Louisville, KY Trip

So my oldest daughter and I took a weekend trip to celebrate her 15th birthday (a few months late)....

Note: I don't usually do big birthday celebrations. For example, last year the poor kid got a cake - nothing else! However, I thought that we could have 'mom and daughter' time - something we don't get a chance to do very often....

It started out great!

I had planned for a good time in Louisville, Ky. Hair cuts, and color, eating out someplace nice, a full day and half of thrift store shopping, a great hotel complete with swimming, a hot tub, popcorn, soda, movies, painting our nails, eating birthday cake and living it up.... just her and me.

Let's just say... Louisville had other ideas.....

 I-65 had construction  most of the way there.... which made us delayed, but we stayed positive, singing with the radio and eating junk food! After driving for a few hours, we had very full bladders. We get to our first destination, only to discover that they had no public restrooms. 

Holding our bladder, we headed to our hair appointments... we got there just in time! I had heard good things about Paul Mitchel Schools, so thought we'd give it a try. I wanted a shoulder length cut with lots of layers (what I usually get) Faith wanted dark brown low lights. My stylist thought shoulder length meant chin length. She messed the cut up so badly, that the teacher had to fix it.... and 3 hrs. later, Faith ended up with blonde and red highlights.... which is kinda funny since that was never mentioned when we picked out the deep brown color sample....and I specifically said no red! Faith's hair actually turned out nice - we both liked it, it just wasn't what we asked for.

 

We headed to our hotel to get checked in, go for a swim and relax....but, that was not to be! Our room had food on the floor, one bed not made completely, blood on the other bed, and a half used roll of toilet tissue. The pool was green and the hot tub was a cesspool. We got a refund and got out of there as fast as we could!

Then came the search for another hotel... Here's where my phone was running low on battery and I realized that I had forgot to pack my charger! Anyway, hotel #2 wanted $189 for one night, hotel #3 was booked full, hotel #4 -The Baymont was available, reasonably priced, nice and CLEAN, and a friendly staff - we took it! 

We got checked in, relaxed and got ready for our dinner reservations at Bone Fish Grill.

For dinner, we ordered an appetizer of lamb chops.... but I forgot to tell them well done, I tried a bite, but I can't eat red meat with blood on the plate -that just ain't going to happen! On to the main dish, Faith got a fresh fish haddock with rice and garlic mashed potatoes..... I got the lobster tail with garlic potatoes and steamed broccoli.... two make a long story short, the best thing about the meal was the water... and the rice. I had to send my complete meal back to the kitchen. Our sever was great and the atmosphere was pleasant, but we decided not to waste our money trying desert!

 

After the failed dinner, I was starving. We decided to keep with our plan. Next on our list was to get a birthday cupcakes at Gigi's bakery to enjoy back at the hotel room.... we knew that we were tight on time, but was keeping an eye on the clock (the stoplights in Louisville are the longest ever - we timed a couple of them at 3 min. long!). We watch the bakery close a whole 10 min. early as we pull in the parking lot....! (It wasn't just us - there was another guy who was trying to get in too, but the girls at the counter didn't mind at all!) 

We drive around for the next hour looking for a place to buy cake and settled for Walmart... come to find out - the 1st Walmart doesn't sell baked goods.... the second Walmart did.... we bought our cheap Walmart cake, in our fancy clothes, and headed back to the hotel!

Note: Let me also say Walmart in KY is quite different from the ones around here, but they gave us some good laughs (including Turkeys - but you'd have to have been there to get that joke!)! One employer thought we looked so nice all dressed up that we had to be from Tennessee! (I guess he doesn't think Indiana folks can dress up!)

 By this time we were ready to enjoy a good swim..... guess what... it decided to storm and since the pool was outside, that wasn't going to work. We decided to eat our cheap cake and watch TV only to find that there wasn't any good shows on to watch.... we settled for House Hunters then I took a bath while Faith text her friends..... and that was the end of the first day.

We did sleep really good (the hotel had great pillows, which we got extra), woke up the next morning late for the hotel breakfast, so we stopped around the corner at Bob Evans. Let me insert here - Bob Evans hot chocolate is awesome... I should have just got that, but since we were having a special trip, we ordered breakfast.... the pancakes were mushy, eggs were watery and overall, we left the food on our plates, and wasted $30 right then and there. 

We set off for a full day of thrift shopping, but after 3 hours of not finding parking, dingy, dirty thrift stores with high prices, and seeing every street in Louisville, we decided to get out of there.... which wasn't as easy as it sounded... after following their detour signs (which were wrong and took us in circles a couple times, and having my daughter look up the wrong map. I said screw it, and found my own way out.... (Thank you Dad for my sense of direction.)

Note: The highlights were driving by the river, some really old churches, and the naked guy a few times!

We headed towards home, and decided to make a stop in Nashville, IN (Stephen and I took our honeymoon there.) and spent the rest of the day walking through their little shops. We had fun dressing up for a bad girls photo, eating gelatin ice cream, buying Faith clothes, (Our favorite little store was Too Cute - Faith got some awesome clothes at a great price!), and wooden alligators to bring home for the two little kids....

  

Overall, we made lots of memories, laughed until we cried, and had a great mom/daughter time together!

It was a beautiful day for traveling.... I have always, and probably, will always, love to travel (I wish I could get paid to do it!)....

 

 .....but It's always a wonderful feeling pulling in my drive and knowing I'm home!

Have you been to Louisville? What places are your favorite? Leave a comment and let us know!