Louisville day trip
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August 31
Ever since we went to Illinois in 2010 we've talked about going to another minor league baseball game. It was brought up that the Indianapolis Indians and Louisville Bats would be playing in Louisville. We decided it would make a nice daytrip on the bikes. Later Debby found out they were also having another flea market at the Kentucky fairgrounds that same day. One trip, two events!
 By the time the date rolled around a couple things had changed. Mother Nature changed it to a Suburban trip due to thunderstorms. Secondly, Donna accidentally scheduled herself to work that day. I will be going alone. I didn't mind taking the Suburban. I'll be dry while I nap. I did miss going without Donna. She is my Precious.
 We came here in the spring of 2013 so getting to the flea market involved a little deja vue.
 Just like in 2013 we got here early so we snuck in through an open door. It was kind of neat since we were here a couple weeks ago for the state fair. Now it is the same buildings but different stuff. This building was for the flea market and the attached building straight ahead was for antiques. Donna likes flea markets and I like being with Donna. Personally I think flea markets are 99.9% junk. Bulldoze it all into a dumpster. There is the occasional table with tools or ammo or leather stuff...manly things...but that's about it. We got some Wisconsin summer sausage here in 2013 and earlier this month at the fair. Donna wanted me to pick some more up so I had a mission. Our first stop was the antique building. I noticed quickly it seemed like a lot of the flea market junk had spilled over into this building. There was some antique stuff to look at and I enjoyed perusing through it. In true fashion, anything I was interested in was about ten times what I wanted to pay. I found some tools and noticed they had large 25mm and 28mm wrenches. I dug through the pile in hopes of finding a 27mm wrench. That is a common size for motorcycle axle nuts. No dice. As you can tell in the picture above the aisles are loooooong. Down one aisle and up another. It's the same in the antique building. I had worked in the garage all day yesterday so my knees and ankles were already sore. After awhile the fat boy that is me needed a drink so I bought a nice, big Coke and found a bench to sit at for a while. Ahhhhhhhh. It gave me the energy to keep moving. It took me about 45 minutes to check out all the stuff in the antique building. Didn't find anything. I was even looking for Pyrex for Donna to gain some brownie points. Unencumbered by browsing women, I had left the others behind. Alone I headed into the flea market foray. By now the place had gotten pretty crowded. I'll have to take a second and do a little complaining. If you're gonna go to the flea market leave two things at home...small children and anything with wheels. Baby strollers...keep them at home with the kids. Those little push carts they sell...they seem to give people the ability to take up five times the space they would normally occupy themselves. It's crowded enough without someone taking up a whole aisle with a push cart. It took me about an hour to recon the entire flea market section. There was no sausage vendor to be found. The others had did a couple aisles and they were gonna break for lunch when they finished the aisle they were on. Jerri updated me with their location and I found them at aisle/row B7.
 We decided to eat at a fish/chicken place near the intersection of the two buildings. They had tables. I got the 3-piece chicken leg dinner and it was AWESOME. The legs must have been off a condor because they were huge. They also tasted great. Real Kentucky fried chicken. KFC will never compare. I was only able to eat two of the legs. The picture doesn't show the huge fried biscuit I gave away. After lunch I tagged along with the group as they made their way through the flea market. I found a 27mm wrench for $5. That was my big purchase. It took about two hours to finish up at the flea market then we headed back to the Suburban. Ahhhhhhh, the relaxing leather seats of the Suburban. We saw a Stearman biplane fly over but I was unable to get a good picture with my phone. All my pictures today were taken with my phone so if they seem a little underwhelming that is why. I didn't want to drag my camera around. We still had a couple hours to kill before the ballgame so Jerri suggested the Motorcycle Superstore a few miles away. The address was entered into the GPS and we were off. The store was a nice place to kill some time at. They had lots of jackets and helmets and stuff. Not a lot of parts on display. They are attached to a warehouse and if you can find it on their website they can usually walk over and get it from the warehouse. We piddled around then decided to head to the ball park.
 On the way we passed Louisville's old Union Station. When I hit the mega lottery that's what my house will look like. I love the towers.
 I've seen the park from I-65 several times but I've never been here. We parked across the road from the entrance and only had to walk about a hundred yards.
 It was a little after 4pm. We weren't sure what time the gates opened but found out it would be around 5. With almost an hour to kill we went to the restaurant and had some drinks to kill the time. I had two Mountain Dews and it only cost me $2.
 At 5pm they opened the doors and we took our seats. We were in the third row up on the first base line. The groundskeepers were busy prepping the field after the earlier rain. I was surprised how meticulous they were.
 Soon the players took the field for stretching and tossing balls around. We were in front of the visitor bull pen. They had some little league kids on the field for awhile. They had a ceremony for Corky Miller who was apparently retiring after a long career there.
 The weather had been cloudy all day. Now the sun was peeping through and when it did it was in our eyes. After a couple innings of this we bought hats. Much better.
 This was the next-to-last game of the season and it was a good one. Indianapolis won 5-3 but Louisville was always threatening. It was fun watching the foul balls. A couple came close to us. After the game they had a juggler and fireworks. For the last half an hour or so heavy clouds were rolling in and it had that 'gonna rain' feel. We walked out of the stadium into a light rain. Ahhhhhhh...the dryness of the Suburban. It rained until about Henryville. I remember turning off I-65 onto IN-250 and not much else. We stopped in Brownstown and I got something to drink. Soon we were back at John & Debby's and we went our separate ways. It was nice having Labor Day off the next day to relax, wind down, and recover from all the walking. The ballgame was a nice way to spend an evening. Nice stadium. Not far away. We can see more games in our future.
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