Owensboro, KY

I'd been looking forward to this trip, thinking I'd finally get to spend some time in Louisville! Maybe I'd have a chance to check out Churchill Downs or I could take a tour of a Bourbon Distillery. Or, I could check out the Louisville Slugger factory.

My customer was listed on the schedule as "Audubon". A quick google search shows that Audubon is right near the airport. Ah...but to my surprise, my customer is actually "Audubon Area Community Services", located 1.5 hours west of Louisville in a little town called Owensboro. Bummer. It was going to be a little more difficult to find adventure on this trip than I expected.

If you haven't noticed, I LOVE my BBQ. Not much can compare to the Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell, TX. And I am a huge fan of Slows BBQ in Detroit. So, when my customer told me that Owensboro is the "self-described BBQ capital of the world", I was impressed! But, I would have to see for myself.



Owensboro has two competing BBQ joints in town. I visited the Old Hickory BBQ first. While the meat was good (sliced pork), I didn't care for the BBQ sauce and the sides were very boring. I wasn't too impressed.

Next was Moonlight. They serve their food buffett-style. They had pork, beef and lamb, along with all of the sides and desserts you could want. It was GOOD! Their BBQ sauce was nice and their house hot-sauce was good enough for me to buy some to take home.

But, neither comes close to the Hard Eight. Or Slows. Hell, even Famous Daves. I don't know who decided to name them the BBQ capital of the world. Maybe the BBQ capital of Kentucky. But that seems like it would be a stretch even.

Owensboro sits on the Ohio river and is just 30 minutes from Evansville, Indiana. By random chance I found out that one of my favories, Bob Seger, would be playing at the brand-new Evansville Event Center on Wednesday night. I found a ticket on stub hub and made my way to Evansville right after work. The concert was GREAT! And I got to be there for the first-ever concert at the new event center. It was very cool.

On my way back to the airport on Friday, I hit a detour in New Albany...just across the river from Louisville. The bridge was closed and I had to drive through town to get to the next one. I was hungry and I had some extra time to kill, so I drove down a few blocks to find somewhere to stop. And right on a corner was the River City Winery! Perfect! I had a few samples of their wine and their lasagna lunch special. Both were amazing, and I left with a bottle of their Riesling and Cabernet.

I have just one more trip scheduled for "Audubon". Both bottles of wine have since been emptied, so I am looking forward to getting back there to purchase a few more.

Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas

I've spent quite a bit of time in the Ft. Worth/Dallas area over the past year getting our long-time customer Coppell, TX up and running on the .Net version of our software. And to my surprise, just a few weeks after our "go-live", I found myself back again to upgrade them to the latest release... what we call our "Next Gen" version of our software. While I was looking forward to a (well needed) week in the office and I was excited to spend some quality time with my new Husband....I can't complain too much. I love visiting Texas, the food is great and my customers are some of the nicest people I know. And...I needed the airline miles to hit Platinum status for the 2012 year.

I just happened to find myself back as the Texas Rangers were battling the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. While they were playing game 6 and 7 in St. Louis, I was still able to enjoy the excitement and buzz you only feel when "your" team is on the verge of a world championship. Everyone was excited. My customers even grew out their playoff beards in support of the team. I, for the week, became a Texas Rangers fan.

On Thursday night, I went to Ft. Worth to visit the world's largest Honky Tonk...Billy Bobs! It is truly an amazing place. There is a full sized Bull Riding ring inside of the bar. They offer free line-dancing lessons every night (I got there too late for this, however). And they bring in musical acts several times a week.

While I went to watch the Rangers game, I was pleased to find out that Rodney Atkins was performing LIVE as well. And...there was no cover! Talk about a great deal! So, I had some BBQ and found myself a spot next to the bar by one of the many TV's yet still in sight of the stage to see the concert. There were two performers before Rodney came out, and both were good. Rodney Atkins played about 6 songs to an audience of now more than 1000 people...and mostly acoustic.



Anyways...the concert was great and I was sad to see it end. But, it wrapped up just in time for the final innings of what turned out to be a VERY entertaining ball game. So many times, the place was ready to erupt in celebration. Unfortunately, the Rangers blew their chances. I stuck around a little while longer to watch the line-dancing and two-stepping (they sure know how to dance down in Texas!).



Friday, before I left for the airport, I was able to squeeze in a trip to my favorite BBQ Pit in the world...the Hard Eight BBQ. I had a chopped brisket sandwich and bought a bottle of hot-sauce for Mike before making my way to DFW for my trip home.