Louisville, Kentucky - April 2017

The Husband attended a work-related seminar in Louisville, Kentucky this week, and I went along for the ride.  We left home around 10 a.m. Sunday, drove at a leisurely pace, and arrived in the middle of the afternoon.  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on 4th Street, where the seminar was held.  Our room overlooked 4th street, part of which is sectioned off for pedestrian traffic and live music events.  Restaurants, bars, and hotels lined both sides of the street.

 In the early evening, we met up with some fellow seminar attendees and went to dinner at one of those Brazilian steakhouse restaurants where the waiters come around with meat on skewers and feed you until you can't hold another bite.  After dinner, we enjoyed a few drinks in the hotel bar.  Tired from the drive, I left The Husband in the bar and went upstairs to bed.

While he did seminar stuff on Monday, I drove around Louisville by myself, just arbitrarily taking lefts and rights.  I saw some nice things and some not-so-nice things.  My favorite street was Bardstown Road, where there were a lot of eclectic shops and coffee houses.  Dinner that night was "heavy hors d'oeuvres" and drinks in the seminar conference room, then we went out for drinks at a nearby sports bar. 

Tuesday, I drove around again, looking for something to wear to that night's party at Churchill Downs.  The seminar literature had suggested "Kentucky Derby attire" for the party.  Prior to leaving home, The Husband had bought himself a seersucker suit, and I had made a wide-brimmed hat but had not bought a dress.  Here's a secret:  I hate wearing dresses.  Instead of a dress, I opted for capris pants and a comfortable flowing shirt. 








At 6:30 p.m., we boarded a tour bus with about 50 other seminar folks.  We toured Churchill Downs, enjoyed a buffet dinner in the museum, and tasted mint juleps (plural).  The band was terrific.  I ditched the hat long before the evening was over.

 

Wednesday, while The Husband wrapped things up at the seminar, I headed across the river into Indiana, where I nosed around inside a huge flea market.  They let me out of there for under $50.  ;)  That evening, we had dinner at Guy Fieri's restaurant on 4th street (best meat loaf I ever tasted!) and called it a night fairly early. 

Love the black barns.  This one was NOT on stilts, as it appears.  ;)
 

Thursday kicked off the "footloose" part of our trip.  We visited a cousin in Sadieville, Kentucky, then drove through Georgetown, where we had burgers in a little restaurant on the town square.  Our plan was to spend the night in Lexington, then drive to Shepherdsville on Friday for a visit with our niece.  As luck would have it, some horse-racing track was opening on Friday, and all of the decent hotels in Lexington were full.  Since we discovered this fairly early in the evening, we had time to drive on to Shepherdsville, where we found a nice, clean room at a Best Western. 


After a leisurely breakfast Friday morning, we headed out to tour the Jim Beam Distillery.  We had to kill an hour and a half in order to do the tour.  We did that by sampling the wares - a Jalapeno Fizz and an Old Fashioned - on Jim's porch.  ;)  After the tour, we drove to Bardstown and shared a "hot brown" at the Old Talbott Inn.  Later in the evening, we met up with our niece and her husband and had a nice dinner at a nearby steakhouse.

Back at the motel, around midnight, I was awakened by loud voices.  At first, I couldn't tell whether the sound was coming from the hallway or the adjoining room, but as the minutes clicked by and the noises did not recede, I realized that the couple in the next room was having an argument.  I tossed and turned and finally put my pillow over my head, but even that did not drown out the noise.  A loud thump against our wall made both me and The Husband bolt upright.  I leapt out of bed and said, "I'm calling the front desk!" but The Husband was already beating me to it.  He told the desk clerk that there was a "heated argument" happening in the next room.  Within a minute or two, we heard a knock on the door of the adjoining room.  I could not hear the exact conversation, but I gathered that one of the fight participants had left the premises, and all was well.  The rest of the night was peaceful. 

This morning as we were preparing to leave, we noticed a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door of the adjoining room. 

The Husband stealthily removed this sign as we were leaving. 

It rained on us nearly all the way home. 

We made a couple of detours to inspect some potential camping spots we'd seen on the drive up, which added another hour or two to our travel time.  We had stayed at these parks about 20 years ago, when we had our first camper, a pop-up, and thought we might want to go back.  Unfortunately, the camper we have now won't fit into most of those campsites. 

We rolled into our driveway around 5 p.m., hungry and tired.  And there was no food in the house.

Still, it was good to be home.