Thursday August 19th

St. Louis to Louisville, Kentucky

Our drive to Louisville took about four hours and went without incident. Our B&B is located in Old Town Louisville directly across from Central Park. Our room, fittingly named The Garden Room, has sunny yellow walls adorned with stenciled flower pots, ivy, butterflies and bird's nests. The two feline residents, Maggie and JoAnn, came immediately to greet us. They followed us to our room and proceeded to check out our luggage.

Our view of Louisville provided a mixture of appearance and character. A recently constructed 20 story building of slick granite stood opposite a dilapidated brick structure that was missing glass in the windows. The Center for the Performing Arts and Science Museum occupy space downtown beside empty store fronts plastered with For Rent signs. Construction impedes traffic flow. Parking meters that only allow for 2 hours line the streets, yet a free trolley will shuttle you around the area. Huge shade trees dominate a charming neighborhood street filled with colossal well-cared-for homes that once housed Louisville's esteemed families. Two blocks away trash littered the sidewalks of homes that badly needed paint. The two clerks at the Visitor Center contrasted in appearance but not manner. Neither the nose-ringed youngster nor the crusty old man offered much in the way of helpful answers to our questions.

At the Art Museum, we were gently forced into joining the guided tour because I couldn't say no. I feared maybe Fred would wander off and leave me, but to his credit he didn't. Unfortunately it was a small group and the docent put us on the spot by asking questions about the paintings. We left the other lady in our group answer as long as we could, but finally the docent addressed me directly. "What do you see when you look at this painting?" I felt like I was in school being called on when I didn't know the answer and was about to make a fool of myself. "Uh, the lady has a big collar on her dress," I answered desperate for something to say. "Yes", the docent said. Just as I was breathing a silent sigh of relief, she looked directly at me and continued with another question. "And why is that the first thing you noticed?" I then mumbled something about the collar being big. She must have felt I'd suffered enough because thankfully she let me alone and when on to explain that the dark background was the reason. Many of the paintings displayed were from the 16th and 17th century-not my favorite type of art-but I did learn a few things so maybe next time I can sound like an art expert.

We drove past some of the famous race tracks around town including, of course, Churchill Downs. It wasn't open but we got out and snapped our tourist photos. Later, we availed ourselves of the tennis courts in the park across from our B&B to get a little exercise. Mostly we just bat the ball around, but tonight I challenged Fred to a match. 6-Love, oh well. I still have not won a game from Fred, but I am improving. After tennis, we relaxed on the covered 2nd floor porch with the kitties for company. Since we did not feel like driving for dinner, we ordered from the neighborhood pizza place.

Back to Journal Index

Friday August 20th

Louisville, Kentucky

The Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum tour was more fascinating to us than the art museum. I'm not sure what it says about our level of sophistication when we find bat making more interesting than art but after all this is a baseball trip. The factory can make 1,800 wooden bats per day but we were amazed at the lack of assembly line process. The old fashioned hand operated lathe that shaped one bat every thirty minutes has been replaced by a machine that can turn out one bat in thirty seconds. Workers physically carry the bats between operations: lathe, sander, engraver, dipper.

The Museum is an appreciation to the mighty sluggers that made the game of baseball great. On display are bats used by Babe Ruth and Sammy Sosa. My favorite part was the tribute room to Pee Wee Reese who called Louisville home. Pee Wee died of cancer last Saturday at the age of 81 and services were held Wednesday in Louisville. Pee Wee played shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers and now I can understand why my Dad is a Dodgers fan. During the video, Pee Wee talked about the team in the late forties and fifties including winning the World Series. I was most impressed by Pee Wee's character and how well respected he was. His gesture of friendship on the field to Jackie Robinson in 1947 is a shining example that acceptance of all people is non negotiable. Pee Wee Reese is the kind of person we should all strive to become.

Friday evening we treated ourselves to a nice romantic dinner at Bobby J's. It was delicious and nice to have a real meal instead of fast food or bar food. The restaurant was located in the happening night life area of Louisville and as tempting as it was to bar hop, we went back to our room so we would be ready to party in Cincinnati. Little did we know that our Cincinnati guests were out on the town.

The following is by our latest guest journalist, my sister Judy.

Friday August 20.

Finally, Friday was here and I would soon be on my way to see Joni and Fred. I was so excited about finally meeting up with them. Tara called me about 1:30 and said that they were ready to leave. I stopped by Mom and Dad's to pick up the mail. OH NO!!! I forgot chips. Hopefully, we could stop somewhere on the way to pick them up. I did not want to meet Joni and Fred without their chips!

When I met Roger and Tara at Mapquest, I saw that they had saved the day by getting two bags of chips that morning. We picked up Lynn and off we were on our 9 hour drive. Roger was a great driver. He got us to our hotel even though we hit a few downpours. I was a little disappointed when I found out that Joni and Fred weren't going to be there until around 1:00 tomorrow. I was just so excited to see them. We checked into our hotel and decided to go in search of the "perfect bar". We didn't see anything for a few miles until Lynn said "There's neon signs, pull in." Right away we could tell that we picked a very local Kentucky bar. We ordered drinks and decided to play pool. Within minutes of the break, the 4 guys that were playing cards at a table nearby started shouting. Oh my, I thought, we were in for an old fashioned redneck bar brawl. One guy came over and stood behind me and said, "I think I'll come over here where it's safe." I leaned over to Lynn and said, "I just know I am going to get slugged. Fists are going to start flying and somehow I'm going to get nailed in the head." Luckily, they settled their differences and all was fairly quiet. Tara and I won the pool game and she played the next girl that was on the list. She lost and we decided that now was a good time to leave.

Our next stop was down the street to Warm Ups, a sports bar. This was more like it. They had two guys singing and it was a very pleasant end to our long day. Roger and Lynn played the bar trivia game finishing #1 on all the games. How's that for intelligence? We called it a night and went to sleep.

Back to Journal Index

Saturday August 21st

Cincinnati, Ohio (and Florence, Kentucky)

Continued by guest journalist, Judy Wissler

I woke up around 9:00 and went to the lobby for breakfast. I didn't want to miss the Krispy Kreme donuts that they were serving. Roger was already up. By the time Tara and Lynn got ready, breakfast was over. Oh well, no donuts for you two sleepyheads. We headed into Covington to check out the shops. We heard that this was the "worlds biggest yard sale". It was very disappointing. Tara said that her development had bigger yard sales than this. We walked around a while and then had lunch at the German restaurant. We ordered the sauerkraut balls that were on the menu as an appetizer so that we could taste them. They were OK but nothing to write home about. After waiting on our waiter for what seemed like hours, we finally got out of the restaurant and headed back to the hotel.

The Big Kahuna was in the parking lot. My heart started to race at the thought of Fred and Joni being there. "What room is Fred and Joni Hauck in?" I asked the front desk clerk as I was passing by. I ran down to the room and knocked on the door. Joni answered and there were big hugs and tears at finally seeing my sister after 4 months. I can't even begin to describe the feelings of joy I felt at finally being a part of Joni and Fred's journey of a lifetime.

We hung around the hotel for a while and then Tara and Lynn left for the Jimmy Buffet concert. Joni, Fred, Roger and I piled into the BK and headed into Cincinnati. We parked and walked towards the bar area. The first place we stopped at was Main Street Brewery, a microbrewery. Joni and I split a mashed potato pizza. We never heard of it, but we decided to try something different. It wasn't too bad. While we were waiting for our food Joni and I walked across the street to play the Ohio Lottery for tonight. We had major visions of being millionaires. After we finished eating and drinking, we went across the street to the Billiard Club. Roger and Fred were discussing how this is a billiard room and not pool, which I didn't hear, when I blurted out "How much to play pool?" I didn't find out until later what they thought was so funny. The cost was $12 an hour. Without stopping to figure out how much that would be in actual play, we had them racked up and teams picked. Our playing ability had much to be desired because it took us ½ hour to play one game, with me again making another snafu by bouncing the cue ball off the table. Roger paid our $6 for one game of pool and we were on to Banana Joe's. This time it only cost us $1.50 for a game and we also played a racing game. Our next stop was the Courtyard on Main. It was a nice quiet little place that had a small courtyard out back. We had a few drinks and then headed down to the riverfront.

Valet parking was out of the question, so we went a few blocks down and parked in some parking lot. Joni and I thought a guy, who could have been some parking attendant, was going to try to get money from us so we joined a group of about 12 girls that were going our way. Fred and Roger got stuck in the back of the group. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. The first place we went into was not our kind of place by the looks of the garments everyone was wearing. In our shorts and sneakers, we just didn't fit into the scene with the gowns and tuxedos. We walked across the platform to another bar and scratched that one off our list also because we did not want to pay $5 for a DJ. We walked about a half mile down the river to another floating bar, which was also where we were going to meet Tara and Lynn later. We only had to pay $2 to get in. The guy at the front wanted to see ID from us!!! Joni tried to pass for 41, but of course I had to remind her of her true age. They left us in even though Roger and Fred were the only ones with ID. This ended up being a great place to party. We went downstairs to the night club. The Yucatan. There were 6 bachelorette parties going on. Of course Roger and Fred had to join right in. Joni and I had a blast just watching the goings on in the club. Even though we didn't yet know what our fate would be with the lottery, we kept shouting "We're Millionaires!!!" We can dream, can't we?

We met Tara and Lynn at TGI Fridays, ate a snack and headed back to our hotel. It was late and we were exhausted, but I didn't want to go to sleep because that meant it was my last day with Joni and Fred.

Back to Journal Index

Sunday August 22nd

Cincinnati, Ohio

We slept in and then headed into Cincinnati for the game. It was very hot. I had to scalp a ticket for $20, but I ended up sitting with everyone else. Tara and I sent a message to the announcers in the hope that they would announce that Joni and Fred were here. No luck. I just don't understand why it is so hard to get a 30 second announcement out of these people. The game was fairly uneventful except for the fact that it went into extra innings and the Reds won. Back to the hotel for goodbye hugs and tears and off we were again, with Roger driving, back on the road 9 more hours.

It was so sad for me to leave Joni and Fred. We were all hoping that we had won the lottery because we all wanted to stay just a few more days. We also weren't looking forward to the long drive home. Thanks Joni and Fred for a wonderful lasting memory. See you in Philadelphia on October 1.

Back to Joni again

It was so great to see Tara, Roger, Lynn and especially my sister Judy. Four months is a long time to go without seeing my sister. I feel so blessed to have such a close relationship with my sisters. It is wonderful that they all joined us at some point on our trip. Our family is very special.

It felt very quiet after those guys left to go home. Thanks Roger and Tara for making the trip to see us. We miss you.

Back to Journal Index

Monday August 23rd

Cincinnati, Ohio to South Bend, Indiana

We did not plan to go to South Bend; our original route took us past Purdue. However, we decided to detour to include both college campuses in our itinerary. After studying the map, we figured with a longer drive today we would be able to visit Purdue and Notre Dame. It only took us two hours to get from Cincinnati to Indianapolis. We ate lunch at Houlihans in downtown Indianapolis and then strolled around the area. Downtown was a busy, alive and clean area. A brief stop in the capitol building revealed a romanesque interior. Marble pillars on all three floors were visible from the lobby as was the stained glass rotunda.

A brief stop at the Indianapolis Speedway included the bus tour around the track and a visit to the museum, We continued on to West Lafayette, home of Purdue University. After a brief period of confusion when the signs left us high and dry, we finally found the campus. The campus was bustling with students all walking with a purpose as if they had somewhere important to go. The BK could not fit into the parking garage as it had a 6'4" height limit. After driving around and around, we finally parked at the stadium lot. A brand new jumbo-tron was being installed in the stadium. A fountain in the center of campus seemed to be the hub of student gatherings.

Even though we had driven over 250 miles we decided to continue through the Indiana countryside to South Bend. Our search for a hotel brought us to the Knights Inn which I thought stank but Fred did not. We went to Walgreens so I could get a scented candle to burn in our room.

In search of our Indiana beer, we rejected the Kitty Kat and chose Damons. A game of NTN Trivia was in progress so in spite of (or to spite) being in South Bend, we chose PSU as our screen name. We joined about a third of the way through the first game and somehow we ended up winning. It was a 6 part sports trivia game and we got a lot of lucky guesses but Fred clinched our come from behind victory by knowing every answer to the five part question matching baseball play-off MVP's with their teams. The next game was a general trivia and we blew everyone else away. We actually scored fifth high game in the country. One of the questions was about my favorite architect Cass Gilbert who had designed the Minnesota State Capitol. We got 1,000 points and everyone else only got 200 points. We played one more game which at one point was very close, but we prevailed to win.