So many people think that RVing is this glamorous, amazing, and fun way to travel. Let me say that most of the time it is…well except for being glamorous. It is never glamorous. :) It is the other times however, when you wake up from an unrestful night’s sleep on the side of the interstate in a rest area that sometimes you wonder, “what are we doing?” I will say though that when we stay in a rest area over night we are making the conscious decision to do so. For the most part we know what it is going to be like and that is okay for us. A lot of RVer’s would never consider it.
2 Sluggers and 1 Slugger model
We got started back on the road at about 7 am. We were headed to Louisville, KY. We were hoping to get there early enough to get set up at the campground and still have time to get into town to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory, and also Churchill Downs. After some quick searching on the internet we found out that the Slugger museum has extended summer hours and that Churchill Downs does not. We would only be able to go to the Slugger museum which the kids were glad about. It ended up working out great. We pulled into the campground at about 3:30pm and had enough time for the kids to swim and for Greg to get some work done. We made our way into downtown Louisville and arrived at the Slugger museum. We were greeted by the largest baseball bat ever made outside of the factory.
It was painted to look like wood but was actually made of steel. Greg and Thomas posed in their bast batting pose while Victoria just posed. Extra bonus was arriving early evening and the entrance fee was discounted to only $7. We toured the displays which included obviously the largest collection of Louisville
Swinging Derek Jeter’sbat
Slugger bats and some pretty neat older bats used by Babe Ruth(his famous notched bat from the year he hit 61 home runs and some of the other greats from long ago.) They had an area that kids (and kids at heart) could swing some bats used in games by famous players. Thomas got to swing Derek Jeter’s bat and feel like a pro. Another area let you stand behind home plate(with Plexiglas and a pad in front) much like an umpire would and see a 90 MPH fastball be thrown. At 6 pm we set off on the factory tour. They showed us how the trees were harvested, in Northern Pennsylvania mostly from Northern White Ash and Maple trees, and turned into the finished product. Lots of neat info was given on the tour. They had the factory set up to deliver bats customized for the major league pros and the retail bats that you see in stores. Each pro uses over a hundred bats per year and most teams pick up the tab, but the minor leaguers have to buy their own. After finishing the tour, we were each given a small miniature bat as a souvenir. Lastly Thomas and Greg headed over to the batting cages to see what they could do against some 50 MPH pitches. Both made plenty of hits but neither was awarded a big league contract. We got a quick dinner and headed back to the camper for a good nights sleep to begin our push to the west!
