My olde Kentucky home, Luvalle style

Darby sneaking a sip of bourbon at Jim Beam!

After rolling into Louisville and doing the slugger museum on Sunday night, we headed to our Air BnB in the Highlands neighborhood.  It was a cool spot, and a great location.  We all were kind of ready for an off night, so we just decided to go grab a bite to eat locally within walking distance.  Darby chose our eating options, so we ended up goign to a nearby Korean place and 3 of use had Bibimbap as that's about the only thing on the menu we recognize from ordering it previously!  Our timing was not great, as when we exited the restaurant, it was a friggen downpour outside!  So we ran across the street to a pizza/bar place and had a beer and a giant cookie dessert to wait out the rain.

The big bat

The legend, JR.

We had kind of a quiet morning the next day, and then headed off to conquer Louisville.  We started off at Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum on the South side of town.  It was cool to learn about the history of the Running of the Roses, and our timing was unique due to this being the first year that the race was decided by a DQ.  We got the walking tour around the paddock and out to the homestretch of the track.  The dirt track is ~ 75% sand and they were working it up while we were nearby.  Back in my early SoCal days I worked at Hollywood Park and used to visit with the guys that maintained the track and it was always fascinating to learn of the science behind a fast or slow track.  My favorite part of the museum was the farrier video showing how they prep a horse hoof and nail the shoe on.  I was surprised I had not actually seen that occur when I was younger.

Barbaro tribute in front of Churchill Downs

The Slackette jockeys.

After the track/museum, we went across the street for lunch at Wagners Pharmacy, a popular tourist trap diner nearby.  The food was actually pretty good and very reasonably priced.  Bish won with the Derby Special sandwich of grilled ham with cheese on it.  After lunch we did the driving tour of University of Louisville campus as Darby (and quietly the rest of us) were not in the mood to walk another university campus yet.  It is a pretty compact campus surrounded by a lot of city.

Derby hats

Boo having a Mint Julep

Then we went back into downtown and hung out near the fourth Street Experience (think Fremont St. experience in Vegas, only not as big and not as many weirdos and drunks walking around).  We stopped into the Jim Beam Urban Distillery there and did another bourbon tasting.  I thought Bish was going to die when she took a sip of the Knob Creek Rye bourbon and it seemed to burn her throat going down!  All that was missing was her pounding her chest with her fist and saying "Good stuff" between coughs!  I am slowly starting to recognize the different tastes of bourbon based on what the mash bill mix is.

Trying to steal the Colonel's secret recipe.

We had decided that evening that we were going to go do the Louisville Mega Caverns as it sounded cool to go hang out in a 60 degree limestone cave when it was 87 and humid outside.  The place closed at 10 pm (it's always dark underground), so we headed in that direction for our tour around 6:30 with plenty of time to spare.  Or so we thought!  All tours end soon after 6 pm!  Too bad that info wasn't on the web site for planning purposes!!!  Oh well, we'll have to try the Mega Cavern tour on our next trip.  For dinner that night we just went to a local pizza joint nearby and called it an early evening.

We got up on Tuesday morning, cleaned up, loaded up, and got out of our Air Bnb early enough to make it to the Muhammed Ali Museum before it opened at 9:30 am!  We spent 2-3 hours learning about The Greatest as well as about homelessness (another exhibit currently) around the world.  Ali grew up in the Louisville area.  

She is the greatest!

Rope a dope!

After Ali we hopped on the road towards STL.  I hadn't had a breaded pork tenderloin yet on this trip (an Indiana staple and something I always try to have at least once while back near home), so I found a place online in Corydon, IN for one.  Unfortunately Mike Bussabarger (FH) wasn't home while we were in town.  Funny story, first it was KFC that was out of biscuits... the restaurant we went to for the BPT was a 'brick oven' place, so they of course served pizza.  The waitress informed us that that were "out of pizza dough" when she took our order!!!  :-)

Another horse pose

After lunch, we had to stop by Santa Claus, IN because you just have to if in the vicinity!  We ran by the Christmas store and had some hat fun!  And we got to see Jay Cutler baseball field!  Not sure why they named a baseball field after him in his hometown when he excelled at football, but at least there is a field named after him.

Larissa pose with Santa

Southern Illinois was flat, open, and boring!  Good thing it was only 100 or so miles over to STL.  Our Air Bnb in STL was in the Central West End neighborhood near Forest Park (think Golden Gate Park or Central Park).  I felt like Buffy and Jodie from Family Affair as we were staying in a high rise apartment in the city!  All we were missing was Mr. French!

Baby shark...doo doo...

Coal for Darby this year