May 12, 2016
For Mike's 40th Birthday, we decided to go on down to Kentucky and Tennessee. I took a lot of photos but I'll just post the ones from the big camera. Check Facebook or the scrapbooks for more! Anyway, I didn't take any one the first day. We drove down to Louisville, KY first and it was raining when we got there. We checked into our hotel and went downtown. We visited the Louisville Slugger museum/factory but it was closing. We got a couple shirts. Then we went to 4th Street Live (stores, restaurants, good times) and visited the Jim Beam urban distillery. I got Mike an engraved bottle of specialty bourbon that he bottled himself. Good times. We ended up eating and listening to music at Manny and Merle's and then headed back for the night.
May 13, 2016
Mike's actual birthday was a lot of driving. We went to see Churchill Downs though we didn't get to see any races. We ended up having to get lunch at Fazoli's (because apparently I sucked at finding cool food places, which is usually my favorite... at least we had luck in Louisville on the first day), but after that we went to the main distillery for Jim Beam on the way to Tennessee. That we pretty cool. The tour was fun and interesting and we tried a few bourbon type things. Mike got some BBQ and I got some ice cream because obviously. Then we got kind of lost trying to find the Mammoth Caves. We should have taken a tour though we didn't... but we did get to cross a car ferry because of my convoluted GPS directions... hit rush hour in Nashville and then spent the evening walking through downtown Franklin and eating late night pizza before hitting the hay.
 |
^Loved this family try thing... neat. |
 |
^We should have taken the tour. This was cool but all we got to see. |
 |
^Only shot I love from the trip. Not impressed with my photographing this time around. |
May 14, 2016
It was a little cloudy on the way to Nashville and boy was it cold (sad face!) but that was okay. We stopped to see the Grand Ole Opry and took the tour, which was probably one of the coolest things we did, I think. Famous people go there! Neat. Then even took a good photo of us that of course we had to buy at the gift shop... It was neat anyway. We had lunch at the mall next to it. Jake at work said to go to the Aquarium restaurant. It was neat. Not the best food ever but not bad and the view was cool. Also I enjoyed dessert! After that we headed downtown to Nashville. We got $5 parking and didn't have to walk too far. We stopped at Printer's Alley at a blue's place called Bourbon Street which Mike thought was pretty cool. Then we went to Broadway where all the music and bars are. It was BUSY but kind of neat. We hit a few places where seating was scarce. Tootsie's was probably the coolest, though my germophobia was rampant... haha. We ended up finally getting something to eat at Rock Bottom on one end of the street. Pretty good though we had to wait awhile for service... our waitress was awesome in the end though so no worries. Mike wanted to stop at Bourbon Street again on the way out and we ended up not getting any dinner but watched Sister Ruth and the Sawgrass Revival until 10pm and that was pretty cool. I still think she should have sang "Black Velvet" though!
 |
^The tour was pretty awesome. |
 |
^All inductees and current members of the Opry. |
 |
^Lots of cool dressing rooms. |
 |
^Stage! |
 |
^Two views of Broadway. |
 |
^Sister Ruth and the Sawgrass Revival. |
May 15, 2016
All we did was drive home... breakfast at Cracker Barrel (couldn't find anything else!) and then dinner at Schuler's in Marshall before getting home 9 or so hours later. Phew! Jules wouldn't wake up when Ron dropped her off but I snuggled her anyway. She had a long weekend too!