Sunday, July 30, 2006
Indiana Again: Santa Claus and Mammon
I get lost in Indiana because I'm trying to follow the river the best I can, meaning not even the US Highway but some darn obscure roads out of Jeffersonville. Occasionally they afford some scenic views of the Ohio; mostly they afford views of the backside of the levee. At Falls of the Ohio State Park in Indiana, I hop out to look at the falls and discover they have been replaced by an unspectacular dam. On a better day, you could get a nice view of Louisville from here, and it seems to be popular among fishermen and kayakers. For me it's a steamy walk across mud flats whose geology I do not learn about by not paying the fee to get into the interpretive center.The Ohio, though, is a real river. I realize now, having walked along the Louisville waterfront paid attention for once, that it's much more of a river than I ever gave it credit for being. Maybe I had just tried to minimize its importance having learned in school that the Ohio River belongs to Kentucky, a fact that irked me for some reason. (And then you find out that the Cincinnati airport belongs to Kentucky, too.)
So I drive down these back roads, into what sure seems like a bucolic backwater, when I come across this:
It would probably be a little weird to see a casino arising out of the cornfields, but the grandeur, or attempted grandeur - maybe implied grandeur is the term - of this Caesar's Palace outpost is truly strange. Its only visible neighbor is a power plant across the river. My guess from looking at Harrah's numbers is that folks drop about between a quarter and a half-billion dollars a year here, and one assumes that most of that comes from people living nearby.That's not the casino in the picture, by the way. Across the street there's a sort of riverboat that gives no indication of being capable of leaving its moorings, which I assume houses the actual gambling floor.
However, gambling will not be on today's agenda. This is in part because I have no desire, even on a swampy July afternoon, to lose myself in the perpetual midnight of a casino, which I believe I can safely assume will be like every other casino one could ever elect to visit. If I get to Las Vegas, I may feel obligated to undertake this mission, but not here. But my decision is also predicated by my lack of money. It seems that somewhere in Michigan - not merely somewhere, but in an ATM of the Huntington National Bank branch in Douglas, Michigan - I have left my ATM card. The customer service people of Huntington are really friendly and helpful, and willing to do everything they can to get me back in business, which is one of the reasons I bank with them rather than, say, some big New York bank. But their nearest branch is 75 miles in the wrong direction, and the nearest one to my route is in Lafayette, Indiana, about 175 miles ahead.Doubtless, Caesar's Palace has figured out a way to turn my various other forms of plastic into casino chips. And I could end up bankrolling my vacation, I suppose. But then again, maybe not.
If you look in the background of either of those pictures above, you'll notice steep hills that sit half a mile or so from the river. The road forward, Route 62, travels through those hills, and it's a wonderful drive - better in an MX5, no doubt, but even in an Element. It takes me past the former capital of Indiana, Corydon, where I stop and take an out-of-focus picture and do not buy a Nathan's hot dog because they don't take credit cards. Further down the road a Benedictine monastery rises out of the hills. (This picture doesn't really do it justice; I was having a bad day as a photographer.) Mostly, it's a gorgeous part of Indiana, and not what one expects after having blasted across the northeastern part of the state.
Eventually, Route 62 would take me to Lincoln's boyhood home, but I must confess that I do not stop there. Instead, I turn south at Route 162 and head to Santa Claus, Indiana, home of the much more significant Holiday World. Holiday World - originally Santa Claus Land - claims to be the oldest theme park in America. You can still visit Santa Claus, but they've added various other holidays - Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving - to the mix, and built it into a decent-sized place, given it's out-of-the-way location. And they've added some reputedly knockout roller coasters.It's hot as hell today. Unmercifully hot. So it's certainly odd, and I might add slightly sadistic, that I'm listening to "Sleigh Ride" as I enter the park.
For the most part, however, I have to say I'm disappointed by the un-kitschiness of the place. It's a bit clean and slightly corporate and not nearly weird enough. There's the thorough integration of patriotism and Christianity that one might expect to find in this part of the country (although the "Halloween" section of the park may be an exception to that). There's a level of wholesomeness that gives me that Mr. Bean feeling again.
But there are also three killer rollercoasters including the main attraction, the Voyage. The idea is you're supposed to be traveling, Pilgrim-like, across the ocean. It sounds dopey, and it basically is, but as it turns out the ride is a pretty good approximation of a long and treacherous sea-voyage - after the visible hills in the picture, all I can tell you is it's basically mayhem. It's going to be awfully hard to top.
