Ken and Karen’s travel adventures
The final leg of the journey… across a thousand miles of Montana! Well, not quite, but it is about 800 miles from Spearfish SD to our daughter’s house in Spokane, WA, most of which really is Montana! But first, we said good bye to South Dakota, and crossed the very northeast corner of Wyoming!… for about 5 minutes.
and then… Read more
We spent a full day discovering why motorcyclists love coming to this area. Around Rapid City is Mt Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the towns Sturgis, Deadwood, and Spearfish. There are so many scenic drives, and they are all squiggly roads, up hills, down canyons, through tunnels, and all the kinds that motorcyclists love. First stop was Mt Rushmore National Monument. It was sooooo impressive to see in person!
I loved reading the history about how this massive project was accomplished, and Read more
Welcome to South Dakota! Another state we’ve never been to before. And the corn fields continued. Seriously! I think half of our country is growing corn. (It was evident at the gas stations…. a whole smorgasbord of ethanol fuels!) Eastern South Dakota was probably the flattest country side we’ve seen!
Our first stop in this state, simply because we’d been driving nearly 500 miles, was Sioux Falls. The city is named after some falls on the Big Sioux River, so Read more
We said good-bye to Kentucky, crossed the Ohio river in Louisville, and, ta-da! We were in Indiana. This would be the first of three “I” states in a row.
Just about an hour north was Seymour. We were blessed to spend the day and overnight at our friends Patty and Steve’s house. We’ve only seen them a couple of times in the last 16 years. Steve and Kenny used to play together in a praise band at our church many years ago.
We had such a great visit! We had some great meals, laughs, and fun. And we had all kinds of opportunities to Read more
The last distillery on our self made Bourbon Trail was Jim Beam. At each distillery we learned more and new things. This one was great because we got to see the actual distilling process.
We took a wrong turn and went in on the shipping and receiving road with all the trucks. Ooops. It does look like a factory!
Here we go!
This looks like a fun place! Read more
Next stop on our self directed Bourbon Trail, was Heaven Hill. It is just outside of Bardstown, so we stopped on our way back into town. Heaven Hill Distilleries is America’s largest independent, family-owned producer of Bourbon. They also distribute a WHOLE bunch of other liquors.
These are some of their rickhouses. They are not completely black like the ones at Maker’s Mark. They are starting to turn black. Apparently this is part of the reaction between the metal sheeting of the building, and the alcohol that vaporizes from the barrels! Read more
Outside of Bardstown, we were on our way to Maker’s Mark Bourbon Distillery. Neither of us really likes bourbon, but it is what this part of Kentucky is made of! I’m not kidding! The scent/aroma in the air in Bardstown and surrounding area is sweet with a tinge on fermenting corn – especially in the evening around dusk when scents hang heavier in the air.
The landscape of Kentucky here is rolling hills. It reminds me of the swells on the ocean. Continuous gentle ups and downs. Read more
Movin on north to Kentucky! There are a few things that I definitely wanted to see and do in Kentucky, so we cut our time in Tennessee short. We’ll travel through Tennessee in the fall, but we probably will not go far enough north to hit Kentucky again.
First stop was Mammoth Cave National Park. This is about 200 miles north of Chattanooga, about 85 miles north of Nashville TN, and 85 miles south of Louisville KY. We had to drive right through Nashville. Wow- we sure don’t miss driving in city traffic! Read more
From Ashville NC we headed northeast through the mountains to …. Tennessee! We drove across a lot of hills. We are not far from the Great Smokey Mountains, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The forests are leafy deciduous trees for the most part. I can only imagine what these vistas look like in the fall!
I know, north EAST is not directionally correct for a road trip from Florida to Washington State. But – we were headed for Bristol TN to the Thunder Valley Raceway to watch the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Thunder Valley National Drag Races. We plan to spend three days Read more
Next we headed about 280 miles north to Asheville NC.
North Carolina is really green, hilly, and pretty!
This totally cracked me up. The navigation in the car said ‘Take exit 49A on the right to Bat Cave”. Read more