Summer Summary

We left Mesa, Arizona, last year on April 22 and returned October 3. During that time, we towed the RV 7,515 miles and drove the truck an additional 3,820 miles. That means we drove a total of 11,385 miles. In 2012, we made our second trip to Alaska. That summer, we traveled at least 10,000 miles. All this means, meandering through the middle of this wonderful country we live in can mean driving more than a trip from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to Alaska and back to Denver, Colorado. No wonder we were tired after our travels this summer.

During the past summer, we traveled through 15 states and stayed in 41 campgrounds. What were some of the sights we saw? In May they included the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin, TX, and the George W. Bush Presidential Library.





We also visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN.



We were in Tennessee and Kentucky during most of June. First we attended a rally for owners of Mobile Suites RVs like ours. While there we had our RV and truck weighed and were happy to learn we were well withing the maximum weights for both the truck and trailer and we were fairly balanced from side to side.



One of our stops in Kentucky was at the Town Branch Brewtillery, where they make both bourbon and beer. The beer is aged six weeks in bourbon barrels and is probably the best beer I have every tasted.



July took us to Ohio and Indiana. In Ohio, our main focus was on the graves of ancestors.



We had some warranty work done on our RV in Howe, IN, and also visited Amish Country.



We moved on to Wisconsin, where we visited the Cana Island Lighthouse on Lake Superior.



During August, we continued our travels through Wisconsin and took a boat tour to see the Apostle Islands Sea Caves on Lake Superior.



Moving on to Minnesota, we visited the Spam Museum.



Then we were on to South Dakota, where we hiked in Badlands National Park.



September brought us to Colorado and time with family and friends before moving on to Arizona. It was a wonderful summer. Now, it is good to stop traveling for a few months.

Biking and Kentucky

Monday we rode our bikes 15 to 16 miles on the Legacy Trail in Lexington. We don't bike very often, but we are carrying the bikes with us and it is a good opportunity to explore outside the highways and city streets. The path passes through the University of Kentucky's Agriculture Experiment Station. We saw someone cutting hay.



And another tractor raking the cut hay.



I think these are the University's barns.



And this may be an old barn once used by a private farmer.



At one point, the trail took us through a tunnel, underneath the road we had driven on to get there.



We saw this garden on the University's land.



This agricultural activity is very different from what we saw during most of our time in Kentucky. Often, we passed miles of fields devoted to horses, I think. Most of the fences were white, like these. Once in a while, we saw black fences.



Earlier, we had made one stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Kentucky's water, which is filtered through the limestone throughout the state, tastes really good and is one of the reasons a lot of bourbon is made in the state. They are really proud of the water, just look at what it says on this water tank.



We have enjoyed our time in Tennessee and Kentucky.  They are beautiful states.  Almost everyone we met in Tennessee was very friendly and helpful.  We liked Kentucky, too, but the folks are not quite as outgoing and friendly.

Bourbon and Beer

Who knew these two beverages would be made in the same facility? That is why Town Branch in Lexington calls itself a brewtillery. We enjoyed a tour there last week.



Our first clue was the hop garden we passed on our way to the start of the tour.



We were a little late for the tour and came in just in time to taste the beers Town Branch brews. We learned that beer can be aged in barrels that had previously held bourbon. The brewtillery calls that beer Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale and it was my favorite. So much so, we even bought some at the end of the tour. These barrels explain the beer brewing process.



Did you know that whiskey must contain at least 51% corn to be called bourbon? In Kentucky, charred white oak barrels can be used only once for bourbon. The mixture of water, yeast, rye, malt and corn is distilled, producing a clear liquid. Aging (at least 6 months) in charred oak barrels gives it the characteristic brown color.

After mixing the ingredients, they are placed in these fermenting tubs.



This is the still where the mixture is distilled to produce alcohol.



This small apparatus is called the spirit safe. Here, alcohol levels are read and recorded.



Once the proper alcohol level is reached, the mixture is held in these tanks until they are ready to pour it into the barrels.



We saw lots of barrels of aging bourbon.



Including some that had just been filled two days earlier.



Each tour ticket came with four tasting tickets. We each used two for beer and two for spirits and we shared our samples, so we were able to taste all four spirits and four of the beers. The spirits were all tasted straight or with a little water or ice. That isn't the way we usually drink bourbon. In my opinion, the Town Branch Rye was the best for sipping. I like the aftertaste, which they described as peppery. It is made with only water, yeast and rye.



This is the Town Branch Bourbon. The only difference in the two bottles is the color of the label. We were told the blue label was made to celebrate when UK made it into the final four. Is that the United Kingdom? No, I have to keep reminding myself UK also refers to the University of Kentucky.



We didn't taste the Pearce Lyons Reserve malt whiskey. It is made with only water, yeast and malt.



Bluegrass Sundown is a Citadelle Haitian coffee infused with Kentucky bourbon and sugar. When heated and topped with heavy cream, it makes a delightful after dinner drink. Everyone got a taste of that. If we often entertained and served after dinner drinks, we would have bought some of that. It is reminiscent of the famed Irish Coffee.





We learned a lot and had fun on the tour.

Making the Best of It

Things weren't quite as dire as that blog title might suggest.

We were 42 miles into a 46-mile drive to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, driving the two-lane roads of rural Kentucky southwest of Lexington, when we came to two highway workers. They gave us this map, showing how we could drive around a rock slide near the Kentucky River that had closed the road we were on.



Since we weren't sure our GPS would be able to follow the detour, we headed back to our RV park.  John was disappointed in what had happened, so he decided to find some more tourist stops.   The first thing we found on the GPS was the Wilmore Rail-side Museum.



What we found was an old caboose. It wasn't in very good repair, and it was closed, to boot.



They did have deluxe restroom facilities, courtesy of Bluegrass Portables.



And if you want to check out this museum (when it is open) the Potters Inn is nearby.



And the park has a nice gazebo.



But we didn't give up on the day, yet. As we traveled, we found McConnell Springs in Lexington. In 1775, William Mcconnell, his kinsmen and companions from the upper Monogahela River region, had a crude cabin near a large spring in this area. They intended to obtain land grants and create a new town. As they were deciding on a name for the town, they received news of a battle that had taken place two months earlier in a small Massachusetts town where the Colonial militia stood up to the British regulars, launching the American Revolutionary War. They took the name of the town where that battle took place for their new settlement, calling it Lexington.

We hiked through the park.



This is Blue Hole, probably the spring McConnel settled near.



This a reconstruction of the kind of a half-face cabin first built by the early settlers in this area.



This is another spring, called a boil. It is an artesian spring that can produce a column of water of up to 24 inches high after a hard rain.



There are numerous dry stone walls like this in the park and throughout Kentucky. They were most likely built by itinerant Scottish and Irish stone masons beginning about 1830-33.



I also found a photo assay by Annette Gendler with more photos of these fences. She took many of the photos in the Shaker Village we tried to visit this morning.

This magnificent Bur Oak is likely 250 to 300 years old and could have been standing when McConnel established the town of Lexington.



We were able to take a mile plus walk through this shady park before returning to our RV park. We made the best of the time, though we weren't able to reach our original goal.

Thursday we saw this classic car



pulling this small trailer into the campground at Levi Jackson State Park in London, Kentucky.



A couple of hours later, we saw this car



pulling this trailer.



We couldn't ignore what we saw. So we walked the campground until we found them. We learned that the cars are restored antiques, but the trailers are new, built by their owners.

There was another trailer that didn't have an antique car in evidence as a tow vehicle.



We were told there would be more of the same today. Unfortunately, we left the campground before 9 this morning, so we didn't see them. One of the women gave us a small wooden coin-shaped object with the outline of a tear-drop trailer on one side and the words "lil tin purse" on the other. I would guess tear-drop trailers, at least those made of metal, are called lil tin purses. Googling the term, I found a web site that sells items with the teardrop logo and a Facebook page for Lil Tin Purse.