Final Day: Breakfast and Maria's Parents House

Today we sadly left the wonderful hotel and headed west. Our first stop was breakfast in Leavenworth, IN at a restaurant called The Overlook. Maria has eaten here several times throughout her "raising years" in Southern, IN. The view was as good as the food!

We then headed to Maria's parents for a relaxing overnight stay. This house was beautiful growing up according to Maria but now the property looks like a nature resort. It is truly peaceful and beautiful!
This is a true blessing and a great way to wrap up a vacation!

                

              

              

                   

Derby Time!

Today was our last full day in the Louisville area. We are sad to see this trip come to an end. I believe our house sitter probably feels the same way. The house sitter has truly enjoyed the week long staycation!

We ate breakfast at the hotel this morning before departing. I'll admit that it was unhealthy but tasty! What did we eat? You guessed it - Krispy Kreme Donuts! Yum! (There were two left over from the half dozen we bought two days ago.)

After breakfast we headed to the Kentucky Derby Museum. We enjoyed the 30 minute Churchill Downs tour along with the self guided tour and a fabulous movie. I must admit that the people who attend this race create an overwhelming confusion for me. The risk of losing so much money so fast is difficult to swallow. However, the thrill must be something you can only imagine until you have been there! Maybe someday we'll attend but we won't bet on a horse. We'll just watch everyone else do so!

As a math guy...I like facts and figures.  Here are a couple:

• The largest attendance for the Super Bowl is just under 104,000.  The Kentucky Derby set a new record this year with just over 170,000 fans.  The Kentucky Derby always has more people in attendance than the Super Bowl!
• There is a large video screen in the infield.  It is told that Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said he will call when he has the largest jumbo-tron in the U.S.  The owners of the Kentucky Derby are still waiting for him to call!  :)
• After the horse Secretariat died (triple crown winner), they found out that his heart weighed 22 pounds.  The average horse heart is about 7-8 pounds.  This is why he was so fast!

  

 

We were supposed to go to McDonalds for lunch on a $15 budget however Maria had the idea to check out The Old Spaghetti Factory. We had hoped to split a dish but upon arrival we found out that we could have unlimited soup and salad for $6.75. Awesome! Jeff deservingly drank an iced tea and I enjoyed a water as I was just thirsty. Would you believe that our final bill was $15.37. Salad and Minestrone Soup. Yum!

We then went over to to the New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater. Due to extreme heat this visit was short.

We then went to some Goodwill stores to find some deals. Maria likes to find nicer Goodwill stores to find high end clothing that has been lightly worn. Another great frugal habit she has started to save money. She did find some great deals! Ralph Lauren dress shirts for $3.25 that looked lightly used. That's a great deal!

Day Five---Free Day! Well, kind of

On today's agenda...."Chill day at the hotel and pool".

If you don't know us well, Maria & I get "stir crazy" after staying some place for too long.  After eating breakfast, we did hang out at the hotel for awhile....until about 11am.  From there, we started looking around for something to do because we were already stir crazy!  Don't worry, we're using birthday/anniversary money for this.  It's not coming out of the $500 budget.  Lunch was in eaten in the car...peanut butter sandwiches with chocolate pudding for dessert (just as the plan stated)!

Stop 1:  The Howard Steamboat Museum in Jeffersonville, Indiana
This was a tour through the first two floors of a 30,000 square foot mansion (the largest in Jeffersonville).  The home is incredibly well-crafted, having the first indoor plumbing and indoor electricity in the city of Jeffersonville.  The original owner of the mansion owned the largest inland steamboat company in the U.S.  His company's steamboats were in high demand because of the quality.  Here are a some pictures.

   

  

Music Room

Stop 2:  The Culbertson Mansion in New Albany, Indiana
      While looking for something to do, Maria & I contacted a friend from college who lives in the area.  He recommended the Culbertson mansion.  So we met them and had a good visit going through the mansion!
     This home is a little smaller, only 20,000 square feet!  :)  The home was built for William S. Culbertson, who came to Indiana in the late 1800's.  The home is three levels plus a basement, making it quite massive.  The family lived in one section of the home, while the servants lived and children played in another.  Like the mansion above, the Culbertson mansion was one of the first to have indoor plumbing (on all 3 floors and in the basement) and electricity.  A couple of the pictures below show just how ornate this place is!

For you Halloween fanatics, they do have a haunted tour during the Halloween season.  Below are a few pictures.

  

         

We did spend the evening at the hotel as well.  Maria napped while I worked on doing laundry!  We always do laundry a couple days before we leave so we don't come home with a week's worth of laundry to get done!!  Overall, it was a great "chill day", despite the fact that we didn't chill too much.  It was great to have a day where we could decide to either do nothing, or find something on our own to see...we really appreciated it!

Day Four - Underground We Go!

Today's agenda brought about an experience that made Maria quite nervous. Going underground in a cavern. She has images of going into a tight fitting cave but thankfully this was not the case. The cavern was rather large and in fact, companies run businesses in rooms created by the mining blasts in the past.

The tour lasted an hour and twenty minutes. We were under the Watterson Expressway, Kmart and the Louisville Zoo during the tour. Of course we could not hear anything as we were 130 feet below the surface. Sounds scary, doesn't it? The offered so much information and took us to many areas. The recycling of inorganic material was the beginning of the tour as the roads built the roads for this cavern. Businesses brought in their leftover concrete, asphalt and building materials to build the steady floor of the cavern. At the end of the tour, we witnessed the Worm recycling room where organic material is recycled. Our tour guide even ate a worm. It was gross but apparently part of the job as a tour guide. Who knew that worms were super high in protein?

After leaving the Mega Cavern, we sat in the Kmart parking lot. Yes! The exact one we had just been 130 feet underneath. We had leftovers from Tuscany, so we ate our lunch in the parking lot discussing what we had just experienced. Fun and not scary at all, thankfully.


We then headed to our next hotel. This is our home for the next three nights. It was nap time and then supper time. We had the college favorite, macaroni and cheese with turkey dogs.

We then headed to the Ohio Falls State Park for a nice long walk. We were able to see the hydro power station for the locks on the river and as well as see how high the water is right now. It's high! Not nearly has high as the flood of 1997 but it is up there. The park offers a super nice walking/biking trail that follows alongside the river. There are picnic tables and grills along the way as well as a visitors center.

 

We ended the day with a fresh Krispy Creme Donut. Jeff had spotted them as we drove back to the hotel! Nothing better than a fresh, warm donut. Yum!