Thursday, June 9, 2016

Beautiful day today, blue skies, very little clouds.

After crossing the Ohio River, we drove through West Virginia to Point Pleasant.  A two lane highway that was very windy through rolling hills with lots of trees.  I'm sure you are wondering why Point Pleasant.  Well, there is a stainless steel statue of Mothman there that we thought we couldn't miss.  Needless to say, when we stopped there we were the only ones there.  And it's right downtown, too.

We continued on to Kentucky.  Back on an interstate!  Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday we were on I-80 for awhile.  More truck traffic that I have ever seen on a freeway.  Anyway, as we came farther west, it flattened out some and the terrain opened up.  The trees along the road were beginning to get a little claustrophobic so it's nice to see open spaces again.  It's drier here than the other eastern states we've been in.

We stopped at the Wild Turkey bourbon distillery and took the tour.  I thought it was really interesting  to learn how liquor is made and aged.  The oak barrels can only be used once legally for it to be bourbon.  It's aged anywhere from two to 20 years.  They have over 500,000 barrels aging over 900 acres here.

As part of the tour, we each got to taste two of the 8-10 varieties of bourbon made here.  We shared ours so it probably totaled a little less than a shot.  I don't know how people do more than one distillery in a day.  That was about enough for me.  The Bourbon Trail has 10 distilleries on it.  You can get a free passport and if you get a stamp from each one you get a free t-shirt.  We thought the shirt was unattractive.

It was onto Louisville.  We went to the Hard Rock Cafe so I could add to my pin collection.  Since we had never had a mint julep, we had one there.  More bourbon!  And very little mint taste.  We think it's a good sipping drink but not something you could drink very much of.

I realized that tomorrow is Muhammad Ali's funeral here so we decided to drive a little farther to spend the night.  Traffic will be a nightmare there tomorrow.  We are in Elizabethtown tonight.