Louisville Love.

With the playoffs quickly approaching for both of us, Wheat and I have limited free days together. Whenever one of those free days falls on a Saturday, we try to make the most of it. This Saturday, we decided to venture down to Louisville for a fun day.

First, we stopped at Sidebar, a law-themed burger and beer place, for lunch. The restaurant itself had a cool vibe with good music and the Preamble to the Constitution on the wall. Each burger had a law-themed name, like Court Reporter, Hung Jury, and the Bailiff. We both ordered the Ambulance Chaser, a barbeque burger that was absolutely delicious. My favorite part, though, was the sweet potato fries with honey-chipotle dipping sauce. So good.

After lunch, we made our way to the Louisville Slugger Museum, stopping to take pictures of the cool public art and Walk of Fame plaques throughout the city.

We had to have our picture taken with the world's biggest bat, of course. It's 120-feet tall and an exact-scale replica of Babe Ruth's Louisville Slugger bat.

We spent more than a little time checking out the cool exhibits in the museum. In addition to the wax figures of Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Ted Williams, we loved looking at the game-used bats on display. We even got to hold some of them - Wheat held Cal Ripken, Jr.'s and I held Joey Votto's.

We also took the tour of the factory, where we saw workers hand-turn bats and watched the machines carve, glaze, brand, and paint bats for the major leagues. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the factory, but I highly recommend checking it out. It creates bats for 30% of the players in the major leagues. Since Wheat was wearing an Orioles hat, one of the guides went out of his way to pass around a Chris Davis bat for him. At the end of the tour, we were each given a free Louisville Slugger mini-bat.

Before we left, Wheat took a walk down memory lane when he tried his hand in the batting cage. He used the Brandon Phillips bat, so I credit that with his success.

After Wheat finished a little work at the library downtown, we continued our walking tour of the city. We checked out most of the government buildings, admired(?) the mud pit that is the Ohio River, and sat in front of the KFC Yum! Center for a bit.

Next, we made our way to Fourth Street Live for dinner at The Sports and Social Club. We split a couple appetizers and watched the Final Four on the big screen outside.

After dinner, we hopped in the car to check out the University of Louisville's beautiful campus and the gorgeous historic homes that surround the area. We also stopped outside of Churchill Downs for some pictures.

Finally, we made our way to Bardstown Road for some dessert at Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen. After an embarrassingly long period of deliberation, I decided on a classic - a slice of warm apple pie and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Heaven.

You'll be happy to know that I didn't break up with Wheat when he ordered banana pudding.