Friday, August 7, 2009

Let's go to Kentucky!

Again, we are a blessed family, to have a husband/daddy who has such a great job. On top of being able to travel with him to fun places and staying in hotels along the way, he is at the same time, accumulating points which add up to free nights.

One year we spent a whole week in Florida for free! Glorious!

He had informed me that he had 8 free nights...anywhere..I of course pushed for Florida, (because it is my very very favorite place to visit on earth) but he said "let's just spend a few nights in Kentucky!" I sorta pouted at the suggestion, but in the end, I don't know why I doubted him. We always end up having a perfect time..and he always ends up having little surprises up his sleeve.

First stop: Mammoth Cave. A bit creepy, tight spaces, heights, thought Darby might trip and roll into the depths of the cave at one point, but really exciting and beautiful.

Photobucket

Photobucket



After spending the day touring the cave and hiking the trails in the area, we made the drive to Louisville where we were very excited to see this place:


Photobucket
And I chose not to edit out that truck on purpose. Because there is always some sort of crazy story with our family...You see, that morning, major flooding had occurred in Louisville. Roads were closed off, cars completely underwater, I guess you could say the city was going through a crisis at the moment.

But we had one thing mind: to get IN to that track. Churchill Downs is open every day. You can come on go as you please, no problem. But this day was a strange day with the weather behaving as it had been. After what seemed like hours of driving through mazes of roads that were not flooded to get to the parking lot, our family happily climbed out of the van, cameras in hand, to the entrance gate.....only to be met by "mean lady worker in white truck" to tell us that because of the flooding, no one is allowed in today.

What? Your going to tell us we can't come in there? Ha. "Ok, ok ma'am" And we got back into our van and thought for now, we'd just snap some pictures outside the fence.



Photobucket
We saw her truck drive by us after this picture was taken and Chris said, "we're going in" Sophie was all over it, Crisilee was refusing, but we pressured her into coming anyway. (noooo, we don't corrupt our kids...)

Feeling like navy seals, we drove back to the same gate, tip-toed out...and ran like crazy up the ramp and into the arena.



Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket



We checked out a baseball "Bats" game downtown that same evening;


Photobucket

Photobucket


And our last day was spent in downtown Louisville. There was a historic part of the town where we stumbled upon this hotel and were told we were more then welcome to take a look around inside;

Photobucket

Photobucket


But we couldn't stay away from this part;


Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket


We roamed the "fun" part of the downtown after that...and imagined the nightlife was probably most exciting.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket



We ended our day walking the riverfront, only to stumble upon this hidden gem;


Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket


Oh, who is this smokin hot babe? The one who makes this all possible..thank you my sweets! Never a dull moment with you leading the way throughout our life together!

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket


Heading home...fun memories made yet again.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Oh life is good. I am so much the lucky one.