Music City here we come . . .

But before that we stopped in Louisville for a couple of nights. First, we went to the Mega Cavern, a man-made cavern that spans under a number of roadways and is part of 17 miles of corridors located beneath the city of Louisville, Kentucky. It is so big that it houses 14 businesses and was the fallout shelter during the Cold War. It also has the only fully underground ropes challenge course in the world, which of course Sallie had to try.

The Mega Cavern

Sallie on the ropes course

We wanted to see the famous Churchill Downs Racetrack. We took a tour which gave a good history of the Kentucky Derby and their museum had great displays of the dresses, hats and jockey clothes. It also did a good job of chronicling the life of a thoroughbred from birth to its retirement.

2006 Kentucky Derby winner

And they’re off…

The Winners Circle

Horse & Jockey entrance to the track

And they’re coming around the bend…

Jockey Sallie

The Winner’s Trophy

The Louisville Slugger factory was so fun to go through. They still personally craft professional baseball players bats, hand dip the colors and hand inspect every bat that comes out of that factory. More than one million bats come out of that factory every year. Sallie tried her hand at the batting cages and foul tipped several baseball speed throws. Pretty good, huh?

Home of the Louisville Slugger

It’s outta’ the park Babe!

Bats, bats and more bats…

I can do that too Derek

Sallie at the plate…

We made it to Nashville and walked and shopped around the Honky Tonk area. The historical significance of some of the bars were lost on us because we really aren’t big country and western music fans. We went to the “old” Grand Ole Opry house (the Ryman Auditorium), the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Museum, RCA Studio B and Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage.