To Louisville and Back!

We're back from our road trip to Louisville.  We had a great time, and the weather cooperated so we did most of the driving top down, an added bonus.  Some highlights:

- We had a wonderful dinner with Gary and Patty Casendino Gussoff, who have been in what she calls "Looneyville" for four years but will return to NJ as soon as Gary retires.  They said to say hello to each of you.

- The waterfront area of Loo-ville, where we stayed (in a two-room suite overlooking the river) is great.  It's an old warehouse district.  Nearly all of the old five and six story cast iron fronts have been preserved, a pedestrian-friendly streetscape was created, and several museums and arts centers are located there.

- An Imax movie in the Looo-ville Science Center about the Lewis & Clark expedition.  I have been reading an edited version of their journals, but it came to life in this very difficult to make movie.  News: we were all taught about "Saca-ja-wEa," who guided the expedition for much of its length.  It's actually "Sac-A-ga-way-a."

- The Hillerich & Bradsby baseball bat factory, where 60% of all Major League Players have their Louisville Slugger bats made, and which you can tour.  The actual manufacturing area is surprisingly small, no bigger than a typical restaurant.  The gift shop is almost as big.  On the day I toured, bats were being made for Brandon Phillips, who plays for some midwestern team (can you help me, John?), and Derek Jeter.

- Long drives along Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway and through the Great Smoky Mountains, beautiful mountain country.  When we confine ourselves to our home areas, it is easy to forget what a beautiful country this is.

- A visit with niece Geren Zoubek Mandl and Dave, who now works for Oak Ridge National Labs outside Knoxville.  Their twins were getting ready for their first day of school.

- People in these parts of the South are polite (although, as Patty said, that's not the same as friendly).  Best example: on the interstate driving north to Lou-a-ville, a sign said "right lane closed two miles ahead."  Immediately everyone merged into the left lane, leaving an empty right hand lane two miles long.  In NJ, there would have been aggressive jockeying and lane switching even past the merge location.  I am telling you, that was weird.  Also, almost no one speeds.

- Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's long time home, with lots of inventive interior and agricultural innovations.  Rather smaller than I expected, and Jefferson himself occupied only a small part of the first floor.  Things to grapple with: he died indebted in $2 million in today's dollars, and his daughter had to sell all the home's furnishings when he died; over 600 slaves lived and worked there over the course of his lifetime, about 200 at any given time, and he freed only eleven in his lifetime, all members of the Hemmings family. 

- Biltmore, Geo. Wash. Vanderbilt II's estate in Asheville, NC.  It's the largest and most often visited home in the US.  He originally bought over 600 square miles and built a railroad up to the house to carry in all the materials used to build it.  2.6 million plants, for one example, with the grounds landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead.  Some photos in a basement exhibit show the massive efforts that went into its construction.  It's still owned by his descendants (who put in a pompous and snooty tribute to themselves in one of the rooms), and is clearly a very big business.  Along with the gardens and house, there is a huge hotel, a winery, a couple of "villages" with stores, restaurants, etc.  But it's very well done, you can wander around the house as you wish and not get stuck on a "tour."  While the outside is patterned after three French chateaus, the interior is more gloomy Germanic/Teutonic darkness.  He died with insufficient funds for his widow to maintain it, so she sold off most of the land, which is now the Pisgah National Forest and parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

- Asheville itself, an arty smallish town; we extended our stay another night to take advantage of the restaurants.

- The Cherokee Indian Museum, detailing the life of the tribe before the white man arrived and the "trail of tears" journey to Ky and Ok after they were evicted.  It's not far from the huge Harrah's Cherokee Casino.

- Abraham Lincoln's birthplace (reproduction) and boyhood home (reproduction) sites, a few miles apart in Ky.  Strangely isolated and sparsely visited.

- Watching Reds games on TV every night in Loo-uh-ville, while tracking Mets games pitch-by-pitch on my phone.

- Janet had her new iPhone and I my new Android phone.  A few glitches but everything worked as promised.  However, you can't read the screens with the top down!