Louisville and Cincinnati

Last weekend, Brandon and I hit the road for a much needed vacation! Our destination was Erie, PA for my family reunion. However, making the 12 hour drive all at once didn't seem like much fun, so we decided to make some stops on the way. On Friday we stopped in Louisville, KY. I have been wanting to stop here ever since we made the drive from DC to Murphy and back. You can see the giant bat at the slugger factory right from the highway.

Naturally, our first stop was the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. We got a sweet metered parking spot right outside of the front door.

The bat goes all the way up the side of the building! We went in and bought tickets for the factory tour ($10/adult). While we waited for the tour to start Brandon ordered a Father's Day present.

The factory tour was really cool but no pictures allowed. I got to take home a "nub" (the knobby part they cut off the bat) and a mini-souvenir bat (included in the ticket price, score!). Worth it!

Outside I found a Mona Lisa cutout to pose with:

Mona Mitra

Our next stop was lunch at Louisville's famous Lynn's Paradise Cafe. This restaurant was featured on Throwdown with Bobby Flay where Lynn made a decadent omelet and french toast. The parking lot was packed at 1pm when we got there. Luckily, they have an extra lot just a block down the road. Totally stumbled upon this by accident but so so glad that we wouldn't be getting a parking ticket. The menu had a wide variety of gormet brunch and lunch options. It was hard to decide! Of course the most expensive breakfast items were the dishes she featured on the show ($14ish) but Brandon and I went for other items.

Mine

I had the Eggs Bernadette which were two poached eggs over garlic buttered grit cakes with a relish of tomato and spinach. And Brandon had the BLT Fries which were home fries baked with bacon, spinach, tomatoes, onions, jack cheese, and garnished with horseradish sour cream topped with over easy eggs. Everything was DELISH.

His

On our way out we found some more awesome cut-outs:

After that we were on our way to Cincinnati, OH. Our first stop was the observation deck in Carew Tower.

Brandon and I entered the builing and headed right to the elevators. There were only a few small signs to the observation deck and we felt like we were in the know. We took the elevator to the uppermost floor where we had to squeeze into another teeny elevator to the top. Then we had to walk up a set of stairs. There was a woman was waiting in a little gift shop. We gave her our $2/person and headed out the door to the roof.

ET phone home

We had a great 360 view of the city:

The weather was scorching hot! But, the downtown is connected by "skywalks" which provide indoor sidewalks for pedestrians. So we walked around for a little bit.

 I don't mind living in the country but can you tell how much I miss the city?!