Kentucky Derby or Bust!

It's not too clear, so if you cant tell it's my souvenir from every state... the Kentucky welcome sign!

Yes, it's true.  For those of you who didn't already know, we are now in Louisville, Kentucky!

We had a whole 2 days off back at our apartment and we pretty much unpacked, washed clothes to get rid of the bed bugs....

 (did I mention that we "mostly Ben:(" got bed bugs at one of our hotels?? YUCK! We normally stay at descent hotels that have good ratings; we always check the ratings and reviews before booking it. Well, I made the reservation for this one (OOPS...) and it appealed to me because it had a KITCHENETTE! Which I posted about previously... Well, when the stove burners didn't even work and the beds had bed bugs! So, definitely NOT worth having a kitchenette!) Bed bugs are crazy... They have been bothering been for a few weeks now. He really broke out and tried many different things to get rid of "the itchies"... so if you know of any tips, let us know! Luckily they are better, but still not completely gone!)

And then we packed up again once we got the email about heading to Kentucky!  We have been here for about a week now because of a hail storm that hit.  The hail wasn't that bad compared to McAllen, but we may still be here for a little while.

Did I mention that as we were looking to book hotels before we left they were INCREDIBLY expensive?  Like the cheapest hotels were running something like $250 per night! Crazy expensive. So Ben researched to try to figure out what was going on... and he found out that we were heading there the weekend of the Kentucky Derby, which is a HUGE deal here in Louisville.  Locals get all into it, and people come from all over the place to participate.  It was fun being here to get the Kentucky feel and all the craziness that goes along with the Derby. We did have to stay an hour outside of Louisville for a few nights until the prices were lowered.

We thought about going to the race and most of the locals encouraged us to go.  So on Saturday after finishing up the claims we headed to Churchill Downs.  We walked around the area for a little while and as we got to the entrance it wasn't so glamorous. It was like a huge drunken party scene with trash everywhere and fights going on... (this was at 5:30pm), this wouldn't have been so bad because it would have been much different inside the stadium, but the seats we were planning to get were just general admission, which meant we wouldn't actually be able to see the race. So we decided that being there, seeing the people and experiencing the environment was good enough for us.  We headed to Buffalo Wild Wings for some dinner and watched the race on TV.

Snapped a picture for proof we were there and headed back to the truck for some dinner!

Aww nothing like a romantic dinner at.... Buffalo Wild Wings??  Well, I guess  we're not quite the fancy type, but it sure was delicious and we had a blast watching the race with all the locals on TV! Did I mention that they have a gluten free selection?? I got a huge plate of nachos and it DIDNT even hurt my stomach! :) YAY

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