Travel with Neil does a US Road Trip - Pt.2 Louisville
The Muhammad Ali Centre in Louisville
What’s in Louisville (pronounced Loo-uh-vil) you may ask? Riverside parks, humongous bridges, a cosmopolitan cityscape and museums to sate any taste.
I was particularly looking forward to visiting two museums. As a baseball fan, I had to visit the Louisville Slugger museum and factory. The very place they make the iconic bats used by professional and amateurs alike.
Neil standing on the strangely quiet W. Main St in Louisville
For $19 including tax, you get a guided tour around the factory learning about the history and process of how these bats go from trees to the Major Leagues. Our guide, Jim, walked us around the working factory, stopping off at strategic points to show the various stages of the iconic bat making process. From freshly delivered billets (tubes of wood that the bats are turned from), to grading the quality so that pro players only get the best bats available, to the finished product that can be standard wood design, or specialty designs for individual players and or occasions throughout the year (eg pink bats for mothers day).
The whole process is on full display as this is the actual working factory. I almost felt sorry for the employees doing their jobs with a crowd of onlookers filing past their work stations every 30 minutes. At the end of the tour, you even get a mini bat gift. I loved it! It’s not a long tour, maybe only 30 - 40 minutes and you don’t need to know the entire history of baseball to enjoy it. If you enjoy the smell of freshly turned wood, then this is the place for you!
Obviously, at the end of the tour there’s the gift shop, where you can buy everything Louisville Slugger related, from t-shirts, to pens made of wood, to the bats themselves. Elsewhere in the museum you can even try out the products in a batting cage… I didn’t try this, as I have a history of bat related sports incidents, where the bat usually departs my grip and travels further than the object I’m supposed to hit…
You can’t miss the Louisville Slugger Museum… it’s fairly blatant.
The second museum I really wanted to visit was the Muhammad Ali Centre. The famous boxing icon and activist. The centre holds a collection of his memorabilia and tells his story, inspiring visitors to achieve personal greatness through Ali’s six defining core principles -
* Confidence: Belief in oneself, one’s abilities, and one’s future.
* Conviction: A firm belief that gives one the courage to stand behind that belief, despite pressure to do otherwise.
* Dedication: The act of devoting all of one’s energy, effort, and abilities to a certain task.
* Giving: To present voluntarily without expecting something in return.
* Respect: Esteem for, or a sense of the worth or excellence of, oneself and others.
* Spirituality: A sense of awe, reverence, and inner peace inspired by a connection to all of creation and/or that which is greater than oneself.
A very quiet and very closed Muhammad Ali Centre
As a photographer who really enjoys good architecture, the Muhammad Ali centre was a joy to see in person. It’s just a shame it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays… Hmmmm
It was ok though, I had a backup. Kentucky is famous for a couple of things; Bourbon and horse racing.
Now, as a solo traveller, driving, a distillery tour would be frustrating and pointless, though I may force myself later in the road trip… there’s a certain distillery in Lynchburg people may have heard of.
So, horses. The Kentucky Derby is one of the worlds richest horse races and driving through the state you certainly see a lot of pristine paddocks and stables.
Near to Lexington KY, is the International Museum of the Horse. Acres and acres devoted to horses, their domestication and breeding for racing. There’s even riding opportunities if you wish…
It was closed.
Open Wednesday to Sunday 09:00 - 17:00 if you’re interested and obviously not there on a Monday, like me.
And so, after a quick lunch stop just outside of Louisville, I continued the drive south and west to Nashville.
Join me next time if you will.
