If I had one word to describe this past weekend, it would be ADVENTURE. Last Friday, Hayden and I headed to Mt. Vernon to start our weekend trip to Louisville, KY. Friends, we had no clue what craziness was about to unfold, but let me tell you that this weekend had plenty of material for a comedy block buster.

My brother, Taylor, moved to Louisville in the fall to earn a second bachelors degree {the first in engineering & the second in economics}. Hayden and I hadn’t been able to visit his place since we moved him in, and we were dying to see more of the city and experience a UofL sporting event! We planned to visit him and see a UofL basketball game, tour the city a bit, and enjoy time together. What we didn’t plan was to get stuck in a snowstorm, visit the town of Dale, IN, and experience many other weird moments throughout the weekend. You know how your family has a set of stories that they tell over and over because of how hilarious the occasion was – I am sure stories from this weekend will be told MANY times in the future.

Anyway, back to the story, we met my parents in Mt. Vernon, IL on Friday night. We planned to eat a quick dinner and make the three hour drive to Louisville. Now, we knew that they were expecting snow and ice, but we hadn’t heard any bad news and the map didn’t notify us of any wrecks. Also, weather throughout the Midwest is extremely finicky, and I highly doubted that we would see any snow.

Within 45 minutes of leaving Mt. Vernon, we started seeing snow in spots on the road. As we entered Indiana, the roads became extremely snow packed. We had already been driving for at least 2 hours when it said that we had another 2 hours to go. My parents had already counted 15 cars off in the ditch. The concern of getting stuck in the snow, off road, or backed-up on the interstate became a concern {also, I’m like a crazy person in bad weather, so I might have been freaking out a little bit. 😉 } Also, if you didn’t know, there is NOTHING in Southern IN after you pass Evansville. NOTHING. There is no place to stop, to sleep, or to eat.

So, the first town with any nearby hotel was Dale, IN. We finally made it off the interstate, and {somehow} I was in charge of navigating my dad to the hotel. Well, I gave some wrong directions, which meant we needed to make a u-turn on a VERY snow-packed and icy road. Luckily, we were the only ones on the roads – so we made a slow u-turn and ended up at our hotel.

There was probably 4-5 inches of snow, and we couldn’t see the parking lot. I’m pretty sure we drove over the front flower bed, but we found a parking spot! We ended up with a surprisingly clean and well-kept hotel. We were able to relax, warm up, and get some sleep before heading out the next morning. Side note: our room heater turned itself on in the middle of the night. Our room was, no joke, 87*. It was a bit toasty!!

The next day, the roads were much cleaner. We made it to Louisville and ate lunch at the famous Wagner’s Pharmacy. It is right next door to the Kentucky Derby. Our waitress, Clara, said that on Derby Day the line for their restaurant wraps around the building. It is a 6 hour wait to get inside. The walls are filled with memorabilia, and it such a cute mom-and-pop shop.

After that, we headed downtown to the arena to watch the Cardinals play! I had never been to the KFC Yum Center, but I was so impressed with how clean and new it looked! We ended the night at Coals, a pizza restaurant in Middletown. Lately, I’ve been on a salad kick {which is crazy for me!!}, and I loved their Caesar salad with my personal pizza!

Sunday morning, we headed back to Middletown for church at Southeast Christian. My brother has become involved in their college ministry, and it was great to see where he worships every week. We finished the trip at another fun restaurant, Mark’s Feed Store. It was super cute and the food was pretty great too!

We started back on our 4.5 hour trip. I wish I could say that was the end of hilarious moments, but that is not true! We stopped back in Dale, IN on our way back to fill up our gas tank, and I literally ran into a bathroom stall at the gas station. The door was broken, and I didn’t know, but friends, I literally ran into it. I’m writing this a day later, and my head STILL hurts. Hopefully, I don’t end up with a black eye!

Anyway, take a look below at a preview of our trip. What a CRAZY few days it was. I am sure we will be talking about this for years.

xoxo,