Louisville, Kentucky

We drove about 60 minutes north to visit the city of Louisville, KY. It was a weekday and the traffic wasn’t too bad but parking downtown was a challenge. We finally found a parking garage with reasonable rates and close to all the activities that we wanted to do. There are so many historic building to enjoy. It’s apparent that when demolition of older buildings occur in Louisville, they take great care to at least save the charm the architecture once had. 

I have enjoyed watching or listening to baseball games for decades. Getting a chance to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory was something very special. Our factory tour was the highlight of the visit. Visiting the museum was icing on the cake. Even though the museum is somewhat small there is a lot of baseball bat history packed into this small space. We spent a couple of hours here and enjoyed every moment from watching a 90 mph fastball being pitched to seeing baseball hitting legends bats (including Babe Ruth’s bat that set his 60 home runs as a target for many years to come). Watched several youngsters (and adults) in the batting cage trying to hit that “out-of-the-park” hit. Looked into the 3000 bat vault and handled some of the famous pro hitter’s bats.

Next up, we toured the Old Forester Distilling Company. Louisville is well known for its bourbon because of its location on the Ohio River.  Kentucky bourbon trail starts (or ends) right here in Louisville. Over a hundred years ago, bourbon barrels were transported on river boats up and down the Ohio River. Old Forester was the first distillery to start shipping bourbon by glass bottles.

Every hour on the hour tours are offered and we made it just in time for the 2:00 pm tour. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and included 3 samples each at the end. All three samples had their own unique taste from a mild earthy to a caramel buttery.