Day 28

We’ve taken the rest day today instead of Wednesday. It’s Wimbledon and we want to watch Rafa v Joko. Wow, Joko played well, what a match, although we all thought that Rafa would pull it back. So a new Wimbledon Champ., well played Joko. I have to say that watching the match was pretty great as we were in the only AC room on the camp site, and man it was hot even mid morning, 85+.
Now off into Louisville, Jack’s found the Louisville Slugger Baseball bat manufacturer and so off we go to visit. Louisville is a big city on the banks of the Ohio river, and the old city, which is where the Slugger factory is, is really fascinating, very much in a renewing programme, with buildings still just shells but which would, I’m sure, be wonderful.

The Louisville Slugger factory was terrific, basically the history of the “bat”. It has a huge bat outside the entrance, with lots of bats hanging up in the main area. Wx figures of the famous baseball players – Babe Ruth included. Sayings on the floor by various MLB players, history on the walls of the World Series (never did get the World bit as it’s only played in the USA, so how could it be a World Series?) Oh and there was a bit about the Cincinnati Reds and their winning years of the 70s. I had to take a pic for Tim as he’s from Cincinnati! It seems that Mr Hillerich had the market tied up with about 80% of baseball bats used made here – MLB, Minor League, Little league, and any other league you care to mention. Most of the MLB Teams buy their bats here for their players! And we were told that most players used anywhere between 60 – 100 bats per season! Go figure that out! The factory was really a factory and a museum, so it was very interesting and the tour to see how bats are made even more fascinating. 40,000 trees are cut down to supply baseball all the bats used each year. The forests are self sustaining, managed, and mainly in Pennsylvania and New York States. It used to take 20 minutes to hand make a bat whereas now it takes 40 seconds with the computerized machines. Each player has his own computerized software to make his own bat, and there are over 20,000 combinations. At the end we all got our miniature Slugger bats to remind us of our visit.

Down to the river side, and again this is a huge river, very wide and lots of bridges over it. The streets of the old town have various sculptures of some of the various events and places that are here. The Kentucky Derby horse, Kentucky University horse, the KFC Center which is the home of the Louisville University and would grace any NBA team’s stadium! On the riverside walk I found another map to Lewis and Clarke, across America route, and a statue to Fox who was Clarkes slave but went with him to discover the route across America.

Finally we gave in to food and went to the BBC restaurant which served pulled pork and other such great Kentucky food. Once refreshed we made our way back to the camp site to relax and to get ready for the last days of the Ride X America. Tomorrow here we go!!!

BP