With the Kentucky Horse Park in our rearview mirror, we headed into the Cincinnati area to finish off our Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour. We found a home at a small RV campground run by the Family Motor Coach Association called, appropriately enough, FMCA Campground. Go figger. It is a small campground with 15 FHU 50A sites and an additional 8 sites that are 30A electric only. This is an FMCA members only park and is very well maintained. Long, level, concrete back-in sites well spaced with lots of green grass between, the first two nights are free and only $20 per night for up to 5 additional nights. Woody (our K9 companion) liked the county park/lake that was adjacent to the campground with a mile and a half walking path circumnavigating the lake.
Welcome to downtown Cincinnati… Home, at FMCA Campground. Lovely weather…The lake next door. Woody enjoyed his daily strolls…
We hit the last 3 distilleries on the Craft Tour; Boone County Distillery, New Riff Distillery, and the Old Pogue Distillery. Yippee Kai-yay! Now we can settle down and detox/rehab! I have to say, after 23 distilleries, from the big boys to the smallest of mom-and-pop’s, my favorites tended to be the craft distillers. Of the Big 10, I liked the Woodford Reserve Double Barrel bourbon. Of the craft kids, I had a couple of favorites. From MB Roland Distillery, they produce a Dark Fired bourbon that is made with smoked corn in the mashbill, very smoky flavor. They also produce a moonshine called St. Elmo’s Fire that is very tasty. That is a cinnamon flavor with added cayenne pepper and it would light your cigar! Bluegrass Distillery produces a very good bourbon/rye mix. Hartfield & Co. make a white whiskey that is highly sippable. And Old Pogue produces a 100% Rye whiskey that is worth a taste.
Boone County’s Tanner’s Curse was a pretty good “white whiskey” – that is the distilled whiskey before entering the oak barrel for aging/morphing into bourbon. New Riff is a very new distillery, still waiting on their “first born” bourbon to complete aging.Good 100 % rye whiskey, they only wanted $110 for a bottle. Yikes!You get a shirt for the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, then a Mint Julep cup for the Craft Tour. All that for trying to become a lifetime member of AA!
Rain nailed us a couple of days here but we had enough clear days to check out downtown Cincinnati. We let Woody take us on a walkabout across the John A. Roebling Bridge, built in 1867, to the areas of the Reds and Bengals stadiums. And I took the opportunity to give the bus and Jeep baths before we headed out from Cincinnati.
The John A. Roebling bridge.A look across the river to downtown Cincy and the Bengals stadium on the left.The Reds stadium, from the bridge.
We debated whether to head over to the ocean and hang out at Virginia Beach in a little warmer weather, but settled on heading north and maybe trying to visit Michigan. Next stop ended at Maumee State Park in Oregon, OH (the Toledo area). We stayed for 2 days and walked the trails of the park over to the beach areas of Lake Erie. Just to remind y’all, we rarely operate on reservation schedules, don’t care to be “pinned down” to schedules. So one day was pretty much spent researching stops in Michigan as we worked our way up the west coast toward Mackinac Island. We also wanted to throw in a visit to Gerald Ford’s Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.
Home, at Maumee State Park campground.Home, at Maumee State Park campground.Looking down on the lodge, parking area for beach, and Lake Erie.A little early for packed beaches.
From the state park we drove into Marshall, MI and found Camp Turkeyville campground. This was a campground associated with Cornewell’s Turkeyville, a family run turkey farm that sports a restaurant for dinner-theater events, large gift shop, petting zoo for the kids, and various family activities geared toward the kids. From here we did some drive/scouting into the towns of Marshall, Lansing, and Battle Creek. And, of course, a drive into Grand Rapids got us to Ford’s Presidential Museum. Another well done museum, the surprising information to me was that Ford was offered a spot on the offensive line as center for the Green Bay Packers football team. It was back in 1935, and he was offered a whopping $110 per game! Too bad we can’t roll back today’s players salaries to those days, maybe us poor folk could afford a game ticket or two…
President Ford’s Presidential Library is the only one of the current 13 that is literally split in 2. The Presidential Archives are in Ann Arbor, whereas the Museum is here in Grand Rapids.Good thing they did not split the locations for these two, like the archives and museum. The final resting place for the President and his First Lady.Recreation of Ford’s Oval Office. I guess he was big into pipe smoking…One of Ford’s football uniforms. They are a bit different these days… Green Bay’s offer letter. $110, that’s a crack up!
So, north was where we were headed. Murphy’s Legislation reared it’s ugly head, again. As we tried to find destinations, we quickly realized we were in Michigan a bit too early in the year. It appears most RV establishments in this part of the world don’t open for business until May, I guess it gets a little cold here and they may encounter a touch of snowfall now and then. Not willing to wait it out, change of plans #7,936. We decided to head over toward Pennsylvania.
Cleveland just happened to be in our way enroute to PA, and that city just happens to be home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We found a hole in the wall 55+ trailer park that had a few RV spaces for transients like us passing through, Maywood Community in Chesterland just outside of Cleveland. The sites need work, but are level concrete with FHU’s and the $20/night fee worked for us, wanting a couple of days stopover while we visit Cleveland. We visited upon the Rock HOF and let Woody lead us around the downtown area including the Reds baseball stadium and the Cav’s basketball arena. We also got a cool lightning/thunder show while we were here at Maywood Community.
Yeah, baby! Lots of displays covering the history of R &R.Having just finished the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Michael Anthony’s bass certainly caught my eye (Van Halen bassist).
Jacks up, eastbound and down we are. Next stop, the great state of Pennsylvania. Until next post…
In the Lexington area, we found the Kentucky Horse Park for a week’s stay. That is a large park that is everything equine, with an RV campground attached to it. They have tours for things like a Parade of Breeds, you can watch grooming and other chores related to horses, and Man o’ War is buried in a memorial garden there. We did not take any of the tours, not being real horse aficionados. I guess Man o’ War was kind of a big celebrity in his day, won lots of races and sired lots of champions. The RV campground was OK as far as campgrounds go, spacious enough, but getting level was a chore on the paved site. It was disappointing the sites were W/E only (for $30 a night, sewer would be nice), but at least they had 2 dump sites in the park. There was a nice playground area for the kiddies, pool area (although not in use right now), toilets/showers, and a bike trail leading out of the park.
Our home at Kentucky Horse Park. The sites look like nice sites, but hard to see my front wheels are way up off the ground.Man O’ War’s grave.Isaac Murphy is buried next to Man O’ War.Some of his successes.What it’s all about.
We hit up some more of the Bourbon Trail distilleries while here in Lexington and stumbled upon an additional “trail” that was more or less localized around Lexington…the Kentucky Brewgrass Trail. That would consist of 11 fairly local microbrewers of all things beer. OK, challenge on! Well, at this stop we did complete the Kentucky Bourbon Trail (the 10 “big” corporate-type distilleries like Beam and Wild Turkey). We closed in on completing the Craft Tour. But we hit a wall with the dang microbreweries. Their days and hours were all over the map. We goofed at first and assumed businesses were generally open when we drove 40 miles out of Lexington to get to the breweries in Danville & Harrodsburg only to find them closed. And the final straw was after checking days and hours to make sure they were open, then driving out again to Lemons Mill Brewing in Harrodsburg only to find them closed again. I called their phone number and spoke to a person who said they would not open that day due to lack of patrons lately and there were some sports events on TV. Arrrrggghhhhh!!!!!!
The Town Branch Distillery on the big 10 Kentucky Bourbon Trail.Hartfield & Co. Distillery. Almost looks like they are living in Prohibition times, not well marked or advertised…“Line ’em up, let’s taste!”You can definitely tell we are at a Craft Tour distillery…the Hatfield & Co. production line, all of 2 tiny little stills…Here is a lovely girl standing in front of the only still at Bluegrass Co. Distillery. This was the only distillery we visited that does a mashbill (recipe) with blue corn. Unfortunately, they had no blue corn product available for tasting…Visitor/sales area for the Barrel House Distilling, another Craft Tour participant.Can you smell the bourbon-in-progress?!?! Not a lot of storage going on with some of these mom-n-pop distillers like Barrel House.
During one of our drives to Harrodsburg, we did encounter Beaumont St., a historical area of mini-antebellum style mansions. We let Woody lead us on a walkabout down the street and to the Beaumont Inn.
Historical markers help identify some of the antebellum-type houses on Beaumont St.The home called “Clay Hill”.The home identified as the G.A. Curry House.The home called Greystone, now part of the Beaumont Inn.A chronology for the Beaumont Inn.The rest of the chronological description.The Beaumont Inn.
This area of Kentucky is hugely into horses and horse farms. Claiborne Farms is just one of the local outfits and they offer tours to us mere mortals, and part of the intrigue is they offer you the opportunity to wrap your arms around $90,000,000 worth of horse (that’s seven zeros, folks!). We could not pass that one up. The ranch consists of some 3,000 acres, 50 barns, and 35 houses. Obviously, the tour did not cover the whole schmear, but basically the business end of the thoroughbred breeding enterprise- – – the breeding shed, the stud barns, and face to face with some of the current studs, including top dog War Front, currently valued at about $90,000,000 and who fetches a stud fee of $250,000. Just a few of Claiborne’s historical accomplishments:
*raised 63 champions and 17 Horses of the Year
*stallions and offspring have 22 Kentucky Derby wins, 19 Preakness wins, 22 Belmont wins, 29 Breeder’s Cup wins
*6 of 12 Triple Crown winners have been sired by Claiborne stallions.
Here’s an inside look at the “Love Shack” (I’ve got non-stop B-52’s singing in my ear now), technically referred to as the Breeding Shed.The Breeding Shed from an outside vantage point. I giggled incessantly as I noticed the sign on the barn door…The stallions’ barn. The cemetery on the grounds also includes the grave for Secretariat, one of two equine racing celebrities that have been embalmed and buried whole at death, Man O’ War being the other one. I guess famous race horses are generally not treated that way at death; normal burial is just the head, heart, and hooves.Can you count to 90,000,000, as in DOLLARS?!?! This is War Front. He is kinda famous.
OK, enough about horses. Well, almost enough. The Keeneland Racetrack happens to be here in Lexington and son-of-a-gun-show-me-some-fun we just happened to be here during their opening weekend, so a day at the horse races seemed in order. $5 admission says you can’t argue with that! Now this was interesting. I don’t know if opening weekend is different from other weekends. The place was jam-PACKED! The track itself was ankle-to-elbow, but there were probably twice as many folks outside the track area showing no interest in going inside to watch races. The crowd was majority college kids, and they get all dressed up like going to a prom. It appeared to me they were all deeply involved in study groups for their class “Power Drinking 101”! I felt like a pinball walking around inside the track, drunks bouncing off my shoulders constantly, some nearly falling down. But we managed to survive the crowd and Jeanne got to donate a little cash to the local horse economy. I think her last horse betted on had 81:1 odds. Come to think of it, as of the time I am writing this, that very horse is still rounding the first turn…
Gotta throw in the gratuitous selfie… Just enjoying the races with a few close, personal friends…Jeanne’s horse is still running while these guys are ready for the showers…Outside the track, and no interest in going inside by any of them.“Dude, where’s my car?”
Our “last hurrah” at this park was our bike ride along the Legacy Trail. It was about a 20 mile round trip ride into downtown Lexington along Cane Creek. If this trail was indicative of the way Kentucky does all their hike/bike trails, they definitely got it going on. At all the trailheads along our trail, they installed a “Fix It” post. These included manual bicycle pumps and a slew of hand tools cabled together for all manner of bicycle repair. Anyway, it was a nice moderate ride.
You gotta love these horse farms. Our bike ride afforded us many similar views.How come Jeanne is constantly kicking my @$$ on our bike rides?!?A wad of tools at the Fix It stationGot air?
We chose to pop on over to Atlanta so we could visit Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Library. We stayed at the Stone Mountain Park again for a quick 2 day stay. Since our last stop there, they have done quite a few improvements such as adding yurts and park model trailers for rent, erected a large, very nice playground area for the kids, and across the lake a huge Marriott’s hotel sprung up.
Our home at Stone Mountain Park Campground.Lakeside yurts for rent, a new addition.Up close on a yurt, with Stone Mountain in the background… Still a little “not hot enough” for pool time.Part view of the kids’ playground.
The Carter Presidential Library (it is actually called a “Center”, not a library) was OK. I was disappointed not more attention was devoted to the Iran Hostage Crisis. Even the Bush libraries had extensive displays regarding their wars, whether you consider them justified or not. I think the hostage crisis overshadowed the Panama Canal Treaty and even the Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt. It should play a more prominent part in Carter’s Library. Just my two cents…
The entrance to the Carter Presidential “Center”. There was quite a display from Carter’s submarine days.Same old crap. Time does not seem to change behaviors.Carter’s replication of his oval office. Looks like he was sadly lacking “personal touches”, like family photos. Maybe he had some inkling of his future in politics… I just could not stop laughing…that is truly sad.Jimmy and Roz were able to write their memoirs on this state of the art word processor.
We had a little bit of spare time so we wanted to do the walk up Stone Mountain. The mountain does not look very daunting, but it is actually a good leg workout, continuous incline with numerous rocks/steps thrown in for good measure. But the view at the top was very nice.
That’s funny, it doesn’t LOOK too strenuous…We found lots of graffiti all the way up, some dating back to the 1800’s.We also found a “gum” pole on the path up. Similar concept to the world famous “gum wall” in San Luis Obispo, CA.A herd of these ladies (OK, 4 or 5 of them) were also doing the hike up Stone Mountain.A pause for a rest and a view… Now we know it was not that strenuous if Jeanne can do yoga routines at the top!
So with another Presidential Library notch in our belts, onward and upward. Weather looked to be getting a bit more mellow, so we decided to start our northward trek. Chattanooga, Tennessee was our next chosen stop. We found a Camping World campground on the south side of town which was actually an OK stop; full hookups, level site, $17 per night, and close to town. We used this opportunity to do a Costco run and load up.
A short trip into downtown found us at the Walnut Street Bridge which is a foot bridge across the Tennessee River. We walked around the area a bit and found a sidewalk that was anything but straight. Not much had changed in the area since we were here last. We have been in the area before and already checked out Rock City and Point Park on Lookout Mountain (Civil War site). This time we were going to visit Ruby Falls, an underground waterfall, but seeing it was a short excursion, we opted instead for a 9.6 mile hike on the Mullen’s Cove Loop Trail in the Prentice Cooper State Forest. That was one killer hike! My hams and quads are still singing…
Walking around downtown at the Walnut Street Bridge which crosses the Tennessee River, we found this sidewalk section. It should give Lombard St. in San Francisco a run for its money… The Walnut Street Bridge. Baseball art near the bridge.At the beginning of the 9.6 mile hike. Think skinny and breathe deep!An unoccupied view of the same stairway.There I was. Braving the wild. Had to cross the raging river with only a rotten log to tread on. Risking life and limb. But rest easy, my friends, I ultimately survived! Gee, another rest. Looking down on the Tennessee River from Snooper’s Rock.Little Miss “9.6 miles is not long enough” just needed a little more physical work, so “yoga on the rocks” it is.
From Tennessee it was up into Kentucky for our next adventure, at the Mammoth Cave National Park. We stayed 4 days at the park campground, right next to the visitor’s center. The park offers several different cave tours and we started out with the Historic Entrance self tour. This was a short walk/tour and pretty uneventful as far as caves go, especially if you’ve ever been anywhere like the Oregon Caves or Carlsbad Caverns. We also took the short hike down the River Styx Spring Trail to see the spring.
Our home at Mammoth Cave Nat’l Park campground. The Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave.Imagine if you turned all lights out inside the cave. This is what it looks like! (Sorry, no flash allowed…)River Styx Spring.
While at the campground, we found the Mammoth Cave Railroad Bike & Hike Trail. The bikes got a little work in (NO! My hams and quads got all the work! Ouch!) on the 16 mile ride which included a couple of healthy (read: steep) inclines.
Some of the 16 mile trail was gravel/dirt… Some of the 16 mile trail was plank wood…And at least one of us just had to stop and rest. Numerous times.Can’t escape without taking a selfie on the bike path.Got to see some critters on the trek. Say hello to Mr. Turtle.I didn’t think the snakes were out this early in the season. But this is some type of water snake because he shot right into the water and swam away at warp factor 8.Mr. Frog said, “Don’t bother me son, I’m busy!”They also had several graveyard/cemeteries scattered along the trail. Family plots going back into the 1800’s.
After all that physical exertion, I was ready for some sedentary living and beginning the Kentucky Bourbon Trail was just the ticket. From our base at Mammoth Cave, we were able to start both trails. There is the Kentucky Bourbon Trail that consists of 10 distilleries (the ones I call “corporate”, large conglomerates like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark), and the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour that consists of 13 small distilleries (the mom-and-pop family outfits). All 23 are scattered pretty much around the Bowling Green-Louisville-Lexington triangle. Our start got us visiting 5 of the 23 from our home at Mammoth Cave.
The store front for Corsair Distillery. One of the craft distillers.One of the big boys.Woodford has a Double Barrel bourbon that when finished in it’s original barrel, it goes directly into a brand new barrel for a double dose of aging. The visitor’s center for Four Roses.Then there’s good ol’ Jim Beam…So far, my personal favorite is from MB Roland, another of the craft distillers. They actually have 2 products I like. Their Dark Fired Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey has a heavy smoke flavor to it. They achieve that by using smoked corn in their mash process. Their other product is a moonshine they call St. Elmo’s Fire. It is a cinnamon style whiskey with cayenne pepper. Now that will light y’ur cigar for ye!
We concluded our stay with one more cave tour, the Domes and Dripstones Tour. The name of the tour is more spectacular than the sights along this tour. There are a few cave features at the end of the 2 hour tour, but, if you have seen anything like Carlsbad Caverns, you will be disappointed here.
One of the rare times there was enough light to allow a photo, here of a ceiling of the cave.This is a mini-waterfall near the Frozen Niagara formation, at the end of the Domes and Dripstones tour.Oh, and once again, if you turn out all the lights inside the cave, this is what you see!
Time to move along, we relocated to Bardstown with a 4 day stay at the White Acre Campground. We started here with a little walkabout town, steeped in Civil War lore and architecture.
The Bardstown Baptist Church, constituted in 1815.A shot down one of the main drags. The building at the end is now used as the visitor’s center and there is a traffic roundy-round (AKA: traffic circle) that circles that building. Now used as the visitor’s center.Lots of history here.This was an early post office printers and cabinet shop, circa 1814. It is called the McLean House. Just a sample of the many historic buildings…
From this stop we were able to snag another round of Kentucky Bourbon Trail stops. Trying to hit up all 23 distilleries is certainly giving us some exposure to back roads and some beautiful scenery. Some of the horse farms we passed were spectacular, especially when your looking at a huge mansion, then realize it is just the horse barn! We should live as well as some of these horses…
It’s terrible that they actually make these poor horsies live in shacks like these…Makers Mark. Gotta get my pitcher[sic] with their sign…Limestone Branch DistilleryWilderness Trail Distillery.Kentucky Peerless Distillery. Some of the craft distillers, like this one, are new to bourbon and don’t have any properly aged product yet, so my tasting was limited to their moonshine products.Willett Distillery. Heaven Hill is one of the big boys. They also own/produce Evan Williams. Angel’s Envy Distillery, across the street from the Louisville Slugger Field.
After 4 days and a couple of very large thunder/lightening spectacles, we motored a bit north to the Louisville area. We found the Add-More Campground actually in Clarksville, Indiana for a short 2 day stop to finish up this area’s Bourbon Trail participants. Besides the distilleries here, Jeanne found an area of downtown called 4th Street Live! which we took a stroll through. It was daytime as we did, but it looked more to be a happening place for the nightlife. The area is similar to Fremont St. in Vegas, sans the freakazoids, with stage area for bands and all the food and liquor you could imagine.
Kentucky Artisan Distillery another of the craft folks.Some of the grounds to Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience.Inside the visitor’s center at Evan Williams Bourbon Experience.Fourth Street Live! Only, more of a nighttime thing…Where there is a Hard Rock Cafe, there is good times being had by all!Had to take this shot. Guy Fieri was a fellow Sonoma County/Santa Rosa (CA) boy who made it kinda big. Found his restaurant here in Louisville. When the Colonel offers chicken, you just cannot refuse! Home of the Louisville Slugger. It’s almost opening day! Jeanne and Woody stepping up to the bat…
There was also a foot bridge called the “Big Four Bridge” that crossed the Ohio River and gave good views of downtown. That bridge was a railroad bridge built in the 1880’s-1890’s and in 1929 they built a new bridge inside the old frame. 42 workers died while building the bridge, so now it is considered a monument to those who died.
As we begin our journey across the Big Four Bridge. A look along the Ohio River from the bridge.New bridge on old bridge…Looking across the highway to downtown. Ahhhh, the green grass of Kentucky.The bridge from below.There was a nice tribute to Abe on the Kentucky side of the bridge. Jeanne getting cozy with ol’ Abe.
Well, it’s moving time again. Headed east now, gotta finish the Bourbon Trails with the Lexington area stops. Lookout, Lexington, here we come!
