Would Like to Thank the State of Indiana For......

Nearly ruining my FAVORITE event of the year.  I'm tellin' ya, folks, I'm no luck but bad luck.  It's true.  I can give you about 52 million examples but I'll just stick to the topic at hand.  Saturday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (well, most of it was, anyway).

Thunder Over Louisville (the kick-off to the Kentucky Derby festivities) is awesome.  Billy doesn't understand, if it's indeed so "awesome," why nobody around here (in Indy) has heard of it.  That, my friends, is a mystery.  I'm thinking that if something is the biggest fireworks show in the country, the whole country should have heard of it.  But don't get me started on that.  My point is (and I do have one) that I LOVE Thunder.  I have gone almost every year since moving to Kentucky in 1990.   Yes, I know I don't live there anymore, but you can imagine.....

This year, we decided to watch Thunder from the Indiana side.  I typically never do that because I feel that Indiana is getting one heck of a show (and a lot of money raised for them) for an event that isn't even theirs.  Anyway, my dear sister was kind enough to give us a parking pass for the Sheraton hotel (her friend is the manager).  That pass would allow us access to the hotel lobby bathrooms (hooray for not having to use port-a-pots).

We left for Thunder at 4:15ish.  We sat in traffice for an hour and a half(ish).  We got across the bridge and realized the exit for the Sheraton was closed.  NICE!  Then we realized (after being instructed by police officers) the roads to the Sheraton were all closed at 5 pm and no matter what, we weren't getting through.  Awesome?  Awesome.  We decided (after waiting in a REALLY long McDonald's bathroom line) to turn around and go back to Louisville.

Except.....the Indiana State Police decided to close on-ramps to I-65S at 6:30 instead of 8:30 like the paper stated.  Awesome?  Awesome.  We had to go ALL the way to New Albany and across the bridge.  We got back into Louisville by about 7:30ish.  Yes, we were in the car for those 3 hours.  Then we drove around for another hour looking for a place to park.  Thank you, Porter Paints, for not having tow away signs and for letting us park in your lot (whether you wanted us to or not).

After all that (and a computer glitch which caused a 15 minute delay in the start of the fireworks), we got what we wanted:  an amazing show.  I would post photos of the fireworks, except the brand new batteries I put in my camera before leaving, had somehow died after only two pictures.  Yeah, I know.  I have bad luck.  There's just no other way of lookin' at it!

So a big ol' thank you to Indiana for wasting a lot of my dad's time and gas to get his lovely daughter (me) to her favorite thing ever (Thunder).  For those of you who have never been....you should check it out!  Here are the only two photos I was able to take!  Oh, and yes, I had to use the port-a-potty!!!!!!!!

Mom and Dad!

Me with my cute Blake (and a lot of jackets....)