Road trip!
The weather cooperated for most of the trip.
I tried to document the decision-points along the way.
There are places in southern Michigan and Northern Ohio that are very flat indeed.
See that white stuff in the lower right? It's the last snow we'd see until we got home.
Next decision point.
Next decision point. This one is easier to miss than the last one, if you forget to keep your eyes peeled for the mosque, so you can turn before you reach it.
Mosque? Yes.
Spring in our area has been dampish, but I bet there is water here all year around.
Farther south. Not flat any more.
Our first glimpse of the Ohio.
Remember, in France, we learned that the Loire divides France, north from south, and so has extreme strategic importance in case of war.
The Ohio, like the Loire, runs from east to west over a lot of its length.
The Loire, at Tours, is wide.
The Ohio, at Cincinnati, is wide, and at Louisville, it is wider.
Tighter crop of the above, showing what I bet is coal.
The riverfront here is clearly a working riverfront, rather than a pedestrian-friendly park.
On the Kentucky side of the river, this section looks residential rather than industrial.
Note the boat pushing a bunch of barges loaded with what I bet is coal.
We weren't far from the river, for a good bit of the way from Cincinnati to Louisville, but we didn't see it again until we got there.
We saw lots of big black birds wheeling around over Kentucky. I saw them over downtown Louisville. These were in the country before we got to Louisville.
Not bad, taken from a car at highway speed! I am pleased at how clearly we can see the flight feathers, and pleased that we can see the red head (which I could not see until I got the pic on "the big screen"). I bet these are turkey buzzards.
So cool that we can see the flight feathers bend......
As we got close to Louisville, we lost the dry weather.
Looking out the passenger window at a park. You can see a sidewalk on the other side of this water, and see the tree trunks rising out of the water in the lower left.
We had seen on the Weather Channel that the Ohio valley was experiencing flooding, and this was our first look at that.
Our first look at downtown Louisville, and our last highway decision point.
Our hotel is the farthest-away building on the right edge.
One of the roads we needed to cross was flooded, so we went a slightly different way to the hotel.
We got checked in, and hauled all our stuff up to the room.
When I went to France, my definition of what I would take was "only what would fit easily into one rolling check-on bag, and one serious-waist-belt-fortified backpack."
This trip was different. We traveled with a cooler, bags of books, food, a tea kettle, you name it. Not exactly "all the comforts of home," but nearer to that than when we have to travel lighter.
Let's have a look out the window, shall we?
Oh my. The hotel drive does a 180 curve, and Fourth Street goes down under it, to dead-end at River Road. Note the trash at the high-water mark, on Fourth street just above that dark taxi.
That would be River Road, under the expressway. Or would be, if it weren't being just-plain-river..................
The elevators in the hotel's other tower. We rode up in one of them, to see the work-out facility at the top. The ride was boring, alas, nothing to see but our side of the hotel. (The workout facility was nice, but open only limited hours.)
You can see that the two towers are connected. This was a two-story bar/lounge area. Pleasant, if one wants to sit indoors amongst strangers.
Once we'd checked out the view, we reconnoitered.
An ACBL national tournament is a big deal. This is but one of at least three big spaces in which bridge was played at this tournament.
We note from the chandelier (upper right corner) that this is *not* a parking structure.
(We have experienced bridge play in actual parking structures, at national tournaments.....)
As you'd expect, a large gathering of aficionados results in a number of vendors with goods aimed at the special interest.
Lots of bridge books, bridge scoring recorders, and many other items, including garmentage.
Never let it be said that (at least some) bridge players are not snappy dressers!
Not scheduled for play that evening, we wandered out in search of dinner.
Our first non-fuzzy, closer-up view of the Aegon Center's top, just down Fourth Street from our hotel.
It was raining, so I only took a very few pics. We were standing inside the Humana building's covered entryway when I took these. Humana is a huge supporter of theatre, so it's fitting that the performing arts center is right across the street.
What you see, reflected here, is mostly the Humana building.
When we walked back to the hotel, after supper, it was raining too hard to take pics. Ah well.
In order to facilitate reading the Louisville posts in chronological order, I have put a link at the end of each post to the next one. The post after this one is here.
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