Road Trip-Day 1-Louisville

So where were we?

Yes, rolling into Louisville after some not so Legendary treatment and touring the bourbon factory, it was time to brave the cold for the Louisville Bats (Reds) against the Toledo Mud Hens (Tigers).
I really liked Louisville when I came here with Ryan and even though we didn't do anything around town this time, I still like Louisville Slugger Field.

Louisville built their park in 2000, so it's 18 years old now and as much as I like it, I can see how to others it might rank behind flashier AAA stadiums that I have been to like Nashville, Durham or Columbus.
It has the retro look without the bells and whistles that newer parks have.
In other words-it's a ballpark and not an athletic emporium.
Terrific sightlines, a generally knowledgeable baseball crowd and having the type of facility that has the space of the newer stadiums without the noise of those parks helps to rank Louisville among my favorite of the AAA parks.

I was not all disappointed to return to Louisville, even though I had nothing to get signed.
We still had a bonus though, as it was a bobblehead giveaway night and I added a Tucker Barnhart gold glove bobble for the evening.
Now this is where I betray a little ignorance in the I didn't pay much attention sort of manner- Even before that night, If you had asked me for a million dollars, who won the gold glove for National League catchers last season- Tucker Barnhart would not have landed in my first five guesses.
I might not have even remembered him at all without a list of names in front of me, which likely says this- the Reds were awful last year, I didn't see many Reds game and Barnhart must have been pretty strong defensively to win an award on a bad team and a bad small market team at that!

We watched about five innings from the left field bleachers (They gave us great seats behind the plate, but those were in the shade- the bleachers were in the sun and therefore warmer) where the weather was better than that in Lexington, just an hour west, with the sun shining.
We could have stayed longer and even stayed in the sun as if you remember from my trip with Ryan, the sun stays out far later in Louisville as it is located on the western tip of the eastern time zone with the result being that it is far lighter there at the same time compared to Maryland, although the sun arrives far earlier here than in Louisville at the same time.
Louisville is one of my favorite stops (maybe it's because of my love of the Kentucky Colonels?) and though I did get the feeling that some (if not all) of the other four travelers liked it as much as I did, I had a great time at a nice ballpark.

We did need to eat before the night was through and as before, we looked up Trip Advisor as we moved along.
One of the problems with TripAdvisor (and similar sites) can be that when you go to larger cities, so many great places are deep in the city, which means they often are closed, can be hard to find when you aren't familiar with the city and more times than not- you have a very difficult time finding a place to park.
As much as I felt that we left some really good places to eat on the table, it was the right call in this situation.
We checked a few places and finally looked up a town named Shelbyville.
The selection was Claudia Sanders Dinner House and yes, it was named after the wife of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.

The restaurant looks like exactly where you would think a Kentucky Colonel would reside and the inside was massive, wide open and spacious.
It's really hard to describe other than imagine a home that you would think Colonel Harlan Sanders would live in and that's exactly what it was like.
The menu was awesome and I rolled the dice and went for the all you could eat fried chicken with chicken livers.
It included FOUR vegetables and a soup of choice (I went with chicken and dumplings).
We all ordered an appetizer to split that loomed as a must try -Sausage stuffed mushrooms!
I cannot convey how good this tasted!
I wound up bailing after just two pieces of chicken and two liver servings, just way too much food at super reasonable prices!
Combined with a great waiter and I couldn't give Claudia Sanders Dinner House a better recommendation and on that- all of us agreed!

After another liquor house stop for an interminable period for Miguelito Loveless and his love of the bottled spirits, it was back to Lexington to finally hit the bed.
The hotel was nice and I was so tired that I didn't watch the boxing card on Showtime- that's called exhaustion, folks!

I'll finish the final day later this week as I have another post to work on tomorrow..