20140327 - Up in the am and down for a bfast buffet at the hotel. We then hit the road for a full day of adventures! Our first stop was at the Cave Hill National Cemetery where the monuments were amazing. We jumped out at the site of Colonel Sanders grave and got our picture taken. We found a couple more cool graves and then headed further in town.
Our next stop was Jerry's house to see all of Jerry's Junk. It was a fabulous montage of junk that captivated us as we looked through the gates and windows at all of the stuff. The boys thought GpaW would love it!
Further in to town and another fantastic site right next to the the old Ohio Theater, the restored, but not functional, Louisville Derby Clock. It was super cool though and gave the boys some run around time. J&I ducked into the famous Brown Hotel where "Hot Brown" was invented. I have had this before on previous trips to KY. Very interesting dish you must try at least once on a trip through KY. We had one more stop before the main event. Reluctantly the family followed me across the road away from our main destination and to the origination spot of the song "Happy Birthday to You", written by a couple of kindergarten teachers.
With the family about to kill me for so many detours we made progress towards the destination... We had to check out the giant baseball that was embedded in a building apparently hit by the World's Largest Bat at our destination, the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat Factory and Museum.
We got to go through the museum and saw some pretty cool things. Dylan got to hold a bat David Ortiz used in a game, we saw Babe Ruth's bat and could see the home run notches he carved in it, and G got to hold a bat used by Joey Votto.
There was one of every kind of bat they make there, it was so cool. But the coolest part of the tour was of the factory floor. J&I loved the factory and could have stayed in there all day watching the machines make the bats. No cool pictures of the factory, not allowed :-( but it was so cool. We watched every step and tool and machine. They can make 5000 bats a day there! After the tour we looked at getting a custom bat but they are not strong enough for games. G tried his hand in the pitching machines and did pretty good at slow pitch, but was defeated by the fast pitch. We watched a movie in their theater and had a great experience. The trip through the gift shop was short as part of the tour was getting a small souvenir bat. Definitely worth the trip! Out of the factory and down the road and we stumbled across a small cafe. We went in just as they were closing and they we happy to have us. It was Boomer's Cafe named after their dog and was a quaint family place hidden there. The food was great, the people even better and you got to pet the dog (not Boomer, he passed on a year or so ago...
Out of Boomers and onto the road and we found a gold 30 foot tall naked guy that G wanted to check out. On our trip we came across the Louisville Science Center. We went in and played on all of the science experiments. They had some really cool things there, real lungs, hearts and brain on display. Some other cool interactive things, but when you have been to COSI here in Columbus, everything else is small and not great... The coolest part was the bubble thing the boys stood in and tried to make a bubble to cover them. G did pretty good at it.
All museumed out we loaded into the car and headed towards the highway to get to Covington KY. But not before a couple more sites. The worlds second largest bat and whiskey bottle.
We drove through a ton of traffic and the boys did good after a long day. About 1 hour up the road and we pulled into a hotel I have driven past a hundred times and always though would be cool to stay in, the Covington Radisson, the round hotel just across the Ohio River, you know the one I am talking about, it overlooks the Bengals and Reds stadiums. Well the price was right and included 2 adult tickets for the Newport Aquarium. We settled in and took in the view. We made a trip up to the rotating restaurant, where L was pretty sure she couldn't eat because it was moving, and it was a bit classy for 3 little boys... So we bellied up in the pub and L&G did some coloring as we waited for our dinner. 
After dinner the boys and I went swimming until the pool closed and had a great time! We found some hot chocolate and called it a night. What a great day!
