Yesterday we enjoyed a day trip to Louisville with my parents and my sister. The adventures began with breakfast at Bob Evans. At the end of the meal, a nice older gentleman came to our table to say hello to Avery. Then he proceed to call her pretty and sweet and give her a silver dollar. After that, he looked at my sister and must have thought she was Avery’s sister, because he gave Karen a silver dollar, too! She was kind enough to let Avery have it.
Then we headed down I-65 to Louisville.
Our big plan for the day was to ride on the Belle of Louisville. This was something my family did a few times when I was younger, but this was Avery’s first time on any kind of boat.
We arrived a little earlier than we expected, so we relaxed on the dock while we waited for the boarding time.
Avery was “so cited” to ride the boat. Here she is pointing it out to us in case we didn’t see this massive boat sitting in the water.
To pass the time, Avery decided to climb the stairs to this lookout far above us on the ground. That meant that Daddy had to climb them, too. Apparently when Daddy told her that she had to climb back down the stairs, she said, “No, Daddy holder Avery.” But Daddy didn’t comply!
Finally it was time to get on the boat. We claimed some seats on the outdoor deck but, we sat under cover in case the sun decided to shine (or the rain decided to fall).
Here’s the view of KingFish from the beginning of the boat ride. This is the restaurant where we had dinner later in the day.
Here is the paddlewheel at the back of the boat, or simply the “wheel” as some idiots sitting around us called it.
Avery couldn’t sit still for the whole time. So she took lots of walking trips around the boat with Grandpa, Grandma and Karen.
This magician walked around the boat to perform some tricks for the guests. He managed to finagle my mom into participating in one, and he left all of us mesmerized. Using an imaginary deck of cards, Mom chose one card, which she identified as the seven of diamonds. Then the magician pulled a real deck of cards from his pocket, and the only card that was upside down in that deck was the seven of diamonds. How’d he do that?!
It was a beautiful, peaceful, two-hour ride. We saw plenty of jet skis, speedboats and even these sailboats, which kind of got in the way of the Belle as we made our turn half way through the tour.
One of the landmarks along the shore was this building that marks the crest for the flood waters in 1937. I guess our own flood experiences weren’t quite that bad.
Near the end of the tour, the DJ in the ballroom played some dance songs. So Chris had to teach Avery the Chicken Dance. She actually danced with him for a little while. But then I think she was embarrassed by her father and stopped dancing, while Chris continued to make a fool of himself. His self-confidence is one of the reasons I love him!
Here is how Avery finished the boat ride. Chris isn’t really asleep. He was just resting, expecting to carry Avery and her dead weight back to the car. Instead, she woke up just as we were getting off the boat.
It was only about 2:30 p.m. when we got back to the car. After a little snack, we weren’t quite ready for a full dinner yet. So we decided to check out the Falls of the Ohio State Park back over the river in Indiana.
The falls were hidden under the river after a dam was built in the 1930s, but what remains today are hundreds of acres of fossil beds that show us which animals and plants lived in Indiana hundreds of millions of years ago. We spent some time walking down to the shore and exploring the rocks. There is a strict policy of not removing any rocks and fossils since this is federally-protected land. Luckily, Avery didn’t ask to take home any rocks for her own collection.
After visiting the park, we decided to head to KingFish for dinner.
There also was a playground nearby. So Avery got to run off some more energy and go down the slide with Daddy. Then we all enjoyed ice cream and headed back home.