♥ Falling For Louisville ♥: November 2010

♥ Churchill Downs ♥

>> Saturday, November 27, 2010 – Landmarks

Churchill Downs and the events that occur there are easily the epitome of Louisville living. I love the excitement that is invoked with each trumpet call and the cheering and yelling from the crowd as the horses round the bend at the end of a race! When David and Shannon came through town for about 24 hours, we decided to treat them to a visit to the historic landmark. We arrived mid-afternoon and got in line to purchase our general admission tickets. The sweet woman who was working the ticket booth discreetly slid us four free tickets to the 3rd Floor clubhouse level! We went up to sit in the heated boxes with the big wigs while we watched a few races and enjoyed a beverage. It was a great afternoon!

♥ Louisville Slugger Museum/Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown ♥

>> Sunday, November 21, 2010 – Holiday, Landmarks, Museums

I took a trip today to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum. I know many native Louisvillians who have never set foot inside this tourist landmark, but I thought I would break the mold and go learn something new about my city!

The iconic giant bat (It is 120 feet high and an exact scale replica if Babe Ruth's bat!) at the entrance to the museum is one of my favorite parts of Main Street. I'm not really a fan of baseball, but something about the bat just grabs my attention every time I drive or walk by. I think its a really cool landmark!

The museum is actually much smaller than I expected. There is only one main exhibit room, and there is not much to it. I'm sure that fans of baseball will get more out of the exhibits than I did. Still, I did learn some interesting facts about how the size and makeup of baseball bats has evolved over time and how they are made.

The best part of the museum is the tour through the factory. For about 30 minutes, I got to see where every official bat in MLB is made. This factory is also responsible for crafting the bats for college baseball, little-league teams, and for sale in sporting goods stores. It was so impressive to see a piece of wood carved into a perfect bat in 30 seconds flat! Unfortunately, no photographs are allowed during the tour, but I snapped this one through the window in the museum lobby.

Everyone leaves the tour with their very own souvenir-sized wooden baseball bat! Pretty cool!

Here are a few more photos from the museum.

34,000 pound limestone baseball glove sculpture.

For those interested, there are also batting cages at the Slugger Museum (for an extra fee).

Special for the holiday season, there is a Peanuts display at the Museum through January 2 called, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

No photographs were allowed inside, but it was essentially a collection of copies of Peanuts comic strips dating back to its creation in 1950. There is also a television playing A Charlie Brown Christmas. Next to it is a display with letters written by children after the first airing of the holiday classic cartoon in 1965, pleading to have it shown every year. That was pretty neat to see.

So, that's basically it! All in all, a worthwhile venture! And now I'm a Louisvillian who can proudly say that I have, in fact, been the the Louisville Slugger Museum!

♥ Festival of Trees & Lights ♥

>> Sunday, November 14, 2010 – Charity, Events, Holiday

The 21st Annual Festival of Trees & Lights was held this weekend at Louisville Slugger Field. The festival continues through the week and concludes with the Snow Ball gala next Saturday night. It may seem a little early in the season for it, but it was still fun to go out and see all the trees! It was even better that the weather turned quite a bit cooler today. It definitely put me in the holiday spirit! I may have to go watch White Christmas now... ;-)

There were hundreds of Christmas trees and wreaths of all sizes decorated by citizens of Louisville. Some trees were decorated in a very classic manner...red, green and gold...but most trees had different themes...G.I. Joe, Disney Princesses, musical instruments, Hershey's, butterflies... The trees are displayed and put up for auction with proceeds from the event going to the Kosair Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

There were also activities for the kiddos...magicians, arts and crafts, face painting, build-your-own gingerbread houses, and pictures with Santa! In addition, some local children's dancing and singing groups were scheduled to perform throughout the day, but unfortunately I did not stay long enough to catch one.

Here are some of my photos from the event!