Not everyone's birthday wish would be going to Louisville, Kentucky to visit the Waverly Hills Sanitorium, but it was mine. Nor would everyone have a partner who would grant them this wish, but I do. We made some additional stops along the way and back. The best way I can sum it all up is through pictures and a recipe with Jim Beam Bourbon.
We discovered this dinosaur on the way to Louisville. Tiffany is just used to me asking to stop and take odd pictures. She just does it, but there is a fair amount of eye-rolling...like there was when I climbed on this Triceratops.
We visited Churchill Downs and took the behind the scenes tour. I got really close to the finish line. I got winded just walking to it so I took the picture from here.
I had to take this picture since I have seen Secretariat 259 times since it started playing on all the HBO channels.
This was the view from the millionaire's balcony. I'd be mad if those original Churchill Down's steeple thingies were in my way, but what do I know.
Just entering the area made me want a big floppy hat and Mint Julep.
This is the outside of Waverly Hills. You can almost hear the ghostly coughing while your parking the car. In our case though it was Tiffany. She had a cold.
This is what you see before you go inside.
This is an original autopsy table. As you can see...it was pretty dark inside Waverly. Chances are pretty high that a ghost was standing behind me and judging me while I took this photo.
Taking pictures with the flash on Tiffany's iPhone really adds to the scary...don't you think?
Those are indeed orbs. I should state that prior to going I downloaded the Ghost Radar App. It was super scientific-like. I put it on vibrate and it was vibrating so much that I had to turn it off. I should also point out that the app found about 20 ghosts in the restaurant where we ate prior to going to Waverly and about 3 in the car with us on the ride there. It was a very busy app.
Throughout the years people have broken in to Waverly. There is graffiti everywhere. Additional security has been added and the break-ins have been drastically reduced. Out of all the graffiti this was likely the oddest and creepiest. I can deal with pentagrams a lot better than this shit.
Apparently, there is a ghost spirit there named Timmy. This is Timmy's red ball...sometimes you can roll it to him and he'll roll it back.
This is part of the old elevator. Sometimes a ghost with no eyes roams this area. This led me to question how many actually really have eyes?
This is room 502. A nurse hanged herself outside of this room...or someone made it look like she hanged herself. At a later date another nurse jumped from the balcony. After looking at this room we got a break to walk around on the balcony. Nobody jumped, but someone did get a call saying her husband had been in an accident. That was more than a little creepy.
Holy giant bright orb!! Oh no...wait...that is my thumb.
We went to Thomas Edison's House on the way back. There was no porch light because he lived here before he invented it. Duh.
This was James K. Polk's parent's House. That is really hard to say BTW. I mentioned Tiffany has a cold. She didn't feel good at all so clearly she deserves a pass on saying to me, "Why would anyone go here...I mean, who the hell is James K. Polk anyway?" She, however, does not get enough of a pass for me not to mention it here on my blog.
We also visited the Jim Beam Distillery. Naturally, I bought a bottle, but I also got a cookbook. Check out this recipe!!
Booker's Bourbon Shortbread Bourbon Balls
Ingredients
8-10 Pecan Sandies or other shortbread cookies
2 ounces pecan pieces
6-8 ounces milk chocolate morsels
2-3 tablespoons maple syrup
powdered sugar
1 ounce Booker's Bourbon
Preparation
Finely crumble cookies and crush pecan pieces. Mix these together with maple syrup and Booker's Bourbon. Dip out a spoonful and check consistency for making a ball. With lightly greased fingers the mix should be sticky and moldable (If too sticky add more cookie crumbs, too dry add more syrup). Lightly roll each ball in powdered sugar and place on wax paper or greased utensil that will fit into refrigerator or freezer. Chill for a few minutes to allow them to set up a little harder.
Melt 6 to 8 ounces chocolate in a small container and dip each ball. Powdered sugar can be used as an alternate coating if desired, but the chocolate is worth the extra effort.
Booker's Bourbon is more concentrated and flavorful which makes it perfect for this kind of application.
Just hanging out with Booker and a bottle of Beam.
