So here it is, the home stretch. The final blog for our Route 66 adventure. The last night in a hotel and the last two days of driving. They are condensed into a single blog for the sake of interest since it covers 1,105 miles of driving with very few stops. Part of me delayed writing this post because I didn’t want our trip to end. But, as all things go, the good ones must come to an end, right?

Where Now?

It was hard to leave Kansas City. We truly enjoyed our stay at the Raphael but we still had to cover 452 miles on the first leg of the home stretch. We opted to splurge and order room service for breakfast in Kansas City just to enjoy the room for a little bit longer. Once on the road, there isn’t much to talk about. The drive is pretty uneventful. A straight line drive from Kansas City to Missouri along I-70 before merging onto I-64 to a little town called Jasper, Indiana. Jasper was our final destination for Monday night.

One of the top attractions in Jasper according to Trip Advisor is their Riverwalk. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? We thought so too. A place that’s not too busy and where we can go for a walk after driving all day. Turns out there is a lot more to Jasper than meets the eye and our hotel was close to it all. Of course our first order of business was dinner. We had a hard time deciding what to eat. Sometimes you just aren’t that hungry after sitting in a car all day. In the end, we chose the Schnitzelbank Restaurant. As you can guess by its name, it was a German food establishment and it did not disappoint in quality and atmosphere.

They even boasted a real working glockenspiel and when I asked where it was the staff directed us outside. Despite it being set to play at specific times each day, they happily turned it on just for us so we could see and hear its joyous sound.

The worst part about this dinner was when I left all of our leftovers in the hotel room fridge the next morning. There may have been silent tears.

The Riverwalk

After dinner we headed back to our hotel and right outside to the highly rated Riverwalk. This was a very pleasant walk along the Patoka River. Just what we needed after a full day of driving and stomachs full of German food.

We even checked out the old Jasper City Mill which is a shop by day.

Hitting it out of the Ballpark

Feeling well rested and cheery, we headed out of Jasper Tuesday morning for our final day of driving. Jasper was a very calculated stop along the journey. It put us just about two hours from Louisville, KY. Who could resist taking Ben to a place that supplies one of his favorite sports?

You guessed it. Or maybe you didn’t. It’s okay, not everyone is a fan. Our big stop for the day was the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory Tour. They’ve made baseball bats for generations.

Ben was so excited to learn the process of making bats. It’s no surprise since we are often subjected to the Discovery and National Geographic channels on television. “Oh this is my favorite show!”, he says about pretty much every show that highlights building, destroying or animals eating other animals. Shark Week anyone?

Ben got to hold Orioles’ fan favorite Cal Ripken’s bat.

He’s got quite a swing. He even tried out that swing in the batting cages. While six is an allowable age, the equipment and speed of delivery is quite tough to master in just ten pitches. And please note Ben is pretty good at swinging a bat with semi-fast mom and dad pitches for his age. Best wait until eight unless you’re kid can shrug off zero hits.

And while they don’t burn the slugger emblem into bats anymore, they do have demonstrations of it while you’re waiting for your tour in the museum. It smelled heavenly.

All in all, an extremely fun time in Louisville. We left with souvenir bats and baseballs in tow.

There’s not much more to tell about the remainder of the drive. It was uneventful and we arrived home safely. I do think it important to note that despite being gone for 21 days, the house was exactly as we had left it. No magical elves came and cleaned it. So that was a little disappointing.

All in all, this blog covered 6,874 miles. I can honestly say it did not feel like 6,874 miles. Yet the trip 1 tracker we set on the odometer when we left proves it.

The car even alerted us that an oil change was required!

Stay tuned if you’re interested. There will be an epilogue to this journey. Some highlights of things we missed and a follow up interview of Ben’s perspective on the journey.

We will also be keeping the blog going for a little while. I mean we paid for a year right? The “Routes” we carved on this journey run deep. We bonded with family, created adventure and found some things we want to come back to in the future.

We will continue to chronicle our journeys including our spectacular blog “Vegas IS for Kids”. So check back when you can.

Carving routes Route 66