Ravinia and Louisville

I'm at the end of the first day of travel with grandson Henry. We are on our way to attend the Lionel Collectors Club of America convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yesterday, I drove to Henry's home. Betsy and Pete had decided that an evening at Ravinia to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) would be a perfect kickoff for us, so we packed up a picnic and headed there for the evening. I had never been before to this over 100 years old venue for music.

There are sculptures on the grounds plus theaters, an outdoor auditorium, food and beverage offerings, and plenty of picnic space.

Ravinia is really a wonderful facility in which to hear a concert, and I look forward to going there again sometime. Those seated in the auditorium see the orchestra directly, but the rest of us have access to large screens displaying the musicians, and there are excellent speakers to distribute the sound throughout the grounds.

They make some effort to keep the noise down, but really, I heard no one creating any kind of disturbance or sound while we listened to two excellent Beethoven pieces. Read more about Ravinia here.

Today, Henry and I began our trip south to Chattanooga with a first night's stay in Louisville. After checking into our hotel (the beautiful old Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville), we walked over to the Louisville Slugger Museum. One of the sidewalks leading up to the museum had a series of these memorials to individual ball players who had used Louisville Slugger bats.

At the entrance to the museum is this enormous bat. Henry is standing at the left of the base of the bat to give you some perspective.

A special exhibit right now is of several major league ball parks modeled with Legos. Of course, this was right up Henry's alley. He especially liked the one of Wrigley Field which may have been the most detailed and accurate of them all. It was certainly the largest model.

I got a shot of Henry with the Babe. There were lots of interesting exhibits and memorabilia.

Henry got to pose with a historical bat for this photo. This bat was a signature Mickey Mantle bat and had been used by Mickey back in the day. Henry was kind enough to select that one from several choices so that I could get a little vicarious thrill, since Mantle and Roger Maris were my boyhood Yankee heroes.

One huge wall exhibits all the signatures of players who signed with Louisville Slugger for their bats. Here is Roger's signature.

Part of our visit included a tour of the factory, which is adjacent to the museum. They allowed no photographs in that part, but you can take my word and Henry's that it was truly fascinating. For example, they used to turn bats by hand on lathes at about 30 minutes each. Today they turn one in about 30 seconds using computer-controlled CNC lathes. After the tour, you could arrange for a bat to be made with your own name on it, so I thought Henry needed one!

Tomorrow we head for Chattanooga and more adventures.