At last the long awaited day had come.

We boarded an early afternoon flight from San Jose, Costa Rica bound for Chicago via Fort Lauderdale where we were to be picked up by Gina's brother, Bryan, and secretly transported to Kentucky to surprise Gina's folks on the houseboat they had rented with some good family friends to celebrate G's Dad Steve's 60th B-Day. We've been planning the trip for several months and it's been really tough to keep the secret for so long...especially these last few weeks.

We were excited to finally be headed back to the US for a bit of a break and to be surprising G's folks; double so now that we were armed with the new, BIG secret about our recent engagement.

Bryan picked us up at O'Hare late on a Wednesday night and we trucked 90 minutes or so down the road to lovely Merrilville, IN where we had a celebratory cider and then crashed out at the swanky Econo Lodge.

In the morning we hit the road early and aside from a quick stop in Indianapolis to visit REI, we made great time to our destination for the night: Louisville, Kentucky; a new city to check out for all of us.

We checked in to our digs: the Hyatt (Thanks Priceline!) and then wandered out into the stifling heat: the thermometer read 104 degrees F and the breeze felt like it came straight from an oven. Brutal!

First stop: Bluegrass Brewing Company for a late lunch and a few brews. Once we were fed we headed back out to cruise the town for a bit before the heat drove us back indoors. We passed a sign that showed the temperature still an ungodly 102 at 6:30pm.

When in Rome do as the Romans, but when in Kentucky...drink some bourbon. We made for the Maker's Mark lounge and settled in for a few cocktails over which we broke the engagement news to Bryan. With that news to celebrate we had another few drinks and then headed off to find a sports bar to watch the NBA draft.

After the Draft we ended up bar hopping a bit more before settling in for a late night dinner at Gordon Biersch and then finally heading back to crash out at the hotel.

Louisville is a damn cool city and we were stoked to have a night to explore it before the BIG surprise the next day.