On the Banks of the Ohio
Saturday, May 19th
Greetings from Sunny Loohavul (say it like you have a mouth full of marbles)! We’ve been here a week, and I can already hear my speech slowing down. Heaven only knows what I’ll sound like after 7 weeks in Texas…
It’s been a really pleasant week here. We drove down from Indianapolis on Monday. It was an easy little drive (less than two hours), but the time in the car was sufficient to give me a sunburn on my bald head (the sun roof seemed like a good idea). Francesca and I arrived around noon and had the balance of the day at our leisure. I did some laundry and then hooked up with Denise Watkins. We realized that it had been nearly 10 years since we’d really seen each other; she and Randy made the trip up for our wedding, but those 10 minutes of face time hardly count. So much has happened in that time, but our connection hadn’t changed at all. She took me out to Bardstown Road (the funky/artsy neighborhood) and we did some shopping before we settled in for dinner at Ramsi’s café. Ramsi’s sort of reminded both of us of the Tuba Museum in Okemos – the same sort of eclectic menu ranging all over the globe. The goat cheese stuffed dates were delicious! We were joined by Denise’s friend Amanda for dinner and then we all adjourned to Molly Malone’s (could you guess that it was an Irish bar?) for a nightcap before they dropped me back at my hotel for the night.
We’re staying downtown at the Galt House, right on the Ohio River. My room looks west along the river and I’ve been enjoying watching the tugboats push all manner of barges along the river (this morning one came east pushing 15 barges of coal!). There’s also a pair of paddle wheel excursion boats that come by occasionally. The bigger one, The Belle of Louisville, is a real-deal steamboat built in 1914, making her the oldest and most well traveled steamer in the country still in operation. There are a series of falls in the river here at Louisville (the reason for Louisville’s early existence was as a portage around the falls – now there’s a canal and series of locks). The falls were also the jumping off point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Louisville has lots of river related history and the same sort of cool mid-1800’s and turn of the century architecture as Buffalo.
Saturday, May 19th
Greetings from Sunny Loohavul (say it like you have a mouth full of marbles)! We’ve been here a week, and I can already hear my speech slowing down. Heaven only knows what I’ll sound like after 7 weeks in Texas…
It’s been a really pleasant week here. We drove down from Indianapolis on Monday. It was an easy little drive (less than two hours), but the time in the car was sufficient to give me a sunburn on my bald head (the sun roof seemed like a good idea). Francesca and I arrived around noon and had the balance of the day at our leisure. I did some laundry and then hooked up with Denise Watkins. We realized that it had been nearly 10 years since we’d really seen each other; she and Randy made the trip up for our wedding, but those 10 minutes of face time hardly count. So much has happened in that time, but our connection hadn’t changed at all. She took me out to Bardstown Road (the funky/artsy neighborhood) and we did some shopping before we settled in for dinner at Ramsi’s café. Ramsi’s sort of reminded both of us of the Tuba Museum in Okemos – the same sort of eclectic menu ranging all over the globe. The goat cheese stuffed dates were delicious! We were joined by Denise’s friend Amanda for dinner and then we all adjourned to Molly Malone’s (could you guess that it was an Irish bar?) for a nightcap before they dropped me back at my hotel for the night.
We’re staying downtown at the Galt House, right on the Ohio River. My room looks west along the river and I’ve been enjoying watching the tugboats push all manner of barges along the river (this morning one came east pushing 15 barges of coal!). There’s also a pair of paddle wheel excursion boats that come by occasionally. The bigger one, The Belle of Louisville, is a real-deal steamboat built in 1914, making her the oldest and most well traveled steamer in the country still in operation. There are a series of falls in the river here at Louisville (the reason for Louisville’s early existence was as a portage around the falls – now there’s a canal and series of locks). The falls were also the jumping off point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Louisville has lots of river related history and the same sort of cool mid-1800’s and turn of the century architecture as Buffalo.
The Belle of Louisville
All went well at the Kentucky Center this week. There’s plenty of room both onstage and in the dressing areas. After being jammed into Indianapolis, the space was welcome. We welcomed a new flyman this week: Nate. We also welcomed our soon to be head of Wardrobe Wayne. Our very own Jamie Karen has had several bashes at the role of Lady of the Lake as Esther has been feeling under the weather. It’s been fun to watch our third Lady in as many weeks. All of them have made very different choices.
Denise and Amanda came to the show on Tuesday night. Afterwards, they took me out to the Maker’s Mark Bourbon Lounge. I enjoyed a very tasty Maker’s Mark Manhattan and one last night with Denise before she had to be on her way back to Morehead.
Wednesday morning, I met up with Piper and Nigel for breakfast at Lynn’s Paradise Café. Lynn’s was one of roadfood.com’s recommendations as well as a local favorite that Dad passed along from his coworkers in Louisville. Its reputation is justly deserved. Attached to the restaurant is a gift shop called “The World of Swirl”. Inside are all manner of kitschy gift items and totally unnecessary things. The diner is decorated like your wild and crazy “artistic” aunt’s house. Every table is furnished with a different wacky lamp (ours won the prize for ugliest – it had tulle projecting off in all directions), a set of toy animals and a deck of cards. The food was delicious. I had the Kentucky French toast. It was made from cinnamon swirl toast and topped with white chocolate sauce, candied pecans, strawberries and bourbon whipped cream. It was the perfect dessert for breakfast combination.
Lynn's Paradise Cafe.
Once we had escaped from the gift shop, we piled Callie, Graham and Darryl into a cab and headed off to Churchill Downs. It was a cool (for Louisville – high of 70) but sunny afternoon that we spent at the track. I made all manner of losing $2 bets, but we had a really fun time pretending that we knew what we were doing. Of course, a couple of mint juleps didn’t hurt our confidence… The track was really pretty with its two spires and it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.
Though we are a couple of hours from Cincinnati, there are Skyline Chili franchises all over Louisville. Thursday, I got to sample some of the famous chocolate infused chili over spaghetti. The chili is sort of like Mexican mole sauce, not chocolaty at all, but rich and delicious. It is, however, a mess to eat – thank heaven there were bibs provided!
Yesterday, I took a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory and museum. Very little of the work on the bats is done by hand. The bats are turned by computerized lathes. All the preferences of the major leaguers are stored and used to turn out bats to order in as little as two days. While I was there, they were making bats for Derek Jeter – the tour guide gave me the weird end piece that they cut off his bat once it’s been through the lathe. Of course, they have all kinds of historical bats on display. My favorite was one of Babe Ruth’s sluggers. He made a notch around the logo for each of the homeruns he hit with the bat; 25 in all before he eventually broke the bat. They also had a video screen/pitching machine that let you stand at the plate and take a fastball from the major league pitcher of your choice. I took a 90 mile an hour pitch from Roger Clemens. I have no idea how hitters can see the pitch and make a decision whether to swing or not in the 3/10 of a second it takes the pitch to travel those 60 feet 6 inches.
The Louisville Slugger Factory - home, shockingly, to the world's largest baseball bat.
I took a stroll over to the Brown Hotel after the bat factory. The Brown Hotel is famous for the Hot Brown. Invented at the hotel in 1926, the Hot Brown is a broiled open face sandwich of turkey, bacon and mornay sauce (a parmesan and cream sauce). While the sandwich was tasty, it wasn’t revelatory. It was a yummy combination of its parts, but not a magical combination. The crab cakes in Baltimore, for example, were a revelation. This isn’t to say that when passing through Louisville you shouldn’t have one…
On the topic of things you should eat while in Kentucky, don’t miss Derby Pie. Derby pie is a combination of pecan pie and chocolate – GENIUS! Though I did not travel out to the Melrose Inn for the official and super-secret original version, the one Ken treated Francesca and I too this afternoon here in Louisville was very tasty.
Monday morning we’re on planes to Houston and a four week sit down. I’m looking forward to a whole day off (with my wife, no less!!!) and to visiting with Casey. It’s been since I was in Boston since I had a day all to myself – that seems like forever ago. I’ve really dug some of these smaller cities we’ve been playing lately. Indianapolis and Louisville were especially fun.
Below are some more photos from Buffalo and Indy:
The Spamily Dogs at play. Roz, Zoe, Satine, Patisse & Missy frolicking outside the post office in Buffalo.
Tim's Birthday.
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JV w/ Julie, Francesca, Ryan, Amy, Callie & Piper
Piper, Francesca, Ryan, Julie, Mike, Callie, Tony P., Amy, JV and Robert w/ the Pagoda at IMS.
Piper's Birthday.
My whole first roll from Buffalo and Indy is here.
JV
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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