Vacation Story (Finally) Part I

After a little marriage spat (more at some point) and a clean house and packed car off we went on a little vacation. Our plan was to hit Louisville for 2 days and then Cincinnati for 2 days (getting to a Reds game in the process).

Friday was a drag because we left late (see spat) and arrived in Louisville at 7ish. We found the city very clean and well laid out. We ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory and stayed at a nearby Hampton Inn (opened in April of this year).

Saturday: Up early and off to the Slugger Museum for a grand old time of baseball history....

The boy swinging A-Rod's Bat at the cage. Got some good hits!!

The bat at the museum is actually Babe Ruth's Bat to scale!!!!

They had a rep from the All American Girl League there (See the movie A League of their Own!!!)

The museum is fantastic. They have bats from all sorts of players, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Johnny Bench, Ty Cobb, etc. The factory tour was awesome!!! You must go when they are making bats. I am not sure who's was being made that day but at the end of the tour we saw Derek Jeter's and A-Rod's bats being wrapped for shipping. VERY COOL.

From the Slugger Museum we hit the track and bet on some ponies! The Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby) was awesome.


We had a great time, eating, drinking and watching the races. You can bet $2 a race and have a lot of fun. Unfortunately we let the boy pick the horses and lost every bet!!!


We watched 8 races, got several drinks (yes a Mint Julep) and ate a Derby Dog ($5 for a 1/2 pound hot dog with EVERYTHING!). That done we headed across the Ohio River back to Indiana to see the Falls of Ohio State Park and take a walk. We walked down to the rivers edge and found fossils all over the place. It was incredible, the fossils and rocks at the site are actually protected by Federal Law, look but do not take out of the park! After that we hit the Riverside Park on the Louisville bank and walked around there. Went to 4th Street Live, which is an outdoor mall that closes down 4th Street at night and they have live music and dancing and such. A little adult for our family so we went to a local mall and got the wife a bathing suit so we could all go swimming. On the way back we stopped at Bearno's Pizza to take dinner back to the hotel. A large pizza and a family sized salad. Well the waitress got mixed up and we ended up with our pizza and a salad as big as your head!!!!!


After dinner (we did not eat the whole salad) we hit the pool and swam for 2 hours until we were a) tired and 2) they closed the pool. It was a nice big pool and we had it to ourselves. We went upstairs to bed around Midnight and set the alarm so we got a good early start to Cincy on Sunday and the Reds game that started at 1:15.......