Day 38: A tale of two Louis's

We had a nice start to Day 38, taking our time getting up before heading to the hotel gym.  Hotel breakfast, then on to Louisville, Kentucky.

On the way out we wanted to see the famous arch a little more closely.

The arch and downtown buildings

As we got closer, we realized our route was
blocked by "A Taste of St. Louis".  We considered
stopping, but it wasn't clear when it started.

After several detours, we made it to across the
street from the arch.  It is more impressive than it looks
in our pictures.

On to Louisville.  I had trouble all day, calling St. Louis Louisville, and vice versa.  It was confusing.

Mile 7216: Right after the arch, we rolled into Illinois.

Just over the Mississippi, in East St Louis, is Barack Obama Blvd.

Not a whole lot else happened until for a while.  The roads east of the Mississippi are more familiar looking--lined with trees (not farms or desert/mountains), more trafficky and slower, with 65 or 70mph speed limits instead of 75 as is common in the west.  We drove for a while longer, then ran into Indiana.  Neither of us had been there before to our recollection (although it would be pretty easy to forget).

Mile 7342: Indiana

We passed French Lick at one point, where Larry "Legend" Bird grew up.  Somewhere in here we unwittingly stumbled into the Eastern Time Zone.

A while further down the road, we came upon Kentucky.  We debate for a while whether this is "The South" or not.  Kate thinks so, but I'm not sure.

Mile 7450: Kentucky sign

Lending support to her point, some people in Louisville had a mild Southern accent.  Kate was fascinated by the fact that people a couple hours west and north had completely different accents.   We got deep and philosophical on the question of why do people develop accents at all... we didn't come up with much in the way of answers.

We had high expectations of Louisville, unlike Kansas City and St. Louis.  We were staying in a section called "Old Louisville" which was touted as having many homes from the late 19th century.

When we arrive, it is clear that the gentrification process is not fully complete in Old Louisville.

Kate is skeptical

We drove around Louisville for a while.  There were some 'up and coming' neighborhoods, but it wasn't like we could walk to places.

We did run into this one cool-ish neighborhood along Bardstown Road.  We were able to get into the #2 restaurant in Louisville, Jack Fry's.

Jack Fry's

The interior was somewhat Tornado Room-esque

Menu was very well done.  We both had a
tough time deciding between several appealing
options.

Kate's short ribs were phenomenal.  My chicken was just OK.

We also had dessert.  I think that was maybe the second time
on the whole trip.  The turtle cheesecake was amazing.

 We went to dinner at 5:30 because the restaurant was notoriously hard to get into, and just about everything else was closed (because it was Sunday, of course).  We were tired and full after dinner, but couldn't really go to bed at 7:30, so we decided to walk around the corner to what appeared to be the Irish Pub district.

There were 5 Irish pubs on one block.

This is when we noticed one of the stranger aspects of Louisville.

It's hard to see, but this is a 'gang' of about 30 guys in their
20's and maybe 30's, riding these tiny scooters around on the
street, doing wheelies and such.  It was really odd.

These tiny scooters were then followed by slightly larger scooters, then as it got later motorcycles came out.  Just one of the several things that we felt made Louisville an odd place.

Tomorrow: Friends in Columbus