Axl Rose and Shannon Hoon are both my musical loves. Rose sings for Guns N Roses, and Hoon, who died at age 28 of a drug overdose, sang for Blind Melon. Both are from Lafayette, Indiana. They knew each other, too, though Rose was older.

The lyrics from a song he wrote called "Change" are carved into Hoon's tomb stone in nearby Dayton, Ohio.

At the grocery store in Lafayette, I met one of Hoon's old friends, who told me "If things were getting boring, Shannon would liven them up real quick."
He says after the drugs started, Hoon changed from the fun-loving, sweet athletic guy he'd partied with and served in high school detentions with to someone distant and unkempt he barely recognized.
Today, Hoon is definitely more loved than Rose is in his hometown. Perhaps because he never dissed it, like Rose, did. (Though Rose dissed everything at one time or another, so I don't know why that's significant.)
Not much is left of either of their stomping grounds.
Rose reportedly spent a lot of time playing music in his grandmother's garage, which was located behind this frozen custard shop on the outskirts of a large park.

About half a dozen people along my route told me I may as well skip Indiana.
"There's nothing there."
"Just a bunch of corn fields."
"Nothing important to see."
By the time I made it over the Kentucky border, I was burnt out.
My lap top battery had officially died; I'd weathered my share of mechanical and technical problems, battled bugs and heat and humidity, tossed multiple notebooks full of interviews and been on the road roughing it long enough to qualify as a gypsy.
So when I drove into that blessed mid-70 degree state, I thought, "I don't care if there is nothing here. Indiana will be my vacation. Indiana belongs to me."
The change from the south to the Midwest is oddly instantaneous. Not just in the weather, but the culture, too.
In the small city of Scottsburg, several dozen ball-tossing, corn-fed-looking high school boys converged in the Wal-Mart parking lot on Friday night and and held a raucous outdoor party, complete with fast cars, rap music and two or three flirtatious girls.
I spent an hour or so in Indianapolis and a neighborhood a few miles north called Broad Ripple, which is pleasantly artistic and diverse.
Even just a few miles past the border, people have way different accents than those in Kentucky do. For whatever reason, they were a lot less reactive to my bright turquoise hair.
And for the record, the corn fields are beautiful.
I've got plenty of sunsets, old buildings and scenic panoramas preserved in my mind.
You guys will have to imagine.