Purdue University and West Lafayette, Indiana

Since we both retired from a university in Oklahoma, we enjoy touring universities all over the country. We found ourselves camped just 20 miles from Purdue University, so we made the drive to West Lafayette one morning. Our goal was to find the best-known outdoor art features on campus, so we started with the Loeb Fountain.

While Denisa was checking out the weekly farmers' market on campus, Mark is having a chat with Mr. Purdue, the namesake of the university.

Right in the center of campus is the Engineering Fountain. It's obviously a good place for students to gather. So much so, it was hard to take a picture, because so many students were gathered here.

Purdue is obviously proud of its students' contributions to the space industry. This huge sun sculpture is in the center of one of the green spaces on campus, with all the planets rotating around it in appropriately scaled orbits. Purdue likes to point out the large number of students that have become astronauts. That would include its most famous, Neil Armstrong, the first person on the moon. Signs all over campus touted "150 Years of Giant Leaps" in celebration of their 150th anniversary in 2019.

We stopped by the "Unfinished P" with its nostalgic message to students about building their life on the foundation built here at Purdue.

No tour of a major university would be complete without walking to the football stadium. We accidentally walked by a couple "do not enter" signs to get this picture inside the stadium.

Also, no tour of a college campus would be complete without lunch at its most durable eating establishment. Situated on the edge of campus, the Triple XXX Family Diner is the oldest drive-in in the state of Indiana. It was also featured on Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" program. Even though its Triple X name might imply something naughty, it is actually named after the home-made root beer that we ordered with our burger. In the world of root beer, XXX means the best quality drink.

Situated on the edge of campus, The Triple X has been in business since 1929. The napkin holders on the formica counter brags "we were here before your Mother was born." I guess they weren't planning on such an old guy eating here today, because that isn't true for Mark.

After a seven-mile walking tour around Purdue, we have a couple other stops planned. But we will have to cross the Wabash River to get from West Lafayette to its sister city of Lafayette.

Lafayette is the county seat of Tippecanoe county, so it hosts a very grand courthouse downtown. We are finding that Indiana has some beautiful courthouses, so we had to park the car and take a look inside as well.

But our favorite stop in Lafayette was the Colombia Park Zoo. We don't usually stop at zoos, but this one was free so we had to take a look. We especially liked this Australian exhibit, with the wallabies hopping around us in an open exhibit. A Purdue student studying zoology was in the enclosure with us, answering all our questions about these small kangaroos. One answer was, "no, there are no little joeys hiding in those front pouches right now."

The Australian exhibit included this kookaburro that didn't mind posing for pictures.

We would have liked to be in the enclosure with these cute river otters, but we were separated by a wire fence this time.

River otters were once extinct in Indiana Rivers, but a relocation program has brought them back to the state. We enjoyed watching the antics of these playful otters, who gave us close-up swim-bys at the water window.

The petting zoo is popular with youngsters, so of course Denisa enjoyed it too. She especially liked the baby kids that appreciated a good neck scratch.

When she put a quarter into the food vending machine, the sound of the knob turning brought the entire herd running to her. She had to fight to get the food out of the machine, as these goats knew how to lift the door and help themselves. She was able to feed the rest of the goats before they nibbled on her (too much).

We also enjoyed the monkeys, and the emus, and the tortoises, and . . . It was a nice little zoo with a great price--free! After a big day of sight-seeing, we were headed back towards home, but we had one more stop to make. The Battle of Tippecanoe happened right here in these Indiana hills in 1811. This obelisk marks the spot of this battle between the United States army and this area's Indian tribes.

The forest around the monument includes old-growth hardwoods that were here during the battle. It was a beautiful place to brush up a little on our early American history.

We've had a good time seeing another slice of Indiana today, and we like what we saw. It's a good day when you learn a little, spend some time with kids, and eat at a XXX diner. It was a good day of wandering!