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Jack's and Lorri's Road Trip, Page 3, from Taos, NM, to Williamsburg, VA
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From Taos to Kentucky: Six days on the road
Laura Ingalls Wilder House
Rick and Sally Hill
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail
Lexington
On to Williamsburg!
Santa Fe, then Taos, then continuing east to Texas
Leaving Taos, we headed west toward the Texas panhandle. One of the ski areas (are there more than one?) is visible in this photo.
Still plenty of snow on the last day of April.
a lake
Almost all our travel today was on two lane roads
Not much traffic and it was fairly scenic until we got to the plains.
These are plains. They go on and on.
These are more plains.
What the...?
What are these things?
My guess is pronghorns
We saw quite a few. This poor guy was trapped in the road right-of-way and couldn't figure out how to get over the fence to join his buddies.
That was our high plains excitement for the day.
We found a great spot to camp in the Meredith Lake National Recreation Area, a few miles northeast of Amarillo, TX.
The weather was perfect and we were the only people at the campground.
The campground was nice but level spots were rare.
Our view
Time to relax
Sunset. I was looking for the green flash. The land is so wide open, you almost feel as if your looking at the ocean.
Our next stop.
We had an easy drive, mostly on I-40, and spent the night at Red Rock Canyon State Park near Hinton in western OK.
Relaxing once again
Selfie stick!
Thursday night martini night!
Cheers!
We broke out a bottle from the place in Albuquerque!
Some red rocks in Red Rock State Park.
We camped at two places in OK, as well as visiting the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in OK City.
At the advice of a lady at the Oklahoma Visitor Center on I-40, we stopped here on our way to our next stopover.
I think they should change the name and leave the word "cowboy" out of it.
Change it to "cowgirl". No just kidding. There was a lot of cowboy related stuff but much more western culture, including for instance, an Ansel Adams photo gallery and many exhibits related to Native Americans.
Worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Oklahoma City.
May 1, Friday, Snowdale State Park, Grand Lake of the Cherokee, north east OK.
There was an RV hook-up site available near the lake but we chose to dry camp out in this field.
It was a good choice. We had a nice steak dinner with a good bottle of cabernet.
Our front yard
Our back yard
Our side yard
Our lake. Looks peaceful, right? As it turned out that evening there were sprint car races on a track less than a mile away. Loud. Luckily they were "sprint" cars, so the races didn't last long.
On to Missouri
Having read all of Laura's books at a young age, Lorri was thrilled to visit the place where most of them were written
International Classics!
The back of the house
The front of the house, or vice-versa
Rick and Sally
Later that same day we visited my old friend Rick Hill (no relation) and his lovely wife Sally.
They have a beautiful house and cattle farm near Elk Creek, MO.
This bird condo is for the bug-eating purple martins
Peace, quiet, 360 degree views, what more could one ask for?
Rick's barn
The entry on to County road H.
This area of Mizzou is rife with creeks and rivers suitable for floating, boating, kayaking and canoeing. Maybe even fishing!
Saturday evening cocktails
The water runs cold and clear
This is Big Spring. The water just gushes from the side of the hill.
They say it could fill Busch Stadium in about a day. That's a lot of water. I hope they do it while the Cardinals are playing. Less competition for my Padres.
I told you so...
Jack, Lorri and Big Spring
There are many CCC structures in this area, like this one.
Missouri route. We kept going east but I forgot to highlight it.
Boomland! Everything you need under one roof, and an awful lot of stuff that you don't need.
West meets east.
I always feel like the Mississippi River is the dividing line between the east and west. Is that true?
It's a wide river. Any way to pipe any of that stuff to San Diego?
We'll take it, muddy or not.
On down the road we hit Paducah, KY, home to the Museum of the American Quilters Society. Made me think of my mom and two sisters, quilters all.
Paducah downtown
On the riverfront
The confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers.
Some historical stuff for all y'all.
More history
Kentucky, the Bluegrass State.
Looks sorta green and yellow to me
This is in a place called Pennyrile Forest State Park in western Kentucky.
It was a nice setting but the spaces were far from level.
we had to use all of both sets of leveling blocks that we carry and still did not quite get there.
Happened to notice this shadow on our fridge of a wine glass from a candle.
The full moon rising behind the trees with our little string of lights in the foreground. OK, you can only do so much with an iPhone.
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail
Our grand plan was to explore parts of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
We got our first taste of it at Barton 1792 Distillery in Bardstown, the self-proclaimed "Bourbon Capital of the World".
Barton is a huge producer as evidenced by this building and a few others just as big, as well as the smell of fermenting grain that wafts through the whole little city.
Willet is a smaller producer a couple miles out of town.
We missed the tour.
But we did a tasting.
Lorri enjoying a sip or two.
It's a little different than wine tasting. With wine tasting, it gets difficult to distinguish wines after two or three wineries. With bourbon it gets difficult after two or three sips!
Willet
Willet Visitor Center
Right around the corner from Willet was Horse Heaven Distillery, producer of huge amounts of bourbon.
And they had a huge "Bourbon Heritage Center", part museum, part tasting room and mostly a big retail outlet.
Oh yeah, a theater too!
This still must be from the early days.
One last night of camping before Lexington
We camped at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown.
Lorri is looking for our pet robin. She was grabbing worms and then feeding them to her kids. The robin, not Lorri.
It was a little buggy so we put the screens on.
Part of the same State Park where we camped contains the house that was the inspiration for Stephen Foster's song.
By George, here he is!
This explains it.
I guess there weren't a whole lot of inspirational houses back then.
My old Kentucky Lorri
The kitchen, I think.
The smoke room, maybe. I don't know for sure because we couldn't tour the house. These rooms were in the attached building to the rear of the house.
I'm pretty darn sure this is the carriage house.
The back of the house. The carriage house is to the left of where this photo was taken.
The central square of Bardstown. Actually it's a circle.
Bardstown, KY
The Kentucky Bourbon Marketplace
Yup, that's it!
The entrance to Makers Mark
From Bardstown, we took some scenic roads to Lebanon where Makers Mark is located.
Makers Mark is famous for their bourbon bottles being hand dipped in wax. You can buy a bottle in the tasting room and dip it the wax yourself. That's what's going on here.
If you want anything with a Makers Mark logo on it, chances are you can find it here.
Key chain? Golf ball? Coffee? Chocolate? You can even buy bourbon here!
But you can get it cheaper at a liquor store. Of course, you can't dip it in wax at your liquor store.
I don't know, I've always thought it is what it IS!
There is a lot of debate these days over the meaning of "handmade".
I'm going to say the product at Limestone Branch Distillery probably qualifies as "handmade".
...not quite sure about Moon Pies, though. This place makes two Moon Pie liquors, a vanilla and a chocolate. Why? I don't know, but they tasted just like alcoholic Moon Pies.
Self-portrait in the Limestone Branch door window
Tasting the product, "sugar shine". Not exactly what we expected from a craft distiller on the Bourbon Trail. Apparently they are making bourbon too, but due to the aging requirements for bourbon, have a couple more years to go before they can release it.
Downtown Lebanon, KY
On the way to Lexington, we stopped in Danville at Wilderness Trace. Like Limestone Branch, they are too new to have released any bourbon. We had a nice time here, though, and I forgot to take photos.
Lexington
Next stop: Gratz Park Inn, Lexington, KY
An old school urban hotel
With nice rooms
We had an excellent dinner at this place which was just a few yards from our hotel.
Unfortunately we were to early for Craft Beer Week
Lexington street scene
The dinner place on the corner and our hotel down the street. And a jogger.
The Lexington Visitors Center. I guess the horses turn blue from all the blue grass
The Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington.
Abraham Lincoln slept here.
Back of the house
Three nights in Kentucky
On to Williamsburg!
On down the road...
We drove south east from Lexington and ended up here.
A nice campground where once again we were its only customers.
There were no envelopes at the pay station and nobody came around to collect our money, so...another free night.
Teriyaki chicken and baked potatoes on the BBQ
We put the screens up.
Shortly after this we were hit by a surprise t-storm.
The fire almost went out, saved only by an inverted frying pan over top of it. A lot of our stuff got wet, though.
Friday, May 8, Lorri's birthday!
We decided to stop in Staunton, VA, which is right where I-64 splits off I-81 and leads east to Williamsburg and Virginia Beach.
Fortunately, Staunton was spared from damage during the Civil War so there are quite a few 19th century buildings surviving in the downtown area.
Including this great old bank.
Still very much in use
Don't think about robbing it, though.
We stopped by Trinity Church
Unfortunately we couldn't get inside.
That was too bad because, among other notable details, the church has at least ten stained glass windows created by Tiffany and Co.
Looking at them from the outside is not very rewarding.
Looking past the church toward another stately structure.
Glass blowers!
This kid was good!
He could talk and work at the same time! Lorri bought a piece, a hen.
Soon it was time for lunch so we ate here.
There was a great old back bar.
And a couple cabooses out front.
The Depot Grille used to be the depot.
More old buildings across from the depot
The new depot.
This was our last stop before Williamsburg. Staunton seemed to be a very nice town with good shops and restaurants and interesting architecture all in the walkable historic downtown.
Virginia - on to Williamsburg!
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