Day 21: 14 Miles

Louisville, KY to Louisville, KY

I woke up this morning to find a large storm passing through the area. I had a rest day planned, but probably would have skipped riding today anyway because the rain was strong at times. Louisville is the last major city on my route for a while and there were a few more things I wanted to see before I got out of town. My hotel last night was a few miles north and east of the downtown area. I decided to switch hotels today to get myself further south with an easier exit route out of the city tomorrow. That meant I’d have to get on my bike today for a short ride. I waited as late as I could for the rain to die down but that never really happened.

I left the hotel at 10:45 and rode towards the downtown area. To get to the hotel I needed to ride through Old Louisville and the University of Louisville, so I got a nice tour of the city. I didn’t make it to a distillery yesterday so I decided to take a detour on my way to the hotel and stopped in at the Bulleit Bourbon distillery. Bulleit is a few miles outside of town, but was easy enough to get to on my bike. For $10 I got a tour of the distillery and a tasting of 4 bourbons. I got to see the barrel room, which smelled amazing, and learned some pretty good history about bourbon and Bulleit. It was definitely worth the detour.

By the time I finished the tour at Bulleit the rain had stopped, so I hopped on my bike and rode 4 miles to the hotel. The hotel was just a mile from Churchill Downs, so I made that my second tourist activity of the day. The Kentucky Derby museum is located right at Churchill Downs. I was able to check out the museum and take a tour of the race track. The museum had a 360 degree movie experience which was pretty interesting. They filmed portions of the Derby with a 360 degree camera from the center of the infield and the movie played on screens that wrapped completely around the theater. The seats were swivel bar stools so you could spin around and take everything in. After the movie I did a quick walking tour of the race track. There were no races today so it was pretty quiet, but still a fun activity for the afternoon.

From Churchill Downs I took an Uber to the Akasha brewery. I’ve found local breweries to be the best place to strike up a conversation with people and found an interesting group at Akasha. I started out talking to a local couple who was enjoying a few beers. They were interested in my trip and where I’d be going next. The bartender was also a bit of a traveler herself so we had some interesting conversation. While the four of us were talking another guy dropped in. He was a microbrewery aficionado and came with a printed out list of all the breweries he had been to. He added Akasha to his list, bringing the total to 586 breweries. I had a beer flight and one more pint and decided it was time to grab some food and call it a night. The bartender suggested Royals Hot Chicken right down the street. It was excellent and hit the spot after the few beers I’d had.

Louisville was a great time for the couple of days I was here. I won’t have the comforts of a big city for a while so I’m happy I got to experience everything I did while I was in town. Tomorrow I head south and west out of town. The good news is I’ll finally be hitting the Adventure Cycling Trans Am trail. That means from now on I’ll have a map set and app to help me find things along the way and I won’t have to second guess the route choices I’m making.