#146 8-8 thru 8-9-09 Louisville, KY (a side trip)

We decided to drive to Louisville, KY before heading to Mammoth Caves to see where the “Louisville Slugger” bats were made.

We stayed at the Lyndon/Louisville Elks Lodge, where we parked next to the outdoor pavilion and hooked up to 15 amp electric.

It was nice and quiet until the evening when there was a baseball game right behind the pavilion next to the Elks. But, they were having a good time and we weren’t bothered by them. Most of the fans and players left well before 10:00 p.m.

We pulled in about 3:00 pm. and drove to a nearby shopping center. Dixie got her nails done, Frank got a hair cut and we found the Wal Mart Super Center and did some grocery shopping. Now that our domestic chores are done, we can do some tourist stuff tomorrow!

The world’s biggest bat, and look, next door at the glass works the ball broke a window!

We are at the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat Company. They make 80% of the major league baseball bats. We signed up to take the tour of the factory, but one of the rules was no pictures inside the actual manufacturing plant.

Here’s Frank at the home plate, using Mickey Mantle’s bat. There were other famous baseball players bats you could swing.

A manikin showing how the bats used to be made all by hand on a lathe. This is just before we went inside the plant. Inside we saw the fully automated, computer controlled lathes that make each bat in 30 seconds. The company will make custom bats for the major league players with their signature burned into them.

The players love their “Louisville Slugger” bats!

After seeing 15 minute film about the bats and baseball we walked down a hall that had murals to look like a locker room. Pretty cool.

We left after a short stop in the gift shop and had lunch. I had a brochure from a glass manufacturing studio and we found it right around the corner from the Louisville Slugger plant. So we took a self guided tour around the studio.

They manufacture all kinds of glass, from commercial installation of designer windows to glass sculptures. This is a model of what they made, and the sign tells all about where it is hanging now, how big it is and what kind of glass they used.

They do amazing things with glass. Their office doors are glass with door handles like the sweeping glass above that is attached to the stained glass. Beautiful.

Then we watched a glass blower work in the Hot Room using molten glass to make objects. He made a number of items, all which were just for examples. They were then let to cool, break and would be put back in the furnace to be reused.

I wish you could see the display of glass balls—but the reflection of the windows obscures the view of all the different colors. They were beautiful.

Even on the outside of the building there was glass sculptures representing the fire in the hot room.

After our tour of the glass gallery, we found The Brown Hotel and went to have a “Hot Brown.” This is a sandwich made famous by the Brown Hotel that Bret and Laura had told us about.

All over town there were horse sculptures, similar to the moose we had seen in Bennington, VT. The one below was in front of The Brown Hotel.

As we are leaving downtown we see the building below, with the reflection of a large crane in the windows. I know the picture doesn’t show the amazing reflection that we saw, but you can imagine that the town of Louisville is still a changing, growing city.

Be sure and click on the photo and see it as large as you can. The clouds, the crane and the building and bridge reflected in the building are really neat! A fitting good-by to us as we leave Louisville, KY.