Cindy On Tour: Spring Break continued

After the short trip at the horse farm, we head to Louisville, KY. I can't remember where this was but it was a rather random façade:

Before heading into downtown Louisville, we decided to check out some bridges. There's so many here!

You can see like 4 bridges just from this view point!

Family we-fie!

This one is called Big Four Railroad Bridge. It was built between 1888 and 1895. And in 1929, a new bridge was built inside the old bridge:

You can see downtown Louisville from here:

I should send this photo to Toyota for their car ad :-)

Boys are happy to be playing at the playground and this is a large one!

We've made a reservation for the Slugger Museum. But first, lunch:

A few minutes to spare so we walk up the street. Hmmm, there's this huge statue that looks like "David" painted in gold??

Charlie made the attempt to cover the who-know-where. LOL!!!

Omg, it's a limousine covered in little glass marbles. Woah!

Random bat along the way, which obviously is stuck to the ground:

Interesting open-air façade on the other side of the street:

Cool bicycle rack, which obviously becomes a climbing obstacle for Graham:

Here's what is within that open-air façade - an outdoor sports arena. Cool!

Somehow I didn't figure out who this sculpture on the bench was, but Charlie was quick to take a seat next to him :-)

We stopped in a chocolate store. Look at all the bourbon in all interesting sorts of bottles!!

Maybe I should have bought a bottle of bourbon-infused honey. He he...! :-P

There's David again, now on the other side of the street. And we noticed some pink penguins on the top of the roof. So strange!

Right across the street from the Slugger Museum is the Science Center. Very convenient!

Another family we-fie!

Check out this MASSIVE baseball bat right outside the Slugger Museum!!

There's some amazing information and memorabilia in this museum:

Here's a spot in the museum where you can get a sense of how fast a Major League Baseball (MLB) player pitches:

Quick video:

I can't imagine wearing an outfit like this, as a woman - to play baseball!

The boys got to handle some of the professionals' bats:

The thing they kept saying was how heavy the bats were:

I'm just noticing Cody Bellinger's bat and also Derek Jeter's bat on this shelf!

We are walking into the production area. You should smell this place!

So many professional ball players have their bats made here:

There's sooooo many of these billets!

I think these pros are pretty spoiled. Ha!

Here's the section where the bats are carved:

It's amazing how fast this machine does it! See video below:

Check out all of these autographs on the machine:

There's Jeter again!

They are making a lot of bats for Spring Training:

They carved out a bat that was like the Light Saber:

Did I mention how much wood is in this factory??! It's a good thing the company has their own tree farm:

Can't believe the company started making bats since 1903!

This place even has misters to keep everything at the right humidity:

I forget that this is an actual working factory. These poor people have to listen to the same tour, so many tours - every single day. Yikes!

These machines are pretty efficient and churning out bats pretty quickly:

Bats get their mark burnt into the bats:

Look at all this paint! I'd have a ball with all of this paint :-D

I'm not sure how I would do if my job was just to dip baseball bats all day:

That was quite the tour! And check out all of these signatures on the wall from current and previous ball players:

Of course, there's a whole section in the gift shop to personalize your own baseball bat. Of course, Graham wanted one but we convinced him that he could just carve his name on the little bat that we got for free from the tour:

There are definitely some fancy baseball bats here:

$1,300 for Jeter's old bat. Sheesh!!!!

Here's info on this Big Glove that's in the building. It's big alright!

I'm just realizing that it's sculptured from a 450-million year old Kentucky limestone. Wow!

And I'm just realizing that the big bat outside of the building is the world's biggest bat and is an exact-scale replica of Babe Ruth's bat. Cool!

Okay, done for the day. We just noticed that even the area that the trees are planted is shaped like home-plate. The museum didn't miss any details!

We decided to stop by this chain restaurant called Skyline. They are supposed to be famous for their chili, but Graham opts for a hotdog. Although it came with 2 hotdogs with one bun. Graham is happy about it for sure:

Daddy is tucking into that chili with a lot of cheese!!

This is an interesting dish - spaghetti with chili and lots of cheese. It was quite yummy though!

And gosh, we really tucked into this dessert - yummy funnel fries!

Those funnel fries were so good that we ordered another plate of it. Graham and Charlie was so happy to be able to dip their fingers into all that leftover powdered sugar:

After all those sweets, we decided to skip our favorite ice cream. Thankfully Graeter's have stores in IL:

The top part of this building looks like part of that corn-cob building in downtown Chicago:

Tonight, we are sleeping on the other side of the Ohio River, in New Albany, Indiana:

The aquarium is just down the street from here, for next time.

We decide to walk to a German restaurant and on the way, here's the house of Brig. General John T. Thompson - who was the inventor of the "Tommygun" machine gun: