This weekend was so uberly relaxing that the degree of relax should be illegal in most states. It was definitely a really nice one.
Ruthie and I went to her very smashing hometown of Louisville. It’s a pretty kickin’ lil city, for sure. Before this past weekend, I had only been through there on I-65 on the way to Chicago. As far as cities go, I guess it’s about the size of Denver.
On Friday, we got there. I took the day off, and we spent the morning & afternoon on the road. It was quite the pleasant trip. There wasn’t any rain to speak of, and traffic was fairly light. I have definitely seen worse. When we arrived in Louisville, we stopped off at the very spiffy B & B at which we were staying for the weekend. It was a really nice one, although it was my first B & B experience. It’s just like a hotel, only it’s in a house in your average & typical neighborhood.
That night, we had dinner on the river on a riverboat. It was a nice southern meal of fried chicken, green beans & potatoes. I really liked, of course, being the chicken aficionado that I am 🙂 Both her parents were there and made very awesome company for the meal and the little cruise.
Saturday was quite busy. We started out at the zoo, where we saw the lorikeets, an albino alligator, a polar bear and a bunch of monkeys. The lorikeets were quite content on resting on my head. After the zoo, we hit Six Flags. It was amazing, because the lines were infinitely shorter than those of Six Flags in Georgia. The coolest ride, besides all of the roller coasters, was the sky coaster. I think it’s probably the best $30 that one could ever spend, and I recommend it to anyone. Quite the thrill ride. There was a Stargate ride there, too, that was a bit cheesy. It was good to see some of that at Six Flags, though, despite the cheese.
That night, we had dinner at Le Relais at the airfield, a French restaurant. It began with a very awesome appetizer of cheesy-type bread that tasted a lot like Goldfish crackers. The appetizers continued twice thereafter until we finally got to the main course of steak. It had to have been the greatest steak I have ever tasted. It was a perfect medium rare. After the main course, we adjourned to the patio where there was a balloon glow happening on the airfield. It was amazingly kewl. It was something I hadn’t seen since I was about 11 years old.
After the balloon glow, we went on a flight in a Piper around the city. It was definitely quite the shiznit. It has inspired me to start ground school in the spring, and perhaps get my pilot’s license by the end of next summer. It’ll be a good way to ease myself into grad school, too, since UAH gives ground school classes. Of course, after I get that, I might be tempted to do some more adventurous things, like get scuba certification 😀
All-in-all, it was an extremely wonderful weekend. Her hometown is awesome, and I can’t wait to visit it again–there’ll be plenty of other things to do the next time we’re there. It makes me realize how boring Huntsville can be sometimes. Most of the time, it’s alright. It’s definitely no Chicago, by any stretch of the imagination.
I found out, too, that my brother got his first real job in Milwaukee. He is going to be starting next Monday, so this weekend will be spent moving him up there into a hotel room. The next week, we’ll go back up there to help move him into an apartment–hopefully he’ll have found one by then. I’m definitely going to miss him, but I know that he’ll be a helluva lot more happy there than here. Cumulus really does treat him like crap, and it’ll be good for him to get some experience before getting his dream job at WGN radio. Anyhoo, if anyone listens to internet radio much, he’ll be on WISN doing the morning show (5:30-8:30). He’s a producer, but they’ve said he’ll definitely get airtime.