This was a quiet day. In the morning, we took Kettle to the vet for a tapeworm treatment, which was required to get him into England. Then we had breakfast at Another Broken Egg again, and idled for a while.

In the afternoon, Lucia and Esmond and I went to the National Museum of African American Music, where I experienced the same dilemma that I face every time I go to a museum with Terry. When I'm by myself, I can scan the exhibits, stopping at anything that catches my interest. And because I'm a speed reader, I can skim the text, and get the gist of what it says, even if I don't read it word for word. But if I'm with Terry, I either have to read and describe everything, which is impractical, or pick and choose what to read and describe, which can be overwhelming. The more material there is in the museum, the more I tend to go into "information overload," and I can't decide what to read and what to leave out.

The situation was worse at this particular museum, because it was highly visual and interactive. Fortunately, there were several video presentations, which we watched, but I'm afraid that Lucia and Esmond didn't get as much out of the experience as they could have (for that matter, neither did I). I felt bad, and was very apologetic; however, they were very understanding about it.

In the evening, we went to dinner and met up with some friends of Ashley's - Natasha, and Jeanie and Carey, and another friend whose name I don't remember. Then we went back to Ashley's house and did laundry, and went back to the hotel. And that was that.

This day we made a side trip to Louisville, Kentucky, about a three hour drive north. Originally, it was supposed to be all six of us, but Ashley still wasn't feeling well, and so it was just me and Terry and Lucia and Esmond.

After making a stop at an Amish bakery along the way, we arrived in Louisville and went to our first stop, the Thomas Edison House. Apparently, in his younger days, Mr Edison spent a couple of years working as a telegraph operator in Louisville, and the house where he lived has been turned into a museum. Here's a picture borrowed from the trip log of our visit to Louisville in 2009:

A small brick house on a quiet side street. A plaque out front identifies the house as the Thomas Edison Butchertown House.

No actual artifacts remain from the time he spent there, but the room where he lived has been restored to show what it might have looked like:

A table with several glasses and bottles, a pen sticking out of an ink well, several books, including one large book lying open, and a blue and white plate with a folded cloth napkin lying on it - and a small sign admonishing visitors not to touch anything.

Other rooms contain displays relating to his life and inventions:

"Recording phonographs" - predecessors of the dictaphone.


Movie projectors.


A mimeograph machine.


A patent application for a movie camera.


An advertisement for one of his dictating machines. Text reads "Your stenographer is leisurely eating her lunch at 1 o'clock, while you have an important letter which must go on the 1:30 train - besides which you have to attend an important conference at 1:15. Will you let the letter slide, or miss the conference, or use an Edison Dictating Machine and accomplish both without hurry or extra effort?"


A listing of recordings available for his phonographs.


A library of books about Edison.


A display of light bulbs (of course!)


And some Christmas lights. In the glass front of the case, you can see a reflection of me taking the picture, and our tour guide.

After the Edison house, we went for a quick lunch at a nearby Cuban restaurant, only to find it closed. So instead, we went to a Venezuelan restaurant next door.

Our next stop was the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) (w):

The APH front entrance. A blue sign with white letters shows the APH logo and the words "America Printing House for the Blind." Above and below the sign are large silver Braille dots.

Yes, those giant Braille dots spell out "American Printing House," and the dots hidden behind the block wall say "for the blind."

We took a tour of the facility; unfortunately, our guide wasn't as knowledgeable as we would have liked. There were exhibits of a number of tactile educational materials for blind and visually impaired schoolchildren, like this "tactile town":

A model town, with tactile elements including houses and other buidlings, cars and people.

And we saw an embossing machine turning out Braille pages. The machine was big enough that it required multiple pictures:

Paper is fed into the machine from this huge drum...


...and goes through the mechanism which punches the dots...


...and the page is cut to the proper length, and comes out here
(you can just see the page starting to come out)


This control panel shows the Braille text being printed

Just past the embossing machine, there were racks and racks of Braille pages, presumably waiting to be bound into books. I started to take a picture, but a worker told me not to. I never did figure out what their objection was. Our guide didn't know, either.

We also saw several examples of tactile graphics, like this skeleton. You can't see it in the picture, but the skeleton image on the page is raised so that it can be felt. And if you're wondering why the words look peculiar, it's because the text is in Romanian!

Our last stop before going back to Nashville was a wonderful dessert shop called Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen. We discovered this place on an earlier visit to Louisville, and go back there whenever we have a chance. Take a look at their menu:

The front entrance of the restaurant.