minutes.

When I got to the bookstore, it looked like there wasn't going to be a presentation. Kids would be trickling in after school, so I was supposed to just sit at a table and sign books when the kids came in, which was fine with me. I like doing the presentations, but it was nice to get a break and be able to just chat with kids and their parents as they came in.

This is Carolyn. She came in first, and told me that she had read The Popularity Papers six times. I cannot begin to express how great it was to meet her. When I told her that there would be a sequel, her mouth just dropped open. Carolyn, you're the reader that every author dreams about having. Honestly, I get a little misty thinking about it.

After signing some books and having a really nice time with the booksellers, Mark and I got back on the road, but not before passing by the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, which was being attacked by dinosaurs.

We circled the block to get these pictures.

But we did not stop to get out of the car and help. We're not insane.

And then we were back on the road, heading towards St. Louis.

Yellow car.