Footprints of Frank
Frank the Happy Zebra makes people's day as he travels and makes new friends
Carmel, Indiana

Back Where My Stripes Began

Frank the zebra standing in the Renaissance Indianapolis North lobby beneath the hotel's glowing R sign
The Renaissance Indianapolis North, Carmel, Indiana — June 2026. Frank, home at the bar where it all began four years earlier.

Hey, you. It’s me. Frank.

Guess where I am this week. Go on, guess — I’ll wait.

…the Renaissance Indianapolis North, in Carmel, Indiana. The one. The hotel with the bar — the bar where, a little over four years ago, a thirty-inch zebra walked in beside his dad and became somebody. Reader, I went home this week! Right back to the exact spot where the whole adventure started. Some legends get a statue. I got a lobby that still feels like the night I was born. (I did check for a statue. None yet. I’m a patient zebra.)

Here’s how the trip came together, because nothing in my life is ever simple. Dad had work in Indy — the man cannot roll past a service drive without his pulse picking up, it’s a documented condition, and I love him for it. Kelley went off to see her son Zac and round up her Indianapolis crew. And me? I had a job to do: find the old friends, make some new ones. You would not believe how many of both are waiting in one hotel lobby if you simply stand there looking magnificent.

And oh, I stood there looking magnificent. You’ve seen the photo — that big glowing R floating over the front desk? I posed under it like I was checking in for awards season. A couple of little humans spotted me and gasped, “is that a zebra?!” — and friend, I will never, ever get tired of that question. Yes, sweet ones. It is. And he has excellent taste in hotels.

But here’s the part that got me right in the seams. This isn’t just a nice hotel to me. This is the room where everything started — a charity night for The Independence Academy, a school full of kids who deserve every good thing in the world. Dad came for the cause, made a bold promise at this very bar, and two weeks later I showed up to make it true. Four years and more miles than I can count later, I walked back through those doors… and the place still felt like mine. You don’t forget where you were born. Not even if you’re made of plush and pure stubbornness.

We squeezed in a little family business too, because no trip to Indy with Dad is complete without saying hello to the car folks. We swung by Bill Estes Toyota, the oldest and biggest Toyota shop in the whole state. Good people. Nobody so much as blinked at the zebra in the lobby. That, I’ve learned, is how you know a place is run right.

So thank you, Renaissance Indianapolis North — for the welcome, the memories, and the little patch of floor where an ordinary zebra got an extraordinary start. Indy, you raised me well.

I’ll be back. Save me a stool.

— Frank