Click HERE to read Day 1 Click HERE to read Day 2&3
After the Corvette
Museum, it was a nice little 2-hour drive to Louisville, Kentucky, and the next
stop on our itinerary - Momma's Mustard, Pickles & BBQ Restuarant. After our horrible
experience with the barbeque at Tom’s in Memphis, we decided to try for some
good “Q” at another highly-touted eatery. Fortunately, despite the weird name,
this place came much closer to our expectations. It wasn’t great Texas
barbeque, but it wasn’t bad. Clean, friendly service, reasonable prices, and
cute girls as waitresses. OK, in today’s culture that may be considered sexist
by some, but these 2 old guys raised in the old days of yore still appreciate
nice female works of art and we will not apologize!When in Louisville, of
course, you must tour the Louisville Slugger Factory & Museum. Looking it
up online, it was “strongly suggested” that you get your tickets before you
arrive as they are often sold out. Our arrival time left only 2 tours remaining for
that day and both were almost full so we checked into a really nice hotel, the
Fairfield Inn & Suites Louisville East. This was one of the best hotels we
stayed in the whole trip - plenty of parking, friendly staff, and clean
facilities. The room was clean and very nice with very comfortable beds. Wi-Fi
was fast and never dropped. In the morning there was plenty of hot water for a
good shower. Quiet all night long. Can’t ask for much more than that! We bought
our Louisville Slugger tickets for the next day, got some sandwiches, and
brought them back to the room to eat while we watched more of the Women’s
Softball Championship.
Day 5
 |
Entrance to Louisville
Slugger Factory
& Museum |
Arriving at the Museum
at the appointed time the next morning, we were amazed to find that instead of the group of 20
for the tour, we were the only 2 people! We had a great tour guide who was able
to give us his undivided attention. It was a really interesting experience. We
learned how the bats are made, the different kinds of wood
preferred by different major-league players, and watching them actually being
made was way cool. Everyone, including the workers, were very friendly. Our
guide was knowledgeable and never seemed to get tired of our many questions. As
a souvenir, we both got a “nub,” (the end part of a bat that is cut off before
the final processing) from a bat destined to be used by a major league player.
At the end of the tour, we were given another souvenir, a small Louisville
Slugger bat. It was a very enjoyable experience and especially interesting to
me as a former user of Louisville Slugger bats when I played youth and high school baseball. I
thought the souvenirs in the gift shop were a bit expensive and I didn’t find a
shirt I liked so I didn’t get anything besides the souvenirs from the tour and a refrigerator magnet for my collection. I
highly recommend this stop.Other than stopping for
a fast-food lunch, gas, and road food, the rest of the day was spent driving,
telling stories, remembering things we have experienced together, and
generally, just enjoying each other’s company. 360 miles later, we checked into
another nice hotel in Washington, Pennsylvania – The Hampton Inn & Suites,
Pittsburg-Meadow Lands. After driving most of the day, we dropped off for a
nice, restful sleep by 10:30. We had another interesting little side trip
scheduled for the next morning.
 |
| "Buffalo Bill's" house |
Just 90 miles away was
our next stop – Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. I mean, who hasn’t had the desire
to see Punxsutawney Phil and visit the famous Gobbler’s Knob where every
February 2nd, the venerable, and supposedly immortal, groundhog holds forth
each year with his weather predictions. The "Inner Circle" members –
recognizable from their top hats and tuxedos – communicate with Phil to receive
his prognostication. This suspension of disbelief, a central requirement for
the festival, extends to the assertion that the same groundhog has been making
predictions since the nineteenth century. According to legend, there is only
one Phil, all other groundhogs are impostors. It is claimed that this one
groundhog has lived to make weather predictions since 1886, sustained by drinks
of "groundhog punch" and "elixir of life" administered at
the annual Groundhog Picnic in the fall.Unknown to most, Phil
does not live at Gobbler’s Knob. His actual home is in a nice, cozy den in the
Punxsutawney Library. We had that information along with the address of the
library, but we drove around for 20 confusing minutes or so because we couldn’t
find a building that looked like a library or had a sign indicating it was a library.
The address where it was supposed to be was a police station with a parking lot
full of police cars. I really needed to relieve myself of the morning’s coffee
so I told Chip (who was driving) to just pull into the police station thinking
surely they had a bathroom I could quickly borrow. He didn't want to do that because "we'll get a ticket." Then I noticed a line of
regular civilian parked cars along one small row so I told Chip just park in there
with those cars. Reluctantly, Chip pulled in and parked. Great friend he is,
“OK, but if we get a ticket, you’re paying it.”
 |
| Punxsutawney Phil relaxing at home |
It was then I finally saw a little sign
that just said, “Library.” Maybe one end of the building was a police station
and the other end was the library? Walking around to the other side of the
building, the side with no parking lot, the side facing a quiet, little park with lots of
grass and trees, the side that had no indication you could see from the road
that it was a library, and there we found the library’s front door and just inside the
front door was, thank goodness, a men’s restroom! A few minutes later, I walked into the aisles of
books and a lady told me the library was closed due to Covid restrictions. I asked
if this is where Phil lives. Yep, over in the corner and yes, you can go over
and see him. Sure enough, looking into an enclosure with a wall of thick glass
was the legendary Phil! Unfortunately, the glass was very dirty and scratched
up so bad, you could barely see into Phil’s home. I noticed there was another
window on the other side that faced outward. We walked outside to the window,
but that window too was heavily scratched and dirty. I took several terrible
pictures of Phil (due to the condition of the glass), who seemed quite relaxed
and paid us no never-mind. I must admit, it was a tad underwhelming. In fact,
it was very underwhelming.
 |
| Gobbler's Knob Park |
Making it back to the
car (no ticket!), we then drove about 2 miles outside of town to Gobbler’s
Knob. Until I researched it, I thought Gobbler’s Knob was somewhere in
Punxsutawney, like in a downtown park. Not so. It is about 2 miles southeast
of town, set off all by itself. We arrived to find we were the only people
there, so we took our time driving around looking at the well-maintained stage
and park. It too was a bit underwhelming, but still, we enjoyed seeing in
person the stage and all the Groundhog Day things we’ve seen on TV for years.
 |
The famous stage where Phil
delivers his prediction |
We
made our way back to town to eat at Joe’s Drive-In, the highly-rated
old-fashioned diner famous for serving up the best hamburgers in Punxsutawney.
The burgers were ok. Certainly not Whataburger or even In-N-Out quality, but I guess the
Punxsutawney residents are pleased as punch with them.Putting Punxsutawney in
our rearview mirror, we headed about 80 miles south to Stoystown, Pennsylvania
and the Flight 93 National Memorial. Neither of us anticipated the intense
feelings we would soon feel.
 |
| Phil statue at Joe's Drive-In |
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