I C DQ!!!

 

We started our day at the Louisville Slugger Plant and Museum.  We just wanted to continue the theme of visiting stuff that is unique to each area we're in!  But none of us are real big baseball fans.  In fact we all kept wishing that Pete (or Noah, or Allyson, or Paul R., or John M., or Jay R., or Beth...or just about anyone cared about baseball was with us...it was (honestly) kind of wasted on us.  A bit of a strike out (for us anyway). 

Some facts learned...40,000 trees die every year to make bats; they can make a bat in 30 seconds now (used to hand lathe them and it took 20 minutes!); we got to see some famous Major League bats being made...ummm, but I have no idea who the guy was, sorry I already forgot.  Two cool things: they have plates made of all the big ball player's signatures going back to the beginning of baseball-time (they stamp them on the bats); and because they used to hand lathe the bats, they have a 'bat volt' (see the picture) with bats that were actually used by all the big players (the existing bat would become the 'template' for the new one they made).

We walked around downtown Louisville, took the free trolley, and ate at an amazing Mexican place (where Dylan found his second-in-his-life Blackberry in the bathroom; the owner of the restaurant gave him a cookie for being honest and turning it in...the cookie was good and Micah and I felt no guilt in making him share since we suggested giving it to the proprietor).  Later we walked the Ohio River front and generally had a fun and interesting day.

Dylan was anxious to drive over one of the many bridges (I don't think you can drive over all of them, but there are several).  So we made our way to Indiana and visited the Falls of Ohio State Park with tons of super fascinating fossils, we even got our feet wet in the (kind of gross looking) brown, but refreshingly cold Ohio River.  At that point we were pretty hot and sweaty and felt we had earned a Blizzard at DQ (do you get the title now?).  So after almost getting run over by a train (don't ask...) we enjoyed our Blizzard and went back to the Microtel (which for the record I don't agree is anything to write home about...although I guess I am).


I leave you with this mind boggling thought: The Colonel...yes, Colonel Sanders - as in KFC is originally from Kentucky!  I know - you've never really thought about it, have you?!  Me neither!  I mean, I say it, but I don't really think about it...but it's true!  And the Louisville Tourist Info Center had a mini-museum to prove it!