Louisville was one of those cities I always drove through on the way to somewhere or the way home from somewhere, but never visited. Well, last week we changed that and had a quick jam packed stay there.
It’s a five and a half hour drive from where we live in SE Michigan, which didn’t seem too bad, and it really wasn’t. We had intended to stay in an Airbnb originally, but I ended up cancelling that reservation because the parking didn’t look like it would work well for our situation. I am glad that I went with my instincts to change, because we ended up at an amazing hotel – the Cambria on Whiskey Row. The price was comparable to what we would have paid at the Airbnb, and the location was a million times better, as we we were within walking distance to Main St. which had tons to do, but for us the main draw on Main was the Louisville Slugger Museum.
Let’s not skip ahead though. The hotel was super friendly and welcoming. I had emailed prior to going about accessibility, as I like to know what to expect when we get there, and the front desk staff and manager were amazing. I mentioned that Wyatt was super excited about the trip and couldn’t stop talking about it, and when we got there, he had a surprise waiting in the room for him. They had left him fruit snacks and goldfish crackers, and a welcome card, like he was a tiny VIP and it was just so sweet. He was pretty tickled over it!
The room itself was massive, and very clean. It was also very quiet, which was my favorite thing. I hate a noisy hotel which is one reason we usually stay at an Airbnb. The other reason would be to give Wyatt more room to move around in, but we didn’t need to worry about that with the room we had in Louisville.
We had planned on walking to the museum and factory tour at the Slugger Museum but it was raining just hard enough that we had to drive. We didn’t have too difficult of a time finding a parking space, but we did go on Thursday afternoon just after school started for the year, so that may have had some impact on it. I had bought the tickets before we left so we didn’t have to stop and do that once we got there, we just showed our tickets and entered the museum, which was super cool!
Our favorite part of the museum was the area where you could “hold a piece of history”. In this case, the baseball bats used by famous major league baseball players, like Babe Ruth! We all held his bat, and also Alan Trammell’s since he was a Detroit Tiger, so represent. They have a bat handler who wears gloves, and then you have to make sure to only touch the bat on the rubber they have wrapped around the handle to protect it. (is handle the right word? Lol) Babe Ruth’s bat was super heavy; he apparently used a very big bat. I also enjoyed seeing the women’s baseball league represented, and also Little League!
After poking around in the museum, they called our group in for the factory tour. Billy loved this part way more than I did, although it was pretty neat to see how they make bats! I thought it was interesting that they place the logo in the strongest part of the bat, so that when the logo faces out, the ball is striking the strongest area so that the bat doesn’t break. They make bats for all the MLB teams in baseball, and if a player has a contract with them, they get their signature on the bat. If they don’t have a contract, their name is just printed on it. Also, they own a forest somewhere on the border of Pennsylvania and New York, and they plant more trees than they cut down. The trees are hand selected, and usually all have to be over 65 years old before being made into a bat. I would definitely recommend visiting the museum and taking the tour if you are in the area!
We stopped in the souvenir store because of course, and Wyatt picked out a tee shirt that says “You’re killing me Smalls!” which is perfect since we all just watched the Sandlot earlier this summer.
After the tour we walked down the street to the Troll Under the Bridge Pub, which had been recommended to us by both my cousin and one of my friends. At first I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to get in, as it is literally down a bunch of stairs underground, but they have an elevator available for those who need it. By the time we sat down and ate, we were all starving and thirsty. That lemonade I had was the best thing ever, and I am sure it was just normal lemonade. Louisville is extremely humid, like seriously swampy. We left revived enough to walk back to our car at the museum and return to the hotel, where I took a cool shower and got into my pajamas despite it being like 6 pm. Getting up at 5:30 am after being woken up by a very excited 11 year old had finally taken its toll. We watched tv and read and then that was day one done!