So we started out bright and early from Indianapolis, around 8:30. It was still too early for me. Mom drove first, as usual. I was originally going to sleep, but the siren call of Angry Birds (18 levels defeated) was too much for me. So I destroyed some piggies as Martha dutifully led Mom to our first destination: The Louisville Slugger Factory. Shockingly, it was located in Louisville.
Which is in Kentucky, by the way. Which means that I grabbed another state for my collection. We crossed the state line and I was up to 34 states. (For a full list, email beccacollectsstatesinsteadofstamps at unitedstates dot com.) Riveting, I know.
Anyway, we parked the car and made our way towards the factory. It was very easy to find, mainly because of the humongous baseball bat that resides right outside. We'd found our first "World's Biggest" of the trip. And it's the World's Biggest Baseball Bat.
They really weren't kidding. It's a big bat.
It was a little intimidating to stand next to, but I did it anyway.
The next logical step was to actually enter the museum. We hung out in a room full of memorabilia and looked around for a bit as we waited for the tour of the factory to start. Then we saw it. The roped off area. It contained the bats of baseball greats. We had to take them. Obviously, this is a lie. First of all, the nice attendant invited us in and asked us which bat we wanted to hold. I'll save the surprise of our picks for the photo captions. It helps build the drama of this post.
I chose Mickey Mantle's bat. That's right. I'm actually holding Mantle's bat here. I texted Dad to tell him. According to him, that makes up for me not getting to go to the Bruce Springsteen concert that he and Mom attended without me. I'm not so sure.
Mom, of course, couldn't resist Big Papi's bat.
So after we held the bats of famous people, we got to go on a tour of the factory itself and watch the bats be made. It's actually really an amazing process. The billets (the cut sections of the tree that are made into the bats) are carved out into bats by master craftspeople in about thirty minutes. In the 1970s, that is. Today, the fully automated machines carve the bats out of the billets in 30 seconds flat. I'd give you the full details, but I signed a contract in blood. There are no pictures because that was in the contract, too. But it truly was a fantastically informative tour. And at the end, the guide gave us souvenir mini-bats! Which could work well as impromptu murder weapons.
After the factory, we needed lunch. Mom had already picked out a place on my uncle's recommendation: Lucy's Paradise Cafe. We toodled along through the town and finally reached it. It's actually Lynn's Paradise Cafe. Luckily, GPSes only care about the address, not the name. It was a truly unique place. The lights mostly consist of ugly lamps that have been collected through the years. There are disco balls ever. Neon-colored walls bright enough to blind a blind man all over again. In short, my kinda place.
It also had fantastic food. I ordered a bourbon burger; Mom went with the "sandwich" that Alton Brown recommended as the best sandwich in America. According to the menu, that is. Now, I put sandwich in quotation marks for a few reasons. I could write out the reasons, but I've been told that a picture says a thousand words.
"The Hot Brown Sandwich" (or something like that).
It's basically turkey, sourdough, and some other things drowned in cheese. So. much. cheese. With bacon on top. Needless to say, it was delicious. Also needless to say, we ate ourselves a bit sick. And forgot to take a picture of the food before we started eating it. Y'know. I can say that I have never eaten a sandwich from a bowl before. Now I have.
After lunch we made our way to Mammoth Cave.
Once again, shockingly enough, Mammoth Cave was indeed mammoth. According to our tour guide, it's over 392 miles of cave. And that's just what has been discovered. Now, when we were on our way to Mammoth, we made a non-fatal but still no fun error: we forgot about the time change. So we arrived at 1:40 for the 3:45 tour. Oops. There was more Angry Birds. And even some map-reading. For educational purposes only.
But, finally, we got to go into the cave. We did the relatively easy Frozen Niagara tour. It was both informative and oddly reminiscent of my geology class. Weird. It was a lovely cave, though. Damp. Cool. Filled with buggies. A true 10/10 on the cave market. (I did like it, really.) I'm only going to put up one photo of the inside of the cave. Rest assured that there will be more put on Facebook. Because I like caves.
After Mammoth, it was time to head to Nashville for the night. But first, we had to face our biggest challenge of the day: navigating the National Park at twilight. With about 8 million deer on the loose. There were three deer in the parking lot alone when we left. Surprisingly, we only encountered three deer on the road. But it was a tense seven mile drive. Thanks to my video game expertise, I triumphed. TAKE THAT, DEER.
On we went to Nashville. Mom was a little jumpy because of the night driving; I was busy being overjoyed about these fantastic 70 mph speed limits. Oddly enough, most of the locals only go one or two miles over the speed limit. After New Hampshire, where people regularly go 5-10 over, it was a little bizarre. But we made it to Nashville in one piece, then promptly misheard the directions and missed a turn. As it turns out, the Opry Conference Center and all of its parts is HUGE. But it does have pretty lights. At long last, we pulled into the hotel. Dinner was quick and easy, nothing special. Clearly the next step was too watch The Big Bang Theory and pretend to blog, then actually start blogging.
As you may have guessed, I've really got nothing left to talk about. So we'll take this moment to do the usual mileage count. I'd make a chart, but that's too science-y.
Today's mileage: 314 (Indianapolis to Nashville)
Cumulative mileage: 1243
Total Angry Birds levels beaten: 46
Also, Laura, we don't have theme song for the car yet. Deal with it. Or leave us suggestions. If we don't get any music suggestions, we'll pick up yodeling.
And come on, no one wants that.
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