USA - Louisville, Kentucky (and surrounding areas)
The roads that lead out from Champaign, Illinois, are fairly uniform. Two-lane freeways merge into three-lane interstates and trees and fields populate the areas beyond the hard shoulder. Illinois is famous for Chicago, and being the home of Abraham Lincoln, but beyond a one night stay with friends of Dean at the University of Illinois in aforementioned Champaign our stay was short but sweet. We enjoyed the generous hospitality of Mike and Matt, and the helpfulness of Catie (Matt's girlfriend), and managed to work our way through a fairly decent amount of alcohol in Firehaus Bar with Dean's friend Chelsea, and her mate Sarah. Despite attempts to convert us to the sport of 'Frisbee-Golf', and extolting the virtues of Illinois State University, where Chelsea and Sarah study, we sadly had to limit our socialising with the girls to just a few hours that evening, due to the time constraints of our road-trip. Hopefully, however, both Chelsea and Sarah can come to London soon and enjoy a fun night out on us! Having picked up our Jeep Patriot, loading it with our frankly ridiculous amount of luggage and picking up water and food supplies, we headed for the state line and Kentucky beyond.
Kentucky is an interesting part of the world: part Mid-West, part South. It sits neatly in the middle of America in terms of latitude, and enjoys a burgeoning city in Louisville and beautiful surrounding countryside, complete with the picket-fenced image of smalltown America that so many of us see in the movies. It really exists here in Kentucky, on farms and in townships, through bourbon distilleries and across railway lines towards Louisville itself, and further away into the neighbouring southern states.
To drive through Kentucky is to see a gradual, but pronounced, change in many aspects of the geography and society of America. Distances between towns become sparse, cornfields dominate, Main Street is emphasised over Wall Street, and accents start to take on a southern drawl. Even the trees begin to look southern by the time you reach Kentucky, with the folkloric evergreen Weeping Willows of states like Alabama and Mississippi emerging out of inclines that creep alongside the highway, perching on the corners of pretty town squares, easily found beyond the roadside shopping malls if you dare ignore the GPS system.
Dean and I arrived in Louisville late at night, which prevented us from visiting some of the attractions until the next morning. We checked into our motel (the sort of joint where you park your car by the door to your room and await the ensuing Hollywood horror film) and began a quest for food that took us to Louisville’s famed ‘4th Avenue Live’. This is a thoroughfare in the downtown area where restaurants, bars and clubs are thrown together in a neon blaze of lights and colours. Alas for Dean and I, a Monday night in Louisville is not exactly the most happening time to be in the city. We enjoyed a good meal, a game of bowling, a stroll around the bars, and a trip to the University. However, we both had a feeling that many simply pass through this city, on their way to larger conurbations further away.
So what, then, is the real Louisville? The Nottingham-esque tackiness of 4th Avenue, or the quiet suburbia around the University, where we enjoyed a pleasant walk around, despite the lack of people on the street to talk to? Perhaps the answer lies in the identity of Kentucky, struggling as it is to define itself in the twenty-first century. After all, this is a state that supported the Union army in the Civil War, but subsequently hoisted the Confederate emblem high on its flagpoles in a bid to attract southern investment and industry. It is not surprising, then, that Louisville is a little bi-polar. It is not a big city, but is the largest in a confused state. It is dominated by cities like Chicago to the north and Nashville to the south. The Ohio River, which cuts through Louisville itself, offers an escape route into three other states from just one suspension bridge.
Nevertheless, how many other cities can lay claim to the biggest baseball bat in the world? Well, none, obviously. Louisville has cornered the market in baseball bat manufacturing. It is home to the headquarters of ‘Louisville Slugger’, the world’s most pre-eminent baseball bat makers. Their various designs have been used by most of the great players of all time, and the vast majority of the MLB’s current professionals, including Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, who you all know by now are my baseball team of choice. The impressive Slugger Museum is well worth a trip to, should you ever find yourself in Louisville. It illustrates just how the bats are made (with a lot of care and attention), and also offers an interesting insight into what I am increasingly beginning to feel is a decent sport. It is the closest the Americans have to cricket, without the centuries of tradition, but is still the most European of sports here in the USA. Baseball teams grew out of their local communities far more than American football or basketball teams, and seem more similar to our English football teams than other sporting franchises. Generations of the same family will root for one team, based on local or historical ties to a particular city. As the earliest American recreational pursuit, it has an impressive history (or at least as impressive a history as can be achieved in a fairly young country). Then there’s the romance of the sport, the aspirational idea of a home run, of celebrating with your team-mates, of psychologically outfoxing the opposition through gruelling innings in bat and in the field, which can take hours to complete. It is tactical, occasionally physical, and ultimately a rewarding experience if you concentrate on it for long enough.
Concentration was certainly key when Dean and I had the opportunity to place our hands on genuine Louisville Slugger baseball bats as used by professional players, and attempt to hit some balls in the batting cages at the museum. Here, a machine thumped baseballs at us, while we tried to form our English postures into something resembling baseball players. We both put in fairly dismal showings first time round, but after some encouragement from an incredulous museum official (see the video), we returned to the cage, helmeted and gloved like Joe DiMaggio or Babe Ruth in their prime, and managed to actually connect with some balls. Dean and was better at it than me, but let’s not forget I enjoyed a 2-0 bowling victory over him the night before. Just outside the museum, in the heart of Louisville, stands the world’s largest baseball bat, taller than the museum building itself, and made in the exact same way that Louisville Slugger make their normal bats, with a monumental dose of ash wood lathed to the correct size, and sanded down with the Slugger seal on the giant handle.
Outside of Louisville are a couple of areas of note. Firstly, the race track that is home to the Kentucky Derby, which is the most lucrative, profitable and popular horse racing event in America, rivalled only really by The Derby and Grand National in the UK. Sadly there is little to see when it is not the season, and the Derby Museum was merely a passing image in our Jeep’s rear-view mirror, as Dean and I raced towards the second noteworthy place of interest outside Louisville, and indeed a fascinating aspect of Kentucky as a whole.
It is decreed by law that whiskey can only be called ‘bourbon’ if made and distilled in the US. Some of the most famous brands of whiskey in the world come from Kentucky, including Makers Mark and Jim Beam. We were lucky enough to pay a visit to the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. This beautiful area of land contained all those romantic Kentucky images: white picket fences, gabled house porches, and neat grassland. Around the main Jim Beam house, with its well-preserved artefacts from the original Beam family home of the mid-eighteenth century, were the whiskey distilleries themselves, oozing out alcoholic fumes into the area, which mingled with the cut-grass smell from the surrounding farmland. It was a mild day with blue skies and a feeling more like spring than November. Perfect conditions, then, to try some whiskey, including Jim Beam’s famed Bookers and Basil Haydon line, kept in perfect condition in wooden barrels for many years before being released to the public. It was strong, with a real kick to it, but smooth like oil and an enjoyable taster.
Our trip to Kentucky was fleeting. We had a rendezvous ahead with the home of country music in Nashville, Tennessee, but still had time to turn off of the interstate and head into quite literally the middle of nowhere, in the form of Franklin, Kentucky. It was clear that in Franklin they do not see many foreigners. The girl in the bar, Bethany, seemed rather excited by the presence of two Englishmen seeking a coffee kick before continuing their drive. The town was surrounded by narrow country lanes and long drives up to farm houses that were often the only buildings for miles around. It was exactly the sort of random place that both of us had been looking forward to walking around, although Bethany in the bar warned us not to repeat the trick in some areas of the Deep South. Armed with a new sense of trepidation about Alabama hillbillies and Texas cowboys, we set the car GPS towards a state that is definitely sure of its modern-day identity. If Kentucky is perched perilously close to the more liberal and outward-looking Midwest, Tennessee is a bona-fide Southern state, with a “Howdy y’all” accent, cowboy boots and hats, and a definitive cultural distinctiveness rooted entirely in the country music that made the town, and then the region, famous.
Were we lucky in Kentucky? Well, yes and no, as you will have gathered, but stay tuned to find out if things got messy in Tennessee.
The roads that lead out from Champaign, Illinois, are fairly uniform. Two-lane freeways merge into three-lane interstates and trees and fields populate the areas beyond the hard shoulder. Illinois is famous for Chicago, and being the home of Abraham Lincoln, but beyond a one night stay with friends of Dean at the University of Illinois in aforementioned Champaign our stay was short but sweet. We enjoyed the generous hospitality of Mike and Matt, and the helpfulness of Catie (Matt's girlfriend), and managed to work our way through a fairly decent amount of alcohol in Firehaus Bar with Dean's friend Chelsea, and her mate Sarah. Despite attempts to convert us to the sport of 'Frisbee-Golf', and extolting the virtues of Illinois State University, where Chelsea and Sarah study, we sadly had to limit our socialising with the girls to just a few hours that evening, due to the time constraints of our road-trip. Hopefully, however, both Chelsea and Sarah can come to London soon and enjoy a fun night out on us! Having picked up our Jeep Patriot, loading it with our frankly ridiculous amount of luggage and picking up water and food supplies, we headed for the state line and Kentucky beyond.
Kentucky is an interesting part of the world: part Mid-West, part South. It sits neatly in the middle of America in terms of latitude, and enjoys a burgeoning city in Louisville and beautiful surrounding countryside, complete with the picket-fenced image of smalltown America that so many of us see in the movies. It really exists here in Kentucky, on farms and in townships, through bourbon distilleries and across railway lines towards Louisville itself, and further away into the neighbouring southern states.
To drive through Kentucky is to see a gradual, but pronounced, change in many aspects of the geography and society of America. Distances between towns become sparse, cornfields dominate, Main Street is emphasised over Wall Street, and accents start to take on a southern drawl. Even the trees begin to look southern by the time you reach Kentucky, with the folkloric evergreen Weeping Willows of states like Alabama and Mississippi emerging out of inclines that creep alongside the highway, perching on the corners of pretty town squares, easily found beyond the roadside shopping malls if you dare ignore the GPS system.
Dean and I arrived in Louisville late at night, which prevented us from visiting some of the attractions until the next morning. We checked into our motel (the sort of joint where you park your car by the door to your room and await the ensuing Hollywood horror film) and began a quest for food that took us to Louisville’s famed ‘4th Avenue Live’. This is a thoroughfare in the downtown area where restaurants, bars and clubs are thrown together in a neon blaze of lights and colours. Alas for Dean and I, a Monday night in Louisville is not exactly the most happening time to be in the city. We enjoyed a good meal, a game of bowling, a stroll around the bars, and a trip to the University. However, we both had a feeling that many simply pass through this city, on their way to larger conurbations further away.
So what, then, is the real Louisville? The Nottingham-esque tackiness of 4th Avenue, or the quiet suburbia around the University, where we enjoyed a pleasant walk around, despite the lack of people on the street to talk to? Perhaps the answer lies in the identity of Kentucky, struggling as it is to define itself in the twenty-first century. After all, this is a state that supported the Union army in the Civil War, but subsequently hoisted the Confederate emblem high on its flagpoles in a bid to attract southern investment and industry. It is not surprising, then, that Louisville is a little bi-polar. It is not a big city, but is the largest in a confused state. It is dominated by cities like Chicago to the north and Nashville to the south. The Ohio River, which cuts through Louisville itself, offers an escape route into three other states from just one suspension bridge.
Nevertheless, how many other cities can lay claim to the biggest baseball bat in the world? Well, none, obviously. Louisville has cornered the market in baseball bat manufacturing. It is home to the headquarters of ‘Louisville Slugger’, the world’s most pre-eminent baseball bat makers. Their various designs have been used by most of the great players of all time, and the vast majority of the MLB’s current professionals, including Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, who you all know by now are my baseball team of choice. The impressive Slugger Museum is well worth a trip to, should you ever find yourself in Louisville. It illustrates just how the bats are made (with a lot of care and attention), and also offers an interesting insight into what I am increasingly beginning to feel is a decent sport. It is the closest the Americans have to cricket, without the centuries of tradition, but is still the most European of sports here in the USA. Baseball teams grew out of their local communities far more than American football or basketball teams, and seem more similar to our English football teams than other sporting franchises. Generations of the same family will root for one team, based on local or historical ties to a particular city. As the earliest American recreational pursuit, it has an impressive history (or at least as impressive a history as can be achieved in a fairly young country). Then there’s the romance of the sport, the aspirational idea of a home run, of celebrating with your team-mates, of psychologically outfoxing the opposition through gruelling innings in bat and in the field, which can take hours to complete. It is tactical, occasionally physical, and ultimately a rewarding experience if you concentrate on it for long enough.
Concentration was certainly key when Dean and I had the opportunity to place our hands on genuine Louisville Slugger baseball bats as used by professional players, and attempt to hit some balls in the batting cages at the museum. Here, a machine thumped baseballs at us, while we tried to form our English postures into something resembling baseball players. We both put in fairly dismal showings first time round, but after some encouragement from an incredulous museum official (see the video), we returned to the cage, helmeted and gloved like Joe DiMaggio or Babe Ruth in their prime, and managed to actually connect with some balls. Dean and was better at it than me, but let’s not forget I enjoyed a 2-0 bowling victory over him the night before. Just outside the museum, in the heart of Louisville, stands the world’s largest baseball bat, taller than the museum building itself, and made in the exact same way that Louisville Slugger make their normal bats, with a monumental dose of ash wood lathed to the correct size, and sanded down with the Slugger seal on the giant handle.
Outside of Louisville are a couple of areas of note. Firstly, the race track that is home to the Kentucky Derby, which is the most lucrative, profitable and popular horse racing event in America, rivalled only really by The Derby and Grand National in the UK. Sadly there is little to see when it is not the season, and the Derby Museum was merely a passing image in our Jeep’s rear-view mirror, as Dean and I raced towards the second noteworthy place of interest outside Louisville, and indeed a fascinating aspect of Kentucky as a whole.
It is decreed by law that whiskey can only be called ‘bourbon’ if made and distilled in the US. Some of the most famous brands of whiskey in the world come from Kentucky, including Makers Mark and Jim Beam. We were lucky enough to pay a visit to the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. This beautiful area of land contained all those romantic Kentucky images: white picket fences, gabled house porches, and neat grassland. Around the main Jim Beam house, with its well-preserved artefacts from the original Beam family home of the mid-eighteenth century, were the whiskey distilleries themselves, oozing out alcoholic fumes into the area, which mingled with the cut-grass smell from the surrounding farmland. It was a mild day with blue skies and a feeling more like spring than November. Perfect conditions, then, to try some whiskey, including Jim Beam’s famed Bookers and Basil Haydon line, kept in perfect condition in wooden barrels for many years before being released to the public. It was strong, with a real kick to it, but smooth like oil and an enjoyable taster.
Our trip to Kentucky was fleeting. We had a rendezvous ahead with the home of country music in Nashville, Tennessee, but still had time to turn off of the interstate and head into quite literally the middle of nowhere, in the form of Franklin, Kentucky. It was clear that in Franklin they do not see many foreigners. The girl in the bar, Bethany, seemed rather excited by the presence of two Englishmen seeking a coffee kick before continuing their drive. The town was surrounded by narrow country lanes and long drives up to farm houses that were often the only buildings for miles around. It was exactly the sort of random place that both of us had been looking forward to walking around, although Bethany in the bar warned us not to repeat the trick in some areas of the Deep South. Armed with a new sense of trepidation about Alabama hillbillies and Texas cowboys, we set the car GPS towards a state that is definitely sure of its modern-day identity. If Kentucky is perched perilously close to the more liberal and outward-looking Midwest, Tennessee is a bona-fide Southern state, with a “Howdy y’all” accent, cowboy boots and hats, and a definitive cultural distinctiveness rooted entirely in the country music that made the town, and then the region, famous.
Were we lucky in Kentucky? Well, yes and no, as you will have gathered, but stay tuned to find out if things got messy in Tennessee.
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