Let Me Catch You Up

There have been some activities over the past few weeks that I have not reported about, so let me now catch you up with narrative and lots of pictures.

First, back to Ohio where we were visiting our middle daughter Kelly.  One of the reasons we were there is because Fran and our three daughters were meeting up in New York City the weekend of August 11th to celebrate our youngest daughter, Kim’s, 25th birthday.  The main event was to go see the Broadway musical Newsies.  All three of our daughters are huge fans of the Disney movie.  Fran and Kelly flew from Dayton, Ohio to New York City while I stayed back at the trailer, watching golf and NASCAR.

Let’s start with the New York trip. 

Girls night out!

The birthday girl!

The planned highlight was the Newsies play but both Fran and Kim are big fans of Good Morning America so they both got up early Monday morning and went to the outdoor set of the show in Times Square.  They were rewarded with some on camera time. But were disappointed as their favorite, Sam Champion, was on vacation.

Stars in the making!

After we left Ohio we moved on to Salvisa, Kentucky where we are at as I write this (we leave tomorrow for Tennessee).  We stayed at an RV park near Harrodsburg, Kentucky.  This area is known for the Pleasant Valley Shaker Village (restored shaker settlement), the Kentucky Bourbon Trail along with a few other sites.  First we went to the town of Harrodsburg where they were having a festival on the weekend at the Fort Harrod State Park.  We enjoyed the festival and toured the restored fort.  An interesting attraction at the fort site is the church in which Abraham Lincolns’s parents were married in.  What made it interesting to me is that it was a twofer attraction.  Inside the church was the restored house the Lincoln’s lived in when they were married.  Here is a picture of the house inside the church.

The fort was interesting and we did take pictures but hey it is a fake.  It is a reproduction from historical records and is not that old.

Next up was a stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  We stopped at Four Roses Distillery.  I am not familiar with this brand and found out why.  This was the #1 selling bourbon in the US until the 1950’s when the company was bought by Seagram’s and they decided to change their marketing strategy and focus the brand in Europe and Japan.  It quickly became the #1 bourbon in Japan where it still is.  Because of this, about 10 years ago the Japanese beer company, Kirin, bought the brand and brought it back to the US in 2003 where they are trying to gain market share.  The bourbon has always been made here in Kentucky.

At the front of the distillery building.

Inside the distillery.  This is the box where the mixture passes through for tasting before it is moved to the barrels for aging.

After tasting some bourbon we drove to Frankfort, Kentucky, about 25 miles away.  For all you fifth graders, this is the capital of Kentucky.  We took a tour of the state capitol, drove around the town and stopped at Daniel Boone’s gravesite.  The capitol building is amazing.

Capitol

View inside

Abraham Lincoln statute in the center of the building.  (Lincoln was born in Kentucky)

House chamber

Daniel Boone’s gravesite

View of the city from the gravesite

Lastly, today we went to the Shaker village. It is a beautifully restored village that you can walk amongst the buildings and go inside and see how life was back in the 1800’s.  Many of the buildings have staff inside dressed as Shaker’s performing tasks, such as weaving, wood working, etc.

This is one of the oldest buildings on the property and was one of the dormitories for the Shaker’s. 

They have a hotel and restaurant on the property that is in the existing buildings.  We had lunch at the restaurant and in the building has a spiral staircase that goes up 3 floors.

View from the bottom floor up

View from the top floor down

As part of the visit to the village we took a boat ride on a paddle wheeler that was nearby on the Kentucky River.  It was docked where the Shaker’s had a ferry to cross the river.  The boat took us for an hour ride on the river showing us the limestone cliffs, or palisades, as they are called. A cool sight as we are on the boat was seeing turtles sunning themselves on logs.  Here is a picture of 4 of them on a log.

It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.  On Thursday we move on.  We have made a change to our plans and decided to go to Pikeville, Tennessee.  This is near the Fall Creek Falls State Park.  The state park was recommended to us by my nephew.