Louis, Louis

Day 8 of our vacation found us still recovering from the effects of Schmidt's Sausage Haus but seeing as how there was a Waffle House right by us we decided to go there for breakfast on the condition that we didn't have waffles.We proceeded on our way to Loiusville, pronounced loo-ah-ville. 

We drove through Cincinnati right past the Reds and Bengals stadiums and over the bridge into Kentucky. 
We saw a sign for a welcome center in Kentucky so pulled over to get some info about what to do. Unfortunately it was closed with a sign that said "out to lunch be back at 12:32". So we waited about 10 minutes until it opened. Armed with armfuls of glossy printed brochures we proceeded on to Louisville. 

We decided to check into our room first as it was about 10 miles from downtown. We stayed at a Hyatt Place which is Hyatt's budget version. It was still very nice and roomy.

We drove into downtown Louisville. It is right on the banks of the Ohio River with a number of bridges crossing over into Indiana.

Our first stop was the Louisville Slugger factory where the bats are made. Needless to say, that was the biggest bat in the world. We elected not to take the 10.00 tour and headed right to the gift shop. It had a lot of stuff in it and you could buy a bat and have your name put on it if you wanted to. 

Lindy decided to get a shirt and a small Yankees bat. I also convinced her to allow me to take her picture beside the big bat. As you can see, it's REALLY big!

The next thing on our to do list was to go to the Brown Hotel. This is the hotel to stay at in Louisville and is very elegant. At one time it had closed and was used by the Louisville School District. We drove up and our car was whisked away by a valet and up we went to the second floor.

The English Grille restaurant was still closed, but the bar in the lobby was open for business.

The lobby was beautiful and relaxing.

There was a horse statue to remind us of where we were.

But we had more important things to accomplish. The first was to have a mint julep. I asked the waitress to have them with Makers Mark and she replied "That's all we use, honey."
It was absolutely delicious. The glasses were frosted and the mint and whisky and sugar syrup was just the right blend. We would have had two but I needed to navigate and Lindy need to drive back to our room.

Next we had to have the famous Hot Brown sandwich. I'll let the menu describe it. 

We remembered to take a picture this time before we tore into it. It was incredibly good. The turkey tasted like Thanksgiving turkey and was very moist (sorry, Margaux). It was really nice to sit in this wonderful atmosphere and drink this delicious drink and eat this scrumptious food. But, alas, all good things have to end. The waitress brought our bill. It was worth every penny. We went down and had the valet bring our car 'round. When we were leaving, the valet went out into the street and stopped traffic both ways so we could pull out-now that's service!
We went back to our hotel and walked over to the Barnes and Noble right next to it and spent some time reading about places to go to. We got ice cream cones from the Graeter's next to the book store. This is a local company that makes their own ice cream. They were very good, but we didn't have the camera along. We went back to our room settled in to watch America's Got Talent and enjoyed the rest of the evening. Tomorrow we are on to Alabama.