What's up y'all?
Thanks for joining the Travel Tales and Talk podcast with Derek and Makayla.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
What's up everybody?
We are back and we're going to talk about our escapade to Indy for the Olympic swim
trials.
We thought we had a great opportunity because our youngest is a quote unquote swimmer.
So why are we headed to Indy?
We're headed to Indy so that we could show London Rose, our youngest, what Olympic swimmers
look like because we chose the last day of the swim trials on purpose because that was
the day that they were going to introduce the entire US Olympic swim team to the people
because the last two events were being held that night and the winners would make up the
rest of the team so there you go.
Correct.
Also we wanted to use that as motivation because she is a competitive swimmer and we wanted
to show her hey if you say you want to win these races you got to watch these people
work and one guy said he had been training the whole year for this one event.
So just the dedication and the time that you have to put into something to be great at
it because she thinks she can do just enough and that's good but no if you want to be great
you have to dedicate hours upon hours to this.
And then another reason we were there it was a fantastic last minute idea from my beautiful
wife.
She just woke up well maybe it was Saturday evening or maybe Sunday morning hey let's
go to Indy for the swim trials.
Indy Indiana.
Indianapolis.
Yeah that's what they call it.
And mind you we live in Kentucky.
Yeah yeah we do we do live in Kentucky but it's a border state nonetheless.
It's a three hour drive and surprisingly my husband was like okay.
Yeah I like doing stuff like that.
You've gotten me into that spontaneous road trip mentality.
But you know who wasn't into it?
London Rose.
She was like what three hours in the car and it's Sunday.
It's my Sunday fun day but I want to be great at swimming.
Okay whatever.
So but then again I hadn't seen anything like this being reported on TV nothing on radio
so how did you come about this information on the Olympic trials being in Indianapolis?
London Rose because she does competitive swim she has to be registered with the US you know
national swimming team.
So we get these emails so I have been getting emails literally for months leading up to
this because I was actually getting our child is a diver as well so I was getting the dive
information so we had the option to either go see the Olympic diving trials which were
being held in Knoxville which was a two hour drive.
Two and a half.
Or the swim trials which are in Indianapolis.
Which is three hours away.
So ultimately we chose to do the swimming because our child is you know she's actually
she's more involved in the swimming versus diving.
And then also we had a chance to see one of the Olympicians not Olympicians one of the
Olympians what's her name?
Simone.
Manuel.
Yeah because she's actually my favorite swimmer and which is I don't know how to say this
well in the email blurbs you know they were featuring those to watch you know each night
they were highlighting.
Hyping up.
Highlighting certain swimmers and they Simone wasn't being hyped up you know and Simone's
African American.
She was an afterthought.
So and our child is an African American and it was like really important to me for London
Rose to see Simone swim so I was like oh bummer she's not swimming on the day that we're going
but it's okay they got to show her because Simone did qualify in other events for the
Olympics.
And it's good for her to see her because when she swims and she's mentioned it before that
she's the only person that looks like her in the water.
That has won a gold medal in swimming.
And the fact that I didn't know that Simone was going to be there and then when they showed
her name on the Jumbotron and she walked up to the I was like she's swimming today?
We're going to see history.
It was the 50 meter freestyle.
It was the last women's event and Simone was swimming in it and I had no idea because she
was not publicized at all in these emails.
They did not mention her.
Honestly I didn't know she was a 50 meter freestyler so I thought she did the distant
swims.
So I didn't know she was a freestyler.
So it was amazing.
I was impressed by all of the swimmers.
There was a 15 year old.
What was her name?
Riley?
Something like that.
Sophia?
Riley?
I forgot her name but the girl was 15.
She had just turned 15 and London Rose, that's all she could focus on.
Mom, she's only two years older than me.
Three years.
Well at the time, London Rose had her birthday a couple days later but she did say two years
older because our mom, she had the conversation with me I know.
We talk about math here.
She's three years older.
Okay.
Anyway, Derek, stop.
I got you baby.
So she said this girl is two years older than me.
You mean to tell me I can swim in the Olympics?
Yeah.
You get the numbers.
Well, I-
We tell you this every swim meet, you can do whatever you want.
You just got put in the effort.
I misspoke because I believe you have to be 14.
I think.
Honestly it just doesn't matter.
If you get the numbers and you're part of USA Swimming, you're going to swim in the
trials.
So it was amazing to see this child, this young adult swimming with-
Adults.
With adults.
And competitive.
Yes, because Simone has a whole husband.
And kids.
She has a family.
And this little girl was probably too young to drive.
Her parents probably brought her there.
This little girl is going to school when school starts back.
Yes.
She's going to be in with a ninth grade.
What grade are you in your 15?
Among 15, about 10th grade, ninth, 10th grade?
She's in high school.
And it's like you're among the fastest swimmers in the country competing to swim against the
fastest swimmers in the world.
In the world.
That is impressive.
So that's all on the roads to focus about.
She was like, oh, that's Simone.
That's great.
But this girl right here-
Yes, she's 15.
I can relate to 15.
But anyway, let me tell y'all when they blew the whistle or the sand.
Oh, baby, hold on.
You're moving too fast.
We are in Lucas Oil Stadium.
This is a football field.
This is a football stadium, home of the Indianapolis Coats, that they converted to a swimming
pool.
Oh, yeah.
That in itself was fantastic.
It hasn't been done before.
They didn't think they were going to be able to pull this off, which is crazy.
So not only did they build this thing in a matter of days, they had to truck it in in
pieces to put it together inside the stadium.
And it was in the ground.
When Derrick told me this, I was like, okay, big deal.
And I've seen stuff.
But he was like, no, they built it.
I was like, okay.
I'm thinking of it just like Lego blocks.
He was like, this is a football.
This is a football field.
I felt like he was calling me dumb dumb.
So they had it.
Again, they had a curtain.
So they had it curtain off.
I guess she thought on this side of the curtain, this is where the pool always was.
But I'm like, no, this is probably like the 20 yard line of the football field.
They built a pool in the ground, in the stadium, in the ground.
And it was beautiful.
Yeah.
It was beautiful.
Yeah.
The experience was amazing.
It felt like I was in a professional football game or a basketball game with the lights.
They had strobe lights.
It was a party.
They had the huge jumbotrons.
And get this, the officials, you know how they introduced the officials?
The officials came out to the Star Wars.
Imperial March Darth Vader anthem song.
That was cool though.
That's how you know it was a nerd's paradise.
I was in awe.
I couldn't believe it.
I was like, wow, whoever does the music, that's my person.
That's my guy.
That's my jam.
That's my dude.
How did they know?
And it was so cool.
It was so cool.
It was quite an experience.
It was.
Because we were ambitious.
After our Spain debacle with the tickets, Derek decided we not going to buy no tickets
online.
We not buying tickets online.
We going to buy them at the dope.
Yeah.
And I'm like, bro, that's a three hour drive.
Are you sure?
Yes, I'm sure.
So we drove.
We went up to the gate.
And let me tell you, first Derek was like, nah, how much it cost?
And I was like, the nosebleeds are $35 apiece.
So he was doing quick math.
I ain't got money for that.
You buying the tickets, we can go.
I was like, can you just, OK.
I said, how about this?
I buy my ticket, you buy your ticket, and we split on the rose ticket.
Right?
He was like, OK, we can do it then.
So we make this three hour trip.
We go up to the gate.
Baby, it'll be easy if we just put it all on one ticket.
So he has me pull out my card, and I buy all the tickets.
Oh, you might have known.
You sure do.
I'm sorry.
I almost forgot.
That's all I'm saying.
OK.
So back to the stadium.
I'm glad you people going to blast all of the world.
OK.
Sneak yourself.
So we get in there, and they show.
Oh no.
We actually went to the convention center.
I mean, we went to the convention center.
Yeah.
And they show.
Oh, yeah.
And we went to the convention center.
And I was like, OK, we got to go.
But you know what?
They show.
Oh no, we actually went to the convention center first.
Oh yeah.
Because we got there kind of early.
Actually, we didn't get there early enough.
Not early enough.
Yeah.
Because the convention.
OK.
The convention center was directly across the street from the stadium.
And in the center, convention center, they had stuff.
They had events.
They had gear.
Gear.
People speaking.
They gave away free things.
They had prototypes.
They had products like prototype goggles, prototype suits.
They had the swimmer exercising machines that you can try out.
They had games.
That you can train upon.
Yes, that you can train.
What do you call it?
Dry land training?
Dry land training.
Like the machines.
Like the rowing machines.
But for swimmers, you lay on your belly and you kind of do your arm like you're rowing.
Work your technique.
Yes.
Very cool.
And they had all these amazing things for kids and adults.
For swimmers.
For swimmers, they had shops that you can buy, you know, official USA Olympic stuff.
And we get there with 45 minutes to spare thinking, oh, we're just going to walk through.
And that was a regret upon that we didn't go sooner like we had originally planned.
We originally planned to get up early in the morning and make the drive.
And we just like lollygagged around the house.
Yeah, we lollygagged.
We didn't leave the house to one.
And the swimming event, the doors opened at six.
Six thirty.
We didn't walk over to the convention center until almost six o'clock.
I don't know what we were thinking, but we got over there and they had this huge.
I know what we were thinking.
We thought that was inside the stadium.
Yeah, we did.
Because the stadium was so large, like there's no way you're going to have this in a separate
location.
Yeah.
But they did.
They did.
And they had this huge kickboard, a swimmer's kickboard.
It was huge.
It was about.
It had to be about 30 feet tall.
Or even taller.
It was pretty tall.
It was huge.
It.
And maybe 30 feet wide.
Yeah.
And basically they had it there for people to sign.
Will wishes to.
For the U.S. swim team.
And they also had a 50 foot tall American flag made out of what is swim lanes, swim
riders, like the little circle that they float in the water.
It was so cute.
It was pretty cool.
It was very creative.
So we went through that and then we went back to the stadium.
Oh, we got our circle water bottles.
You made us stand in line.
They said, I don't want one.
I want to carry it.
Yeah, I didn't want to carry it because they made me put my purse back in the car and I
know I have a thing that I like my hands to be free.
So yeah.
Yeah.
They still have the NFL rules where you have to have the clear back to get in the stadium.
And so we had to walk her back back to the car because I had my Harry Potter luggage
purse.
It was cute.
Anyway, anyway.
So so we're back at the pool and they're about to do the 50 meters of ladies.
Women's 50 meter swim.
And that race lasted about 24 seconds.
Everyone 24.
Everyone swimming had 24 something.
And it's a small one at 24 13, I think, or 24 or three, something like that.
It was close because I was just focused on recording her.
And as I was recording, I wasn't sure if she had won first.
But when they flashed her picture on the thing, I just I lost it.
Everyone was right there together.
Yeah, everyone it was a millisecond.
Yeah, because I think second place, if she was 24 13, second place was 24 15 or something
like that.
It was 13, 14, 15.
It was and even the young lady who's 15 was 24.
She was 24 something something.
So she was right there.
And you know, I had to explain to London Rose, you know, there's a lot of people back there
crying.
What do you mean?
I says, baby, you got to talk to think about it.
These people train and for it to go down to a point zero zero zero zero zero zero something
a blink of an eye, literally a point something, not even a full second separated you from
making that team.
There's only one slot was available to first and second win.
Oh, first and second win in each race.
The top two go.
OK, so was that of eight, eight swimmers, swimmers, you get to six.
We're disappointed.
Yeah.
Matter of fact, Gretchen was the one that went with her and Gretchen was the one that they
were showcasing.
And that was like they were blasting an email.
It was look out for Gretchen.
So after that, we had the men's 1500 meters.
I was like, oh, man, it's gonna be boring.
It's me.
Oh, man, we're gonna be here all day.
15 meters, 1500, 1500 meters.
Men swim, that is 30 laps in a pool.
They did it in 13, 14 minutes, 14 minutes, 14 minutes.
I would have still been swimming.
I would still be swimming right now.
And what was impressive with that event is that they had someone from Lexington, Kentucky.
I'm like hot diggity dang.
You talking about somebody from the neighborhood.
Yeah.
Swims a UK.
Now, UK is where my freshman.
Yeah.
And that's where our daughter dies.
Right.
And we're sitting here like, wow, this freshman, you talking about a 19, 18 year old.
He's actually a part of a competitive team.
What's crazy, he's part of KYA, which is Kentucky Youth, well, Kentucky Aquatics.
And it's crazy because one of the girls from my daughter's swim team said that she was
leaving that swim team to go swim for KYA.
And the girl had just told my daughter this the day before.
And so she asked questions that I'm on here looking at KYA.
And the little girl's like, they have one of the best coaches in the country.
And I'm like rolling my eyes.
Like, here we go.
Here we go.
And I was like, wait a minute.
Hold up now, because our daughter did a camp at Kentucky.
University of Kentucky.
A couple of weeks ago.
And I'm not going to lie, that camp was stellar.
It was amazing.
They had my child looking like she knew what the heck she was doing.
She looked so good in the water.
And she was only with them for like two hours by the time I saw her.
So when that little girl said that to me, it kind of resonated.
I'm like, man, this is in the country.
Let me do some research.
And then only to go to the Olympic trials and see this boy, this young man.
Just graduated high school.
Who swims in this program.
I was like, oh, maybe that little girl mama know what she was talking about.
We need to reconsider something.
Yeah.
That was amazing, too.
That's another, I mean, a year ago, he graduated high school and he's a freshman at UK and
he's swimming to become an Olympian.
Right here in the town we live in.
And he was impressive.
He was.
He was one of the last to come in.
I think he got seventh.
So out of the eight, he was seventh.
Yeah, he was one of the last two.
But think about it, though.
He was 18 swimming against grown men.
Yeah.
That's impressive.
Yeah, very impressive.
Impressive.
1,500 meters by itself is impressive.
And to do it and hold the technique, I was watching everyone.
I was in London Rose's ear telling her to focus on their flip turns, the position of
their feet, and everyone was just like spot on.
It's just the difference between the guy that got first place.
He just kept a consistent pace the entire time.
It was a pretty fast pace considering it's a distance swim.
And then she was talking about, well, he gallops in the water.
I'm like, okay.
Well, gallops is an arm stroke, but that's what works for him.
Yeah.
And she in the London Rose, a gallop is a type of arm stroke.
So imagine how horses' front legs run when they gallop.
That's what a person's arm's doing in the water.
And London Rose doesn't swim like that.
She thought, ooh, maybe I can do galloping like that, I'll get faster.
And I was like, baby, you got to do what works for your body.
She tried it for about two days, and she came and had a talk with me and said, baby, you
don't have to gallop.
You don't have to gallop.
We tell her all the time, we're not swimmers, but we listen to the coaches, but we tell
her all the time, if you just follow through with your technique, you'll save time.
You'll lose at least four seconds with better turns and dolphin kicks.
But she at this point has not.
She has.
She's working on it.
She hasn't mastered the turn and the dolphin kick.
Yeah.
So they still work there.
Our sneaky plan worked because right after watching the Olympic trials, well, actually
during it, she's all in my ear about how she wants to go to the Olympics, and she's going
to do what she can to better it.
And she's been asking to see tapes of her, like I record everything she does, every swim
meet.
She wants to see training videos now.
She's asking to see her videos, and she's critiquing her own videos, so it worked.
Good.
It was good.
So back to the Olympic trials, after they announced the winners for the 15-meter men,
and they start to bring out all the winners from-
From that day, and then-
The whole week.
Yeah.
And it was just so amazing, so beautiful, and it's like, man, I sure hate them flights
of $2,000 to Paris because-
It would be awesome to go to the Olympics.
Because we've been looking at flights to Paris-
Paris is ridiculous.
Since January.
Actually, not even, of course, I was looking for more flights to Spain.
I was looking for Italy.
We've been looking for a year, well in advance.
Yeah.
I was looking for Paris specifically for a while, but then I was being sneaky.
I was like, ooh, what about we go to England?
We know there's a train you can take.
What if we go to Italy?
You can go to Italy and go to England and take the train.
Spain, take a quick-
Same thing.
Nope.
Flights to all these places.
Have gone up.
$1,700 and up, and they have been there.
They know that's what people are trying to do.
Hey, they'll take the train in and come back.
Because you could very well stay in London and take the two-hour train over to Paris.
It's a direct stop in Paris.
Yep.
You can do all that.
But then we were thinking, ooh, we can get there.
If we can get to Paris, but then I was like, where are we going to stay?
I'm sure all the hotels are booked.
I was like, we could stay in Versailles.
Versailles is just a quick train ride.
But then once again, you could stay in London, take the two-hour train ride over.
But I was talking about staying in Paris.
Yeah.
But we were really trying to work it.
We really want to go to the Olympics.
We're trying to figure it out.
I mean, I would love to do a weekend, just fly over and watch some games and come back.
But it'll be difficult at this point.
But yeah.
So we've been to Indianapolis a couple of times, and we just want to talk about this
crazy, crazy, crazy medical history museum they have.
It's called the Indiana Medical History Museum.
And it's located on the grounds of the former Central State Hospital.
And some people call it the crazy house.
I was like, yeah, it is a crazy house.
But yeah, this building, I think was built in like 1912 or something like that.
And they have, help me out here, baby.
What is it they do?
Pathology is what they did in that building?
Yes.
At the time that it was built, it was like the cutting edge hospital for mental health
patients.
And they did research and provided healthcare for mental health patients.
Right.
And this is where they conducted these strange experiments and put brains in jars and said
this is what a person with schizophrenia's brain looks like versus a normal brain.
Man, that place was spooky to me.
Yeah.
So they will take these patients, and when the patients pass away, they will take their
brains and dissect them and study them.
And they will put, you know, like if you go there now, they have these brains on display.
Their actual brains.
And they will have a description of the patient and their ailment.
Yeah.
And this hospital was actually a place for medical students to come and study from all
over the country.
So they have like...
I think from all over the world.
They mentioned people from other countries coming over and studying as well.
And they had the auditorium where someone would give lectures on what they found.
And they actually do autopsies there.
They had an actual room, a separate room as well for autopsies and a storage facility
where they show where they kept the bodies and also where they cremated them.
Yeah.
Everything was in house there.
So when you arrived at the quote unquote crazy house, you probably didn't leave.
It was a freaky place.
Can you imagine spending the night in that place?
I cannot.
Like going on Halloween night?
Oh goodness, no.
And spending the night there?
They should probably do that if they hadn't thought about doing something like that.
They could probably make a lot of money because I guarantee you it's a lot of stuff spooking
around in that place.
Yeah, it's creepy.
They have a baby in a jar on display.
Like standing up, they have like the fetal skeleton upright.
They had slides.
They had a photography room where they would take pictures of the body parts and things
like that.
It was interesting, a tad bit creepy as well, but the facilities are stunning.
They're beautiful facilities.
I was thinking that at the time that was cutting edge technology, cutting edge medical assistance.
And then you think about it like they were just guessing.
It felt like they were just guessing like, ah, this might be the problem.
And they were doing what the latest they put these caps and do was electrical stimulants.
I'm like, that don't work.
Who thought that was a good idea?
They did.
That's why they did it.
Terrible, terrible.
But if you're ever in Indianapolis, we suggest you stop by.
It's something that everyone should see.
So honey, did you have any regrets about this short impromptu trip?
Not a one.
Oh, we didn't get there earlier.
That's it.
I have a regret.
We should have done the whole weekend because we missed out on concerts.
They were having concerts down by that giant Eiffel Tower.
Oh yeah, they brought in the Eiffel Tower.
Yeah, replica.
Yeah.
They had concerts, they had street vendors.
It was sort of kind of like a celebration in downtown Indianapolis.
And because we didn't get there earlier, we missed out on the festivities at the convention
center.
So I regret that.
Probably would have been a good weekend trip.
Spend the weekend.
Yeah.
So that's my regret.
Yeah.
Well, that's it for our crazy impromptu Indie Olympic swim trial visit.
All right, later.
If you made it this far, you are the true champion.
You could have been anywhere, doing anything, but you instead chose to spend your time with
us.
And for that, we say thank you.
I'm Derek.
I'm Makayla.
Rate, like, and subscribe.
Do good, be good.
Until next time.