Louisville

We decided to choose a hotel in downtown Louisville for our vacation.  The location made it really easy to access most of what we were doing in Louisville and be able to walk to a wide selection of restaurants for lunch and dinner.  Plus our hotel was right off the highway, which was great when we were spending the day out of town.  However, I must say that downtown Louisville is just not a happening place on the weekends and at night.  Sunday night we were looking for something, anything that was open for a quick snack and the only place our hotel could suggest was the gas station across the street.  Other parts of the City that we went to for dinner or dessert did seem a bit more happening in the evening.  Overall, though, it was a nice location to stay and worked out well for us.  
The first day we were in Louisville we went to the Kentucky Derby Museum and the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory, what I think are probably two of the first things you think of when it comes to Louisville.  Both I thought were really interesting things to see.  The Kentucky Derby Museum (704 Central Ave.) is located at Churchill Downs so included in the admission price is a quick tour of the general admissions areas of the race track.  Admission is $13/adult, $5/kids, age 5 and under free.  They also offer additional behind the scenes type tours for an additional price.  The basic tour is pretty good because it allows you to get into Churchill Downs and see it since when we were there racing season was over for that park.  Our tour guide seemed to have his dream job, telling us that he had been going to the track since he was five and he considers the Kentucky Derby the best day of the year.  I'll give him points for enthusiasm but there was just altogether too much talking for the girls out in the hot sun.  The only thing that made them perk up was to see the regular horse and miniature horse that are kept at the track.  They spent much more time there than anyone else on our tour and they may have actually been the only kids on the tour.  The museum was a completely different story.  They loved all of the exhibits since many of them are interactive.  There was a betting area where you could wager on horses (just pretend) and then watch the race on a TV screen to see how you do, which my gambling addict daughter just loved and had to do twice.  They also loved  a horse riding video game type thing and dressing up like a jockey to pose for a picture on top of a horse.  A 15 minute movie is also shown at the museum.  Usually those are the kinds of things I would skip with the girls but it was well done and actually held their interest.  Definitely worth the trip for the amazing history of Churchill Downs and fun interactive museum.    

The Louisville Slugger Museum (800 W. Main St.) was kind of a surprise hit.  The girls were really not looking forward to going but once there actually kind of enjoyed themselves.  Admission was $10/adult, $5/kid, kids 5 and under free.  There is not a whole lot to the museum - there are a few historical bats used by famous players that you can touch while wearing gloves and being supervised.  Then there are some displays showing how bats are made.  What kept the girls attention while we waited for our factory tour was an exhibit that threw a baseball at a stuffed catcher at the speed of a professional pitcher.  They watched that over, and over, and over...  The tour I thought was pretty interesting.  I kind of enjoy learning how things are made.  As would be expected, most of the manufacturing of a baseball bat is now done by machine but there are still a few things that they do by hand.  Again the tour was really just too much talking for the girls but they did perk up when they got a free mini bat at the end.  There is a kids area but really only has some coloring pages and a small batting cage to hit a plastic ball off a tee - certainly not something you can't miss.  There is also a section with real batting cages for adults.  I can't believe I almost forgot the giant bat.  In front of the Museum is the giant baseball bat that you often see associated with the city of Louisville.  Most things in life are not as big as you expect them  to be but this was actually larger than I thought it would be - very fun for pictures.

Louisville also has a relatively nice waterfront area on the Ohio River.  We had planned to go on a riverboat cruise down the river during our trip but the boat only operates over the weekend.  The only weekend day we were there was Sunday and heat indexes were over 100 degrees so decided sitting outside for a few hours that day wasn't a good idea.  Maybe next time.  There is also a big waterfront park that was only a few blocks from our hotel.  We didn't end up spending that much time there because of how hot it was and the girls always preferred swimming in the hotel pool over going to the park.  However, the park is very large and a good convenient place to let your kids run around.

There were a few dining highlights for us.  We went to a restaurant called Lily's (1147 Bardstown Rd.) basically on the advice of every guidebook and newspaper/magazine article we read about Louisville.  I would highly recommend it as well.  The restaurant is sort of fancy but not that fancy.  It's not really the kind of place I would normally take my kids if the restaurant was in Chicago but we didn't have anyone to watch them and really wanted to try it.  Our waiter was really great about the kid thing (although we may have been getting dirty looks from the rest of the staff) bringing my daughter plate after plate of bread.  We were there at 5 right when the restaurant opened and were the only customers for awhile so I really don't think there was much for them to be annoyed about.  There wasn't a whole lot on the menu that would appeal to the average kid.  Even though we've been taking our daughters to quality restaurants since birth they still don't have an appreciation for much more than chicken fingers and pizza.  We were kind of lucky because on Tuesday, the day we went, they have an additional Tapas menu and we were able to order the girls fish and chips (which was very good).  The restaurant focuses on local, organic, free range food.  My husband had the burger, which he though was awesome and I had the farmer's plate, which was the vegetarian option.  I am by no means a vegetarian but I thought everything was very good.  I spent the whole time trying to figure out what I could do to make vegetables taste so good when I make them at home. 

Just before we left for vacation I saw a small blurb in Food and Wine magazine about a restaurant called Doc Crow's Southern Smokehouse (127 W. Main St.).  It was located only a couple of blocks from our hotel so we had to try it.  This also ended up being the kind of place I normally wouldn't take my kids and they were less nice about it even though we were there at 5 on a Wednesday night.  Anyway, the food was good - we had ribs and the girls had a bunch of sides- and we had an enjoyable time.  I would recommend this place but it's definitely not as good as Smoque (although you can order alcohol here).

When traveling with the girls we almost always have to go out for ice cream at least once.  We tried two places that were both pretty good:  The Comfy Cow (1301 Herr Lane) and Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen (they have about 10 locations in Louisville).  Both great places to grab dessert, good selection, plenty of seating, delicious goodies.