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Last weekend seven other ΑΚΛs and I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, to take in the 2010 Kentucky Derby. Adam Kaniewski, Mike Gecan, and I picked up the RV, while Ken Raffenetti, Chris McCann, Jeff Throm, Nate Smith, and David Meixner all found their way into town one way or another. Everyone arrived Thursday, April 29, and we parted ways on Sunday, May 2.

More pictures are available in the gallery.

April 28

After buying my new Nissan Murano (a topic for another blog…), I headed for Chicago, where I was meeting Adam and Gecan. We spent a little time catching up before loading Adam’s mom’s van with all our luggage and supplies. This took a few hours, but we finished up shortly before midnight, had a beer to celebrate our work, and then went to bed so we could be on the road at 6 a.m. Thursday morning.

April 29—Day One

Waking painfully early, we managed to get ourselves cleaned up and on the road just a few minutes after our 6 a.m. start time. This allowed to avoid Chicago traffic almost entirely, but we eventually realized that most of Indiana is in the Eastern timezone, and that we'd be at least an hour late for our pickup time at Tom Raper’s RVs in Richmond, Indiana. Still, we drove on.

Once in Richmond, we had a comprehensive tour of our new home for the weekend. They showed us how to operate the generator, extend the sides, level the RV once parked, and deal with waste disposal. Luckily Adam was paying pretty close attention, as I was not. Soon enough, we moved everything from the van to the RV, and hit the road.

Gecan and I cracked open brewskis almost immediately. Like every god-fearing American, drinking in the back of an RV has been a dream of mine since I was a small child. Unsurprisingly, it was everything I dreamed of and more. We sat back and enjoyed the ride while Adam drove on, jealous of Gecan and I in the back.

We arrived in Louisville around 6 p.m., later than we had hoped but still with plenty of light to setup the campsite. The other five were already in town, and met us at Expo 5 shortly after we arrived. Wasting no time, someone broke out Adam’s bag set and the games began.

A few of our neighbors stopped by. Since we were one of the first RVs to arrive, we met some folks from New Jersey who were using the Derby weekend as a bachelor party. None of us were impressed with the Jersey crew. Immediately next to us were a friendly group of six or seven who threw bags and were generally pretty cool.

The first night everyone stuck around the campsite. A couple of Mike’s friends stopped by, and we grilled burgers and hot dogs while we drank and caught up. Expo 5 has a big flea market / entertainment area, so some guys wandered over to check that out. I eventually passed out, around midnight.

April 30—Day Two (Kentucky Oaks)

We woke up as the beautiful Friday morning was waning. We enjoyed the hilarious discussion of the previous night’s events while we made breakfast and prepared ourselves for the Oaks.

Since it was such a nice day, and the forecast for Derby Saturday included rain, we decided to dress up. I wore tan slacks with a light green sports coat, but we all looked pretty good. (Except McCann; he wore a t-shirt that said, “I ♥ Mom.”) Raff looked a lot like the Fear and Loathing version of Hunter S. Thompson with a seersucker jacket and t-shirt that said “Your favorite band sucks,” but Meixner won the day with a baby blue sweater vest and pink tie.

We walked the 1.1 miles to Churchill Downs and took a few minutes to soak in the atmosphere. The women were all beautifully dressed, with lovely hats. Throm bought a guide to the races and most of the group started placing bets. (I did no betting, with the exception of a $2 wager I placed off the books with Adam. I won; he neglected to pay up.) We wandered around the main part of Churchill looking for a tunnel to the infield, which allowed us to see how things worked and get our bearings.

Once we made it to the infield, the atmosphere changed. The women still looked great, but things were much more casual. As a group, we were nicer dressed than most of the people there, which was not necessarily the case off the infield. We found a mint julep vendor and bought some souvenir glassware (solely for the glass… right…) and some cigars. Some of the group found a nice grassy area near what I believe to be turn four and we sat around, relaxed, and took in the sights.

We met a local who was shirtlessly sunning himself near our area, and chatted with him for a while. I asked him about Kentucky basketball before getting bored and wandering off. I think Gecan continued to talk to him for a while longer. Raff tells me that at one point he took great offense to his shirt, incredulously asking if Raff thought Led Zeppelin sucked. Apparently his sense of irony was removed with his shirt.

We noticed a couple things about the infield. First of all, a lot of the women, while outwardly classily dressed, did not pay much attention to sitting or laying on the ground in what one would call a particularly ladylike way. Scandalous.

Second, you can’t actually see much of the races from the infield. They do have big jumbotrons up, so the punters can follow their horses, but the actual physical view of the horses was limited to just a couple seconds per race. This video pretty well sums it up:

All in all, the Oaks was a lovely experience, full of mint juleps and sunny weather. After the last race of the day, we returned to our RV, where we made dinner and continued the good times. (It was then that we learned more about what happened with Mike and I the night before.)

Adam’s sister Amy, who attends Bellermine University in Louisville, stopped by for a while with a couple of her friends. I impressed them with my Fusion Frenzy skills before we got bored and headed back outside. We hung out at the RV while some of the others in the group decided to go to the Classy Lady, one of the many strip clubs in the immediate area of the campground. (It was not a great neighborhood.)

May 1—Day Three (Kentucky Derby)

I awoke around 5 a.m. to the sound of a torrential downpour and heavy thunder. The storm had been going for hours, apparently, and had made our campsite a sloppy, muddy mess. (To say nothing of the condition of Churchill Downs’ track and infield…) Unlike the day before, we decided to dress down for the day, wearing jeans and gym shoes to handle the mud.

No one was in the mood to make breakfast, but as was the case throughout the weekend, there were plenty of yells for fresh pots. We headed for the Downs a bit earlier than we had for the Oaks, which worked out well. Despite having warned everyone to bring rain gear a few days earlier, I was unprepared, wearing an Illini windbreaker that was little help in the heavier rains.

The day itself was a bit of a blur. We hung out near the paddocks for some time, which worked well because it was fairly sheltered from the wind and rain, and near beer vendors and bathrooms. Eventually, though, we made our way to the infield, which was a huge mess from the storm.

We met some interesting characters on the infield on Derby Day, too. There were some guys with whom Nate Smith and I argued military strategy, and some Harvard students who were there on a bachelor party. (Incidentally, most of the Harvard guys were jerks, although there was one fellow who was reasonably laid back. To be fair, they probably thought we were also jerks, with our superior attitudes and mint juleps.)

After watching Super Saver win the 136th Kentucky Derby, we headed back to the RV for the last time. On our way back I splashed a puddle, water from which apparently inadvertently caught a Kentucky state trooper. I was merrily walking on my way when I was forcefully grabbed from behind and spun around to face a whole group of police who apparently had too much time on their hands. When told what I had done, I immediately apologized, but that wasn’t good enough for this go-getter. He told me I was just sorry I had been caught and that I had done it on purpose. I mumbled some additional apologies as they yelled at me for a couple more minutes before letting me go. Admittedly, I splashed the puddle on purpose, but considering the conditions of the day, that anyone would be upset is beyond reason.

Nate and Chris apparently went downtown, but Meixner and I made it out solemn duty to finish the dwindling supply of drinks. We eventually succeeded (with the exception of a few shots of vodka… the beer was gone, which was good enough), which wasn’t actually much of a feat, considering the work of the previous few evenings. Shortly thereafter, we ended our last night in Louisville.

May 2—Traveling Home

Since I had the longest continuous amount of travel home (Gecan had to go back to Portland, but only had to get himself to the airport, not drive back to Chicago and then on to Bettendorf), I was the first one up Sunday morning. We got things mostly cleaned up before I went to shower before leaving town.

While the toilets and showers had not been in great shape all weekend, Sunday was quite bad. One of the showers had a cell phone in the drain, and they all were full of clothes and mud. Still, it was better than nothing. I think I may actually have showered more often than anyone else in our group, and even I skipped one on Saturday.

We finally went out separate ways around 11:30 a.m., a little later than I was hoping to leave town, but not terrible. Adam and I took the RV back to Richmond, where I moved our remaining luggage and supplies back to the Kaniewski van while Adam cleaned out the black tank—not a bad division of labor if you ask me. (The black tank, where the contents of the toilet are stored, lasted us until Saturday afternoon, which wasn’t bad. It was a little inconvenient having to walk to the campground toilets after the tank filled up, but easier than dumping it more than once.) Exhausted, we arrived back in Chicago around 9:30 p.m., and I immediately started for Bettendorf. The final drive home was uneventful, and I arrived home around midnight.

All in all, it was a ridiculous and thoroughly enjoyable extended weekend. I was very happy I took Monday off to recover, but I can’t wait for next year’s trip! It was just sad Tuesday when I had to shave my Derby beard and go to work…