The urban geography of Indianapolis is similar to Atlanta in that it has a perimeter highway, I-465 instead of I-285, and is basically quartered by the main north-south and east-west interstates inside that perimeter. Atlanta's east-west interstate is I-20 and Indy's is I-70, while I-65 traverses the inner metro of IND in the same general northwest-to-due-south orientation as I-75 in the ATL.
Yesterday I drove down to the general area of Bloomington, IN, and my path out of town caused me to muse that the entire southwest quadrant of Indianapolis, that area south of I-70 and west of I-65 but inside I-465, was largely terra incognito to me, despite having lived in Indy a dozen years now.
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| Roseholme Cottage is roughly in the gap between "reliving" and "college". |
My return path got shunted by my robot navigator straight through this part of town. Normally I'd tell the robot to stuff it and stick to the route I knew, but since I'd been musing about it on the voyage down...and I didn't have any particular timetable to be getting home...I figured I'd get my sightseeing on. I went ahead and let R2D2 steer me through "Truck Stops", "Industrial Wasteland", and past "$20k Houses".
For being "Industrial Wasteland" and inside the perimeter highway of a major city, the corridor of Bluff Road between 465 and 70 is surprisingly bucolic for much of its length, passing legitimate working soybean fields at the southern end and not turning really gritty until you pass Holy Cross cemetery.
I ought to go back and explore some.
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