Weekend in Indianapolis

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Eras Tour Weekend | Indianapolis, IN | White River State Park | November 2024

After reuniting in Omaha, NE, Curtis and I drove to our hometown in Iowa for the last couple days of October. I was able to celebrate my birthday with family and spend a few days with our niece and nephew. And then, it was time for our next adventure – one we’d been planning for over a year, our most highly anticipated trip of 2024: a weekend in Indianapolis. I can read your mind…we’ve taken so many trips over the years, what makes this one to Indiana so special?! Well, over a year ago I survived the Ticketmaster Great War and scored us tickets to the final leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour! Part of me was just in disbelief that we were actually able to make these plans over a year ago and actually stick to them, especially with how much Curtis’ schedule changes. But after a long time coming, counting days and counting miles, it was finally time to go…and oh boy, were we ready for it!

We were especially excited to share this weekend with two of my sisters who are also Swifties, for what would be all of our first time getting to see Taylor in concert. We had watched livestreams of all the other shows over the past year and a half, planned outfits, and shared excitement over all the aspects of the tour that were happening and that we’d get to experience.

On the morning of October 31, Curtis and I said goodbye to Charlotte (huge thank you to my parents for puppy sitting!) and picked up my sisters. Since our van only seats two, we used some of our saved up points with Enterprise to get a small, fuel-efficient car for the trip. We had a 6 hour drive to get to Indianapolis, making one stop on the way for Culver’s, and only one small detour for a new county in Indiana. We arrived in the city in the mid-afternoon and navigated to our hotel downtown — which we were also able to get using saved up Marriott points! It was especially nice to be able to just park there and walk everywhere during our time here, avoiding the influx of concert traffic.

Once we were all checked in, we went out for a walk downtown, passing by the state capitol building first. Curtis and I had seen it 2 years before during our only other time passing through Indianapolis, but had barely even walked around the building because it was 16 degrees and windy that morning. We remember thinking that it seemed like a fun city to explore with all its monuments and parks, including a state park right next to downtown, and we were grateful to now have the chance.

We made our way over to a convention center that was selling the official concert merch, thinking it would save time waiting in lines the next day, and were very pleasantly surprised with how fast we were in and out, with everything still well-stocked — the same couldn’t be said just 24 hours later! After that, we walked to get dinner at a local ramen restaurant, and walked the canal trail to get back to our hotel.

The next morning, we slept in and then ventured out for a late morning breakfast. The whole city seemed to be celebrating the arrival of the Eras Tour, including street signs that were named for song titles, a giant mural on the JW Marriott building, and many shops and restaurants playing her music. I know we often talk about how we avoid traveling to cities and much prefer being in the wilderness, but when a city has come together in welcoming visitors like this and everyone there is united by something and celebrating that together, it’s really a wonderful experience. We felt safe walking around everywhere and enjoyed taking it all in.

After breakfast, we went on our walking tour, which including stepping inside the capitol building to gaze up at the stained glass rotunda. The outside of the building was under construction though, so we were glad we saw the outside two years ago!

Next, we made our way to White River State Park, which was mostly an urban park, but enjoyable to walk through nonetheless. The trees were at the peak of fall colors, and we walked back and forth across the pedestrian bridge over the White River.

We took it easy that afternoon in preparation for our late night. We made friendship bracelets, got dressed up, and grabbed a pizza for late lunch/early dinner. Finally it was time for the concert…which I’ll write about in another post, entirely for me to remember this night, so feel free to skip the next one if you aren’t interested in hearing about the best night of my life. 😉

The next morning, we packed up, picked up breakfast, and got on the road for our long drive back. Maybe if we were the impulsive type, we would’ve stayed longer to try to get tickets for other shows at absurd resale prices, but we had to get back to our lives, jobs, school, and puppy back in Iowa, and Curtis’ next job started the next day. But we’ll forever cherish the memories we made with my sisters on this magical weekend, and hope that someday we can share more experiences like this together!

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