I woke up well before Kyle again, around 8:30am, and got myself ready before doing some writing on my laptop. Kyle got up and was ready to go around 10:30am, and we drove half an hour to Elizabethtown where we stopped at a Starbucks to use their wifi. The wifi was pretty slow for uploading map data, but otherwise it was perfectly fine for what we needed to do.
Afterward, we went to a Walmart a few minutes away to restock on granola bars and other road snacks, along with use their faster wifi to finish uploading map data. It’s kind of funny that Walmart has better wifi than Starbucks, but I won’t question it too much. Starbucks is just a small local coffee chain after all, right?
While at Walmart, we were approached by a very tall man in a camouflage outfit, who asked us if we were interested in joining the armed forces. This is a very American thing, because army recruiters like this don’t really exist in Canada. Whereas in the US, they go to schools, do Twitch livestreams, and even apparently approach people in Walmart. Kyle and I both had the immediate reaction of “I’m Canadian” (though Kyle said “he’s Canadian”), which seemed to throw the guy for a loop but he asked if we knew anyone who might be interested. We pretty much just said no, not really, and started to walk away. I get he’s just doing his job, and I won’t be rude to him for doing it, but I really, really dislike the concept of army recruiters.
We carried on to a local laundromat where we threw all our clothes in the machine and took a seat to use their wifi which was pretty fast. This was one of the cheapest laundromats so far, only charging $3 for the laundry machine, and $0.50 for 12 minutes of hot drying. The only downside to this place was the small child running around banging the side of the machines over and over again, but kids will be kids.
Back on the road again, we drove towards Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana. We found parking about a block away which unfortunately needed payment, though it was only $0.50. I have to wonder, are the parking companies really making money on credit card payments that small? The machine didn’t even accept coins, so it’s not like I even had a choice. Regardless, it was a short walk to the capitol building where we struggled to find a good spot to take a photo that would get the dome in the photo. We ended up settling for not having the dome really in the photo, especially as it was under construction, similar to the one in Kentucky, and the front of the building was pretty grand anyway.
While we were there, it hit 8pm and a local church or something (we couldn’t find exactly where it was coming from) was playing a very long 2+ minute bell sequence. It was pretty nice, but I couldn’t discern any noticeable tune that I recognized from it.
Lafayette, Indiana was our next destination as it was a college town with a decent DoorDash zone. You don’t want the delivery zone to be too big or weirdly shaped, since then you’ll have a lot of deliveries that bring you way out of town, and then you have to drive back and it’ll take longer to get another order. We got into the centre of town and found out that they have those little delivery robots that use the sidewalk and crosswalks! They’re cute, but also our direct competition. Despite being mortal enemies, I stopped for one waiting to cross the crosswalk in front of us, but it didn’t take the hint and just stayed still, and it made me look dumb to other drivers.
After doing DoorDash for a while, we headed to a rest area near Roselawn, Indiana, which was very nice. They had vertical wind turbines collecting power to power the rest area, and even had wifi, though I couldn’t get it to work very well.