East Coast Trip: Part II

Staying in Louisville was actually a lot of fun; we were at the Galt House Inn, which is *the* hotel in Louisville, apparently. It was certainly *the* hotel for the Derby...the place was a madhouse. Still, it was right downtown and we had a suite (read: Bean sleeps in another room...huzzah!), so can't complain too much. Piddled around on Friday, although we did hit this great little hamburger shack whose name I can't remember, but they do a mean frizzled pickle. That, for those of you who don't know, is a battered, deep-fried pickle. Only in the South, I tells ya. Saturday morning the three of us drove around for hours looking for breakfast of a biscuits and grits nature...you'd think this wouldn't be hard to find in Kentucky, but it was nearly impossible. We finally fetched up at a funky little coffeeshop that, judging by the lines outside, was the only deal in town. Still, it was well worth the wait...even got some biscuits.

To the Derby at 3 pm, trying to maximize Bean happy-time...wore my schmancy dress and shoes, but most importantly, hat, Bean was well dressed, Gene was looking dapper and Southern -- although next time he really does need a seersucker suit and his Panama hat. We had been given tickets for a box literally at the finish line...you couldn't have asked for better seats. However, you could have asked for better weather. Yes, we were at the pretty-nearly rained out Derby, sad to say. It was a lot of wiping off chairs, settling into a mint julep, glancing at the sky, packing up, herding inside, wandering around knee deep in drunk people and trash, heading back out, wiping off chairs...well, you get the picture. Still, any place that has peripatetic mint julep vendors is still doing pretty well in my books. We didn't place any bets, but it was still greatly exciting to watch Smarty Jones win, particularly since everyone else around us seemed to be much more vested, and thus much more excitable. I'm thinking we just crashed out that night..Bean was in the throes of her cold, and I think we just gave up after getting her some Tylenol and ordered room service.

Left the next morning for Virginia, but we did make a brunch pit stop at Claudia Sanders' restaurant in Corbin (just outside of Louisville). Oh...my. As our friend Marcus is fond of saying, we got our eat on. I can't even remember what we ate, but it was good, it was a lot, and it was excessively Southern in nature. Maybe not the best meal to then sit in a car for six hours, but I'm glad we stopped anyway. It rained pretty much the entire way to Charlottesville, and Bean cried pretty much the entire way to Charlottesville, so we're going to just sort of gloss over that part and go make a quick cocktail in our commemorative Derby cups to try and forget that I even mentioned that leg of the journey.

Huzzah for the *hat*! Where's the photo???