We are staying at a Drury Inn on North Michigan at 485. More than a few miles, I guess, but lots of motels around.

TC - thanks for the input. Unfortunately we will only have the afternoon for Turkey Run area plus the drive and lunch, so we will stick to hiking. At least we have ideas for the future if he decides on one of the two schools! I really appreciate the directions - my map isn't that detailed and I'm always leary of mapquest and such. Sometimes they do it right, and sometimes not.

Ok- just making sure you weren't in a bad part of town.

It still won't take too long to get back down to Butler- most of the lights are synchronized well once you're a little bit south of Broad Ripple.

When I lived in Indy (I lived downtown) a friend visited from Philly. He kept teasing me because every time he asked how long it would take to get somewhere I said 20 minutes- until about the third 20 minute trip!

cocotum - I appreciate your concern - I've stayed in some pretty iffy areas by mistake before - not fun! That's funny about 20 minutes! Would you think 20 minutes, plus a bit for getting turned around (my specialty is getting lost easily) and parking, would work for getting to Butler at 10 on a Friday morning?

After all the research/help on Turkey Run which I thought Brent would be really excited about, he has decided he would rather see the zoo! Kids!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both mapquest and yahoo had us getting off MLK, on I-65, then back onto MLK at 30th St. exit - does that make sense, or could I just stay on MLK? I really hate driving in cities! Our town, or at least our side of it, is pretty small, plus almost all streets (east/west) and avenues (north/south) are numbered so it's hard (even for me!) to get lost.

Given the location of The Indianapolis Zoo (on Washington) and Butler University, you would be better off to take a hotel on the S/W side of town rather than way up North. The Drury Inn is nearly to Carmel and completely out of the way for your venture.

If your son is now interested in zoo animals, you might want to reconsider the big cat sanctuary. It is located off of 70, between Terre Haute and Indy. You would then hit Indy's 465 at the airport from 70. North on 465 to Washington and then the Indianpolis Zoo. I would then take a hotel on 465 or something off of Rockville Road (Hwy. 36) or around Speedway (74). That puts you right in line to get to Butler the next day with an easy drive just a couple of miles north. Even staying near the airport would be a good shot up 465 to 38th St. exit.

Whew -we're back and I've recovered. On the good side - Brent really liked the schools and plans on applying to both; on the down side, we didn't get to either Turkey Run or the zoo and we hit Indianapolis during rush hour! The low tire pressure light came on in our rental car, and I didn't want to risk any problems so we exchanged it. That, plus a longer than expected tour/interview at Bradley took up most of our free time on our Peoria to Bradley day. Both hotels were nice - and I particularly appreciated the free glass of wine at the Drury Inn after the downtown traffic. It was a bit further north than I had expected, but it was very easy to get to both Butler and Broad Ripple. We didn't eat at Avanti (Brent had eaten left over pizza as a late breakfast and wasn't hungry), but the menu looked wonderful. We ended up with sushi both nights - Sushigwa (spelling?) in Peoria and Tchopstix (spelling?) in Broad Ripple - and enjoyed both. Thanks for all your help and advice, and we WILL get to Turkey Run and the zoo at some point - maybe next year!

I completely missed the second question, sorry! Glad everything worked out though!

Thanks for posting a follow up (it's always helpful when people do that). Glad everything worked out.