Louisville

Well at this time last week I was in Louisville with Nelms and Adam. This trip was totally random. No, really. We just kind of figured that it's mostly in between Indy and NashVegas, so what the heck. The great part, of course, is that it's closer to me.


Anyway, because of my laziness this week, I have finally got the photos up on the flickr account. (Link on the right side of the page.)


We started the adventure downtown. It's a good-sized downtown. Not too many heinously-wide streets and not much filth, either. Easy to get around, easy to see nice architecture. We went to the 21C Hotel which my brother showed me the week before when I was there. The big deal is the bathroom and the one-way mirror. You do the math.

The remainder of this story may or may not be in chronological order. Nonetheless. Here are the things we did ...

Took the tour of the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat factory. First of all, much smaller than you would think. And if you go, try to go during the day when they're actually working with wood. The machines were silent, although I used my imagination and casted Clyde Neal at each of the stations. It wasn't too hard, but occasionally he would skitter off for a smoke break. (Note: Major inside joke there.)

They gave us little baseball bats as a souvenir. Not bad considering the tour was $9. Definitely taking the kid.

I was also surprised that the actual bats aren't that much. They're well under $100. And that includes personal engraving. I'm not hard up for a bat, but it's good to know. The gift shop also sells bats that didn't quite pass inspection for really cheap if you just want to have something to like, beat your drunk friends with. I don't know.

After that I think we went to the Visitor's Bureau. We got nice little pins with the pronunciations of Louisville on them. The folks there were super-nice and even gave us four pins (one "for our friend in Iraq") despite Adam having filled out only one survey as they requested.

We lunched at some pub/eatery thing at Fourth Street Live! And yes, the exclamation point is included. I stole a menu (what?) and there was a fried pickle on the table at one point. The menu (for drinks) is on its way to Iraq.

Then of course we headed off to get pie. The tourist bureau folks had told us of a good place for lunch, but instead of lunching there, we got our pie on instead. Since we had it to go, we wanderered for a few blocks in search of a Starbucks to sit down and pie in. Man, do I love pie.

Following all that, we started walking around Downtown a lot more. We parked near the waterfront and strolled around the park down there as well as Slugger Field. I imagine that during warmer weather there's a lot of potential for such glorious open green spaces bisected by flying highways.

Lastly, we headed over to the Highlands. My brother drove me through there the week before, and I was completely taken by it. I mean, one long narrow street filled with somewhat-useful shops running through a neighborhood of porch-ladened houses!

Nelms, Adam and I ate dinner ....someplace .... that fortunately had some televisions in the bar so I could watch Pitt beat VCU in overtime. (And no, I'm not talking about the game against UCLA but yes, my bracket is completely screwed.) After that we hit up a pie and ice cream place to put together the care package for Brandon. The people working there were also crazy-nice and hooked us up with a pen, scissors, packing foam and best of all, pie.

I am now remembering that before the Highlands we went to a Toys R Us out in the burbs to get more stuff for Brandon's care package. Right.

So there you have it Louisville.

And today I'm completely free ... so after a trip to the gym and CostCo I figure it's time to finally sort through the huge pile of clean laundry on my bed.

The Volvo is still rocking pretty good. I finally got it insured and registered. Both were a lot cheaper than I thought. But I'm sure when I put Maria on the policy it'll go up just a little bit. Unbelievably, I have a really good driving record. No, really. No points or tickets, and accidents are very few and far between. If only the same could be said for my credit.