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Of all things to fall in love with, the grates around the trees were one of my favorite details in Louisville.

The Louisville City Hall Annex was built in 1909 and includes statuary heads of animals that were important to the city’s agricultural history.

A fleur-de-lis adorns each street sign. 

Tickets for our Mammoth Cave tour. Word of advice: buy these online before your visit. All of the day’s tours were sold out by the time we arrived. Also, we were surprised that Mammoth Cave is on Central Time while Louisville is on Eastern. We had a lot of time to kill.

But that gave us time to take photos of the scenery. That long-sleeve tee didn’t last long – it was 100 degrees.

Thankfully, it was much cooler in the cave – after the 250-stair decent into Mammoth.

Dinosaurs inhabit nearby Cave City at Dinosaur World, a fantastic roadside attraction.

The beasts are full-size replicas with “informative” signs about the species. The general theme was “scientists think … but they’re not actually sure.”

Seriously. Awesome.

A more culturally appropriate stop was at the Buffalo Trace distillery. I didn’t expect the air to be thick with bourbon and I’m pretty sure you can get a contact buzz from the fumes. (They should really sell bourbon-scented candles in the gift shop.)

Each of these barrels contains Pappy Van Winkle (aged for 23 years) and $10,000 in revenue.

And, yes, there’s a buffalo on the property.

Bourbon was certainly a theme to our trip and we successfully completed the Urban Bourbon Trail. The mint juleps at the historic Brown Hotel were by far the best – and most expensive – we tasted.

However, my Wisconsin roots are deep and I still prefer brandy in my Old Fashioned.