Month: August 2017

Bourbon And More Part One

Bourbon And More Part One

Hey Guys!! We spent two weeks in the Bourbon Capitol of the World! You might know it better as Bardstown, KY. We did so much during our two weeks in this area, I’m going to break it up into two different posts.

95% of all bourbon sold today is made in Kentucky.

There is an official Kentucky Bourbon Trail that includes ten distilleries spread out over Kentucky. If you pick up a KBT passport you can get a stamp at each distillery as you visit it. When you’ve got all ten stamps you can turn in the passport at the old court house in Bardstown to receive your free shirt! We hadn’t planned on doing the whole trail, but who can pass up a free shirt?

Kentucky country road.

Some of the distilleries were in town, but several were out in the country. The road in the picture above is very typical of the roads we traveled while in Kentucky! Very windy and very narrow…pretty much one lane.

To legally be considered bourbon, a whiskey must be made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn.

We ended up going to twelve different distilleries. We didn’t do tours at all of them. We skipped tours at three due to timing.

Whiskey used to be so valuable that it could be traded for goods and services, just like money.

We were able to see different parts of the brewing process at different distilleries. At the one in the picture above we were able to taste the mash while it was brewing. It was kind of like a tasteless soggy oatmeal…not very good.

To be considered bourbon, the whiskey has to be distilled to no more than 160 proof.

My favorite part of the distillery tour is getting to visit the rick house. The rick house is where the bourbon barrels are stored to age.

The percentage of alcohol that evaporates during the aging process is called “the angel’s share”.

Each distillery has their own way of aging a barrel. In fact, each distillery usually has several different ways depending on the type of bourbon they’re working on.

A standard bourbon barrel holds 53 gallons of whiskey.

During Prohibition, the Government Revenuers who were tasked with finding illegal moonshine stills could look in the forest for trees that were starting to turn black. Check out the tree in the picture above. The bark is completely black with a sugar mold that’s the bi-product of the distilling process.

During Prohibition, the moonshine distillers would have to constantly move their operation because of the black sugar mold that grew on everything near the still.

The sugar mold gets on everything! Check out the lamp above.

A bourbon barrel can only be used once to age bourbon, but distilleries ship used bourbon barrels to Scotland and Ireland for the use in the maturation of Scotch and Irish whiskey.

Most of the rick houses are painted black to help hide the sugar mold.

During Prohibition, the only way to get whiskey was to get a prescription from your doctor. Whiskey is goof for what ails you.

Before Prohibition there were around 2,000 distilleries in Kentucky. During Prohibition six distilleries obtained a license to make medicinal whiskey. During the years of Prohibition, Kentucky saw some of it’s sickest days on record. There were right around 6 million prescriptions written for medicinal whiskey in thirteen years for a population of less than 1 million. During World War II the government used bourbon distilleries to make fuel alcohol and penicillin.

All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.

Maker’s Mark Distillery is one of our favorite tours.

A bourbon barrel has to made of oak. Most of the trees come from the forests of Missouri.

My favorite part of the Maker’s Mark tour was this hallway!

Today there are around twenty distilleries in Kentucky.

The whole ceiling in that hallway is filled with Chihuly glass! It’s gorgeous!!

Each bottle of Maker’s Mark is hand-dipped in red wax.

The other very cool thing about the Maker’s Mark Distillery is getting to dip your own bottle!

Kentucky is the birthplace of bourbon, but it’s not the only state to make it.

The Jim Beam Distillery is another one that stands out for us. The campus is set up like an old farm stead.

Kentucky’s bourbon distilleries fill over 1 million barrels with bourbon a year.

The tasting at Jim Beam was different from all of the other tours. Have you ever seen a bourbon dispenser?

Bourbon barrels must be charred in order to be compliant with the laws of making bourbon.

We ended our Bourbon Trail Adventures with a trip to the Kentucky Cooperage where most of the barrels are made. The picture above is actually from the Bulleit Distillery. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures at the cooperage. But Guys…it was really cool! If you ever get a chance to go visit one…do! We got to see the barrels made from logs to barrels…we got to see them getting charred and then tested to make sure they weren’t going to leak! The cooperage was one of the highlights of our entire time in Kentucky!

Un-aged bourbon goes by many names here are a few: white dog, moonshine, hooch, and white lightening.

We accumulated quite the collection of…souvenirs.

Rebecca Ruth is said to be the original maker of the bourbon ball.

The chocolate is my favorite.

Each year almost 120,000 mint juleps are sold during the two-day event known as the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby.

I’ve always been curious about mint juleps. At one of the distilleries we came across a mint julep mix. I had high hopes…I’ll let my face tell you what I thought about it.

September is National Bourbon Heritage Month…it’s also my birthday…if anyone is looking for gift ideas…I did find this little gem. Bourbon Cream by Buffalo Trace is…well, it’s a little magical. I like a little of this in some root beer…it’s soooo good!

Kentucky cows are very happy cows. The grain mash that’s left over after the distilling process is called distiller’s grain (slop) and is given to farms to feed their cows.

And…then there’s the ice cream. It’s mine. Aaaallll mmmiiinnnne!!! *insert evil laugh here*

That’s it for the Kentucky Bourbon Trial! Stay tuned for Bourbon and More Part Two!!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasterntrail2017

Eclipse 2017

Eclipse 2017

Hey Guys!! We’re interrupting our regularly scheduled blog post to bring to you a special post about our #eclipse2017 experience! If I added this post to the end of the post que y’all wouldn’t see it until October sometime. I thought y’all might like it sooner rather than later.

I’m not going to get all scientific on you and explain what an eclipse is and what happens and all that jazz. No science class today. This is just a recounting of our eclipse day experience for anyone who’s curious!

We traveled to the Omaha, NE area to visit with some friends so we were very near the path of totality.

Our day started at an extremely early 5am. For those of you who know us or have followed along for awhile…y’all know just how early this is for us. So…early!! And it was raining. Rain is not how I had envisioned our eclipse day starting off, but I remained steadfastly hopeful that the clouds would clear at the right time.

National Parks are kind of our thing. We can’t get enough of them. So, we thought it was fitting that we watch the eclipse at a National Park that happened to be in the path of totality! We ended up at the Homestead National Monument of America in Nebraska with about ten-thousand of our closest friends. We arrived super early and actually got a parking spot about 3/4 of a mile from the park on a dirt road in between fields of corn.

The city of Beatrice, NE and the National Park did a fantastic job of organizing the chaos. We arrived at the NP right after 8am and the parking was already turning into a nightmare.

We weren’t the first ones there, but we were early enough to have a decent choice of spots. We wanted to be close enough to the stage to have some entertainment, close enough to the food trucks in case we got hungry, and Porta Potty Lane wasn’t too far either.

We claimed our real estate for the day, the boys got started on their Junior Rangering, and we checked out our eclipse glasses to make sure they worked. The NPS created a special booklet, patch, and badge for the eclipse! What?!? Our little Junior Rangers were stoked until we found out the Park had run out of the booklets the day before. But! They gave them the regular Junior Ranger booklet for the Park and told them they’d still get all of the eclipse goodies on top of the usual badges. Score!

The boys finished in record time. We were a little nervous the NP would run out. The boys are officially Eclipse Explorer Junior Rangers now!

Our little area of the NP was starting to fill in. It was still pretty early here. Close to 10am. We decided to grab some food so we would miss some of the later lines and so we wouldn’t be fumbling with food when the show started at 11:37am.

See the three orange shirts in the photo above? They were with a school. They staked out a huge section of real estate near us for one of the schools. They spent a good hour shooing people out of their space. It was kind of funny to watch. They got all kinds of reactions. Everything from total acceptance to out right irritation.

Around 10:30am the Color Guard came out and the National Anthem was sung.

 Aaannnnd…then the clouds rolled in.

I’m guessing it was one of the news stations getting video for the evening news in the helicopter. I didn’t have my good camera out yet because of the clouds. I was afraid we’d have a downpour and even though my camera is weather resistant, I didn’t want it all set up if we had to make a mad dash to some shelter.

Speaking of my camera…Guys, I totally procrastinated with eclipse prep. I realized too late that I don’t have a good lens for taking up-close shots of the sun…and…I couldn’t find a solar lens to save my life. After much searching and dead ends, we found the stuff to MacGyver together something that would allow me to take photos of the eclipse without ruining my sensor or my eyes.

We could see the rain coming. We hoped it would just skirt around us.

It was close to the start of the show when the rain caught up with us. We’d come prepared.

We rigged up some solar filters for the boys’ phones. We knew they’d want to take pictures and videos of the eclipse, but we weren’t sure if it would ruin the sensor in the camera. We got a batch of the bad solar eclipse glasses (the ones that were recalled) and figured they’d probably be good enough for a phone so I cut the eye pieces out and used electrical tape to fasten them to the cases. When the boys wanted to take shots of totality they just slipped the cases off.

I’d downloaded the Solar Eclipse Timer app a few days before. It worked great! It would talk to me and let me know before each stage of the eclipse happened so we could try and watch for it when the sun wasn’t covered by clouds. You can see in the photo above that first contact was at 11:37 for us.

We missed first contact by a few minutes, but the clouds parted enough for us to see what was happening. There was still some very thin cloud covering in this picture.

The handy dandy app let me know it was almost time for totality. It really was a great help in keeping track of time and stages of the eclipse!

Bill Nye came out right before totality to share in the moment with everyone.

Confession:  I took the “solar filter” off of my lens before it was officially safe. With the cloud cover that we had…I kind of figured it’d be ok. I still didn’t look directly into the sun while snapping the pic. I was struggling to keep my lens in focus. Remember, I didn’t have the right lens or the right filter for the eclipse.

I was starting to panic that we’d miss it because the cloud cover was getting worse.

I still had my “solar filter” off messing with my camera when the clouds parted and we caught sight of totality.

I’d just gotten my camera back into focus and aimed at the right spot. I didn’t get any good shots of the crowd during totality. I was too busy trying to get a decent shot of totality. I did get some video though…so I’ll add that at the end of this post!

Totality was over and most people started to leave. We didn’t mind the mass exodus. We stuck around trying to get a few more shots of the rest of the eclipse, but the clouds were being difficult.

Eclipse 2017 was pretty much done here. You can make out a very thin smidge of the moon in the lower left edge of sun in the photo above.

We packed up our stuff and headed over to the Education Center on the other side of the NP to catch a special lecture from a NASA scientist. And to find a bathroom that didn’t have 200 people waiting in line for it. I’d guess 3/4 of the people at the park had left or were trying to leave by this point, but there were still a few thousand milling around.

The lecture was very cool. It was about our planet…not just about the eclipse. The huge globe was interactive and was in constant motion. Our little science nerds loved it!

After the Education Center we were done! We started the trek to the car only to run into these guys. It was close to 4pm by this time and the eclipse had been over for about two hours. All of the people you see in the photo above were standing in lines to catch the shuttle bus back to where they’d parked. That 3/4 mile hike back to our car suddenly didn’t look so bad.

We stopped at Hickory Road BBQ & Catering Co for a celebratory meal of smoked meat. We enjoyed everything we got! So good! If you’re ever in Lincoln, NE it’s definitely worth a stop!

We ended up with some pretty cool loot to go along with all of our memories of the eclipse.

The National Park Service even had a special cancellation stamp made for the event! We collect cancellation stamps at every National Park we visit. Sorry the photo is a bit blurry…

We ended our day with some friends. Ben & Jerry. All in all…I’d say our #eclipse2017 day was a success! We’re already planning for the next eclipse! Who wants to meet us and have a big eclipse party?!

Here’s a quick video of the day!

You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled blog post.

#eclipse2017

p.s. It took me six different states to finally find the Keep Caramel and Cookie On flavor of Ben & Jerry’s.

p.p.s. I bought all of the pints they had.

p.p.p.s. I’m not sharing.

Pizza Roundup Hometown Pizza

Pizza Roundup Hometown Pizza

To my fellow pizza lovers!

I bring a post of a bad pizza place. I am sorry to say that Hometown Pizza in Kentucky is not good.

The service was ok, the pizza was ok and the spaghetti was bad.

The decor was ok and the bathrooms were at least clean.

With all that I think a 3 star review is in order.

 We felt kinda disappointed with the pizza here so we got Little Caesars… twice… and it was so much better.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!

I do like some crazy bread and crazy sauce… so good!

Frankfort, KY

Frankfort, KY

Hey Guys!!

We made it to Kentucky!!

We spent a week in the Frankfort area at a cute little RV park called Elkhorn Campground. We didn’t get a pull-through, but that’s the only complaint I have about this campground. The owners are super nice!

My favorite thing about this area is all of the horse farms! Love!! We didn’t get to visit any this time due to lack of time…but we’ve already decided (for various reasons) that Kentucky will be a regularly visited state once we’re done with the #50statetour!

We came to the Frankfort area to visit the State Capitol Building…and some distilleries that happen to be in the area.

The Kentucky SCB is one of the smaller ones we’ve been in. I love this staircase. Long clean lines made of marble…it just works for me.

You can stand at one end of the building and see all the way to the other end. It’s that small. But look how gorgeous it is!

And Guys… the dome

changes

colors! What?!? Be amazed!! That’s a first for us. It’s a beautiful dome all on its own, but when you add the color change…it’s the cherry on top.

We did go into the House and Senate Chambers. They weren’t anything to write home about. Simple. Does the job.

We went to find Daniel Boone’s grave and stumbled upon this magnificent view of the SCB.

We made it to Daniel Boone’s grave. It’s got a great view. We’ve heard a lot about Boone and his life this past year as we were heading down the East Coast. We heard about him in Texas… he had a pretty big role in our history.

We had planned on hitting a couple of distilleries while we were in the area…because you know, it is Bourbon Country. 😉 We found out right before we went to our first tour that there’s an entire Kentucky Bourbon Trail!! And, if you complete the whole tour you get a free shirt! Score! Count us in!!

One of my favorite parts of a distillery tour is getting to go into the rick house. I love the sight of all of those barrels neatly stacked up! You can see them through the windows in the picture above.

Here’s a closer look for you. We didn’t get to go into the rick houses on all of the tours.

All of the distilleries conduct experiments. If you look closely, you can find a barrel or two of the experimental bourbon. 

I wanted to show you how big the rick houses are.

We learned something new at each distillery.

To be bourbon it has to be made of at least 51% corn. Each distillery has its own unique twist on what that other 49% is.

All of the tours come with a tasting. All of the distilleries have their own take on this. Woodford Reserve is our favorite distillery so far! We loved everything about it. Setting, tour, buildings we saw, and tasting!

Bourbon balls…supposedly, Rebecca Ruth is the inventor of the bourbon ball. She still has a store around so we went to check it out. The Rebecca Ruth store makes the candy for several surrounding distilleries. She’s certainly proud of her chocolates. We got a box of mixed bourbon candies to try. They’re ok until you have some of the other candies around that she doesn’t make…

When we tried the bourbon balls from Woodford Reserve, well…we realized how mediocre the other candies had been. The bourbon balls from Woodford Reserve weren’t just good…they were…eyes-roll-in-the-back-of-your-head good! Like…that-was-so-good-we-need-to-go-buy-the-biggest-box-they-have good! We liked them. Just a little.

The boys weren’t left out of the tastings. They got different things at each. Apple juice, root beer, chocolates. They didn’t’ mind.

We got a few souvenirs.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Frankfort area and look forward to visiting again!!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017

Our Last Week In Michigan

Our Last Week In Michigan

Hey Guys!! We spent one week in Grass Lake, MI. Don’t know where that is? It’s about 45 minutes south of Lansing.

The RV park we stayed at was decent. It was a basic park.

The best part about the RV park was the fishing pond.

You didn’t need a fishing pole to catch a fish…a net would’ve been enough. The fish swarmed to us every time we walked out on the dock. The boys took some bread down and had a good time feeding the fish! We didn’t do much during this week. We took the week to enjoy the good weather and catch up on some school/work.

We did make it to the Michigan State Capitol Building.

Look at that dome!

Here’s a better look at it!

Both the House and Senate Chambers were pretty much the same.

The only differences being the color scheme

and the size of the room. The House Chamber is pretty much always bigger.

I loved the ceiling in both Chambers. They had these stained glass state seals…something we’d not seen before.

Michigan didn’t have much money when they were building their SCB.

Throughout the SCB you can see this texturing in place of more expensive marbles and woods.

I’ll be honest, the lack of a lot of marble and carved wood didn’t diminish the fine artistry of this building. I love the more earthy tones mixed with the blues that dominated the color palette of this SCB.

There are tons of small details that, if you look for, you’ll enjoy about the Michigan SCB!

We found a great BBQ place in Lansing called Meats BBQ! This place is a carnivore’s dream!

Don’t worry, though…there are some vegetarian options…sodas.

The Dude got the Meat Mountain. It was a huge conglomeration of garlic mashed potatoes, smoked beef brisket, bacon gravy, and spicy creamed corn. I stole a few bites…it was really good!!

That’s really it for this stop, guys! I’ll share with you some

of the pretties I found around the RV park during

our daily walks! We had some beautiful weather!

We really enjoyed our time in Michigan. When you see Michigan on the news it always seems to be bad stuff. Drugs, poverty, gangs, violence. We didn’t see any of that. I would absolutely encourage you to visit Michigan! There is something for everyone…outdoor explorations, shopping, foodies! We will definitely be back!!!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017