Down South Y'all

This weekend we spent the Memorial Day Long Weekend down in Kentucky and Tennessee. We didn't stop once the whole weekend and we had an absolute blast! The Southern states are awesome and so is the food.

Friday afternoon we drove 7 hours and spent the night in Louisville, Kentucky. After checking in, we found Joe's Crab Shack - a restaurant by the river. The restaurant was nice and we had our first sampling of Southern food - a craw fish (like mini lobsters) stew with rice. It was nice, but spicy. We were enjoying our meal when all of a sudden the room went dark and a disco ball lit up the room. The entire staff jumped up on any vacant seat they could find and started doing the Macerina - that was an interesting sight to see!

We spent the rest of the night walking around the river front and down town Louisville.

There was a funny chicken park in Louisville

Sun setting on the river in Louisville

The next morning we went to the worlds most famous horse racing track - Churchill Downs where the Kentucky Derby is held. We were lucky enough to score a free tour through the grounds by a staff member! Apparently on Derby day the track fits in up to 150,000 people!

Us with a statue of the first ever Kentucky Derby winner and his horse


Churchill Down race track

We then went to the Louisville Slugger Museum. Here we got to see the world famous baseball bats in production and even got a mini slugger ourselves!

Show us your slugger! Ryan with his Louisville Slugger

Kristy in front of the 120 foot Louisville Slugger

Next up we followed the Bourbon Trail through central Kentucky, where 90% of the worlds bourbon is made. The trail takes you to bourbon companies such as Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Makers Mark and some other ones. Since we were restricted for time, we went to Jim Beam followed by a smaller distillery called Heavens Hill.

At Jim Beam, we watched a video on how bourbon is made, saw the 9 story sheds the aged the bourbon in and got to tour the property that the Beams owned and lived on. Finally we got to sample one of their bourbons. Not our favourite drink.

Ryan with a statue of Booker Noe, Jim Beams grandson who now runs the distillery

This is one of the 9 story buildings the the bourbon is distilled in. There is black mould growing all over the building, which is just from the air, but it makes the buildings look super cool