Two desserts I didn't need but ate anyhow.

Sign Painters // Creation Museum // Indy 500

Sometimes a string of events happens in my life and I look back and think, what the hell? And, this past weekend was the perfect example of just that.



The original plan was to spend the weekend shooting for the Sign Painter Movie in Cincinnati. The day before we left Sam mentioned that the Indy 500 was that Sunday and he was planning on going. We have a group of friends that go every year- camp the night before, hang out and get wild. Camping in a field with 300,000 race car fans is of no interest to me. But, I was trapped- no flights that timed out from either Cincinnati or Indianapolis. So what's a girl to do? I rolled with it.

Thursday we left on schedule. Cincinnati is a quick, especially when Sam is driving, 6 hour drive from Chicago. As we approached the city we passed this billboard with a giant dinosaur. Obviously it was for the nonsensical Creation Museum ("Brings the pages of the Bible to life...Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers"). Sam and I being lovers of all things ridiculous we knew we had to fit it in. And that is how a simple work weekend gets derailed.

Friday was awesome. We did our long awaited interview with Tod Swormstedt, the director of the American Sign Museum who I had met last December when screening Handmade Nation at the Contemporary Art Center. We had also been in contact with Justin Green and had our fingers crossed an interview would pan out on Saturday before we left (it did). Justin is a sign painter and well known comic artist. His voice is such an amazing addition to our film and it was awesome to get to meet him. If you want to read more about that segment of the trip I wrote about it on the Sign Painter Movie blog here.


Justin Green, downtown Cincinnati

After the most amazing, motivating interview with Justin and before driving to Indianapolis, we headed 30 minutes out of the way to the wack-job Creation Museum. I sorta knew what to expect- I had seen photos & a post on Vice a while back. Unless you happen to be in Kentucky (right across the border from downtown Cincinnati) and want to spend $20 seeing it yourself, I personally felt I had to, or are a devout Christian that relates, I'd say that Vice article is probably enough.


Garden of Eden Penguin






Noah's Ark diorama

Two hours later we met up with our crew of about 15 in a parking lot and drove into the field where hundreds of thousands of drunk people were "camping". The Indy 500 is filed in the nonsensical category with the Creation Museum in my mind. 24 hours of seeing how the other half lives was more than enough and I can now check that off my "done" and "never again" list.















The highlight of the Indy 500 for me was Liz eating her birthday burger cake, post race, right before we got in the car and drove home.

Last weekend's moral of the story was that the Creation Museum & Indy 500 were two desserts I didn't need but ate anyhow. The end.