A view of White River State Park from the top of the new 33-story JW Marriott hotel scheduled to open in February. The brick building on the right is the NCAA Hall of Champions. The Indianapolis Zoo is across the river to the left. Pat Lindsey photo

BY BOB LINDSEY

The nation’s only urban state park located on the western side of downtown Indianapolis may be the best kept secret in the Midwest. And make no mistake, despite being in the Eastern Time zone, Indianapolis is a family friendly midwestern city.

During  a 3-day trip we had a chance to discover the marvelous White River State Park and its many venues: the surprising Indianapolis Zoo and Gardens, the Eiteljorg Museum of Indian Art, the NCAA Hall of Champions, the Indian State Museum and the IMAX Theater. There was time for a Moody Blues concert in the park, a Segway tour of the entire area and  a Triple A baseball game at Victory Field home of the Indianapolis Indians, one of the oldest professional franchises in baseball.

All this in an urban setting, yet with grassy areas, trees, water and walkways and across the street from our Courtyard by Marriott hotel. If you drive there, the park has an underground garage for $10 a day and you can visit the attractions all within walking distance. Downtown shopping and restaurants are only a few blocks away.

Eiteljorg Museum

When Harrison Eiteljorg went west in the 1940s looking for coal, he came back in love with the land, the people and their artwork, both Western and American Indian. He returned with a collection that included the works of great Western artist such as Georgia O’Keefe, Charles Russell and Frederic Remington. He brought back one of Remington’s most known sculptures, the Bronco Buster.

Eiteljorg donated the entire  collection to start the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art. The museum that bears his named was one of the first buildings in the then newly created White River State Park in 1989. By 2005, an expansion that doubled the exhibit area was completed with more galleries, many depicting the tribes of Indiana and Midwest such as the Delaware, Miami and Potawatomi and their artwork.

Kids will like to hop aboard a full-scale replica American stagecoach for an interactive experience and  learn about cross country travel 150 years ago. The museum offers special programs throughout the year. The Quest for the West art show and sale will be held Sept.11-Oct. 19.

A new holiday experience, Jingle Rails: The Great Western Adventure will depict travel west to places like Mt. Rushmore and Hoover Dam with everything in a scale model exhibit made from natural materials like twigs, nuts and moss. The holiday experience will run Nov. 6-Jan.2.  We had a nice lunch at the museum café that featured both  American Indian and Southwestern cuisine.  Website: www.eiteljorg.org.

Indian State Museum

The Indiana State Museum reflects all things Indiana complete with Hoosier pride, as they like to boast. Many of the high-tech and please touch exhibits chronicle Indiana’s history such as mastodons, a Stutz sedan, a 17-foot tall steam clock.

The Indiana State  Museum covers everything from the Ice Age to current day. There are also 92 sculptures built into the outside façade that represent the 92 counties in the state. The building is made from Indiana materials such as sandstone, steel, brick and limestone. (Remember the limestone Cutters from the movie Breaking Away?)

Special exhibits are a major part of the Indiana State Museum and new ones are coming soon. We saw a preview of the Odd Indiana exhibit opening in September with quirky things you’ll find in the Hoosier State.  New special exhibits will include: The Indiana Reef (Sept. 1-Oct. 31), Odd Indiana (Sept. 4-Feb. 22), Nikon Small World Photo-micrography  (Oct. 15-Jan. 9) Art of the Nation exploring poster art used in WWI And WWII opening Jan. 29) and a holiday event Celebration Crossing (Nov. 26-Dec. 31) with family interactive exhibits, holiday music and rides on the  Santa Claus express train.

The Indiana State Museum also contains the state’s largest IMAX screen showing the newest 3D movies. We saw  Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D film and the Hubble 3D was also playing. Like our St. Louis Science Center IMAX theatre, the films change seasonally.

The museum has a two-story gift shop and two restaurants, the Crossroads Café and a re-created city department store landmark, the L.S. Ayres Tea Room where we sampled the signature Chicken Velvet Soup and the Monte Carlo sandwich. The museum website: indianamuseum.org.

NCAA Hall of Champions

When Indianapolis set its sights on being the amateur sports capital of the U.S., landing the National Collegiate Athletic Association headquarters seemed like a natural.  Ten years ago at the White River Park headquarters of the NCAA, the association decided to build something that would be more of a tourist draw than just the NCAA offices.

The overall renovation of the NCAA headquarters is complete for college sports fans to enjoy. You get right into the college sports mode when you are greeted at the Hall of Champions entrance by the life size bronze sculpture of the famed Flying Wedge formation that was banned from college football in the 1930s because of so many serious injuries.

Inside you’ll discover academic and athletic displays, banners from last year’s champions in every sport imaginable (we saw the Washington University Division III girls basketball banner in the mix) the Kick-off Theater telling the NCAA story in HD widescreen format and the Hall of Honor.

The second floor active play area includes a retro- half-court gym for a little hoops. The interactive features include trying your skills at shooting a soccer goal, downhill skiing test your balance on a beam, and football and baseball throwing accuracy. (I found that although my current ball playing is slow-pitch softball and I could still throw a baseball almost 50 mph and hit the catcher ’s mitt. Of course, I was only 10-15 feet away, not 90!)  But there was no way I could hit the tennis ball shooting  out at 100 miles per hour!

Stop by the gift shop and catch the many retro sports posters and attire such as tee shirts highlight championship games of the past..   website: ncaahallofchampions.org

Dolphins at the Oceans section at the Indianapolis Zoo get right up to the glass at the underwater dome.

Indianapolis Zoo

You’d think coming from St. Louis with our world class zoo, a visit to the Indy zoo wouldn’t provide anything new. You’d be wrong. The Indianapolis Zoo is worth the visit with its 350 species and the fact that it’s also a zoological park with botanical gardens and aquarium. It not free, like our zoo, but one admission price ($14) gets you into all three attractions. There are half-price days on Tuesdays and other specials during the year.

The zoo is divided into natural settings for the animals including Oceans, Deserts Biome, Domestic animals, Australian and African Plains, Marine Mammals and Forest Biome.

The unique Oceans area is the home of the Dolphin Pavilion with four dolphin shows daily in the summer in the one of the two largest indoor dolphin facilities in the country. You can also view the dolphins inside a 30-foot-diameter domed underwater room. There’s a human-dolphin interaction program whereby an extra charge allows small groups to have in- the-water exposure with the dolphins. You’ll also find walrus, sea lion, seahorses and polar bear exhibits here.

Also in the Oceans area, which opened in 2007, kids will like the stingrays, penguins and they can  even pet or touch a shark in the world’s only shark petting tank. A wall surrounds the shark pool with kids being just tall enough to observe and pet the “ dog” sharks. Another place where children can get up-close and personal is in the African plain section where they can feed the giraffes by hand or wash an elephant.

The latest addition to the zoo is   the new permanent exhibit “Cheetah: the Race for Survival,,” which will accommodate up to six cheetahs.  There were only a few there the day we visited, but they were enduring animals to observe. You can experience just how fast these cats can run at the  “Race a Cheetah” special machine.  Other new animals near the Cheetah exhibit are the strange looking Bat-Eared Foxes. Website: indianapoliszoo.com.

Indy Honors Our Veterans

Indianapolis has been compared to a Midwest version of Washington D.C. with its huge walking mall of museums, but also because of the number of memorials to veterans. At White River, there are Military Park and the Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial dedicated to all those who earned our nation’s highest military honor. A “Gathering of Flags” features the flags our country has flown during the time periods the 3,410 heroic veterans were awarded the Medal of Honor. Monument Circle downtown has long been a city landmark honoring vets.

Even the Triple A ballpark where the Indianapolis Indians play is named Victory Field opened in 1996. The best box seats are $14 and you can sit on the outfield lawn and bring your own food for $6 each.  A large beer is only $5.50.  In front of the stadium is a banner listing all the Major League Hall of Famers who once played for the Indianapolis franchise.

Parks passes to six White River attractions cost  $42 and offer a 25 percent discount for the attractions named in this story. Also two packages with 25% park discounts are offered with stays at any of the four Marriott properties. The 33-story blue J.W. Marriott opening next February will be newest addition to the Marriott hotel complex just across the street from White River State Park.

For more Indianapolis information on the web: visitindy.com.

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