Monday, June 18th, we left home once again with the destination on Wednesday of Louisville, Kentucky for The Rally, a Good Sam rally. The morning was cool and drizzling rain as we left Taneytown. Our route of travel took us out through western Maryland and then south through West Virginia on I-79 to I-64. The coolness continued most of the day in fact we even had some heat on in the motorhome as we traveled. Showers of rain, at times with thunder and lightning, followed us most of the day until late afternoon. Once we were in sunshine the temperature went up considerably and we eventually had air conditioning on. Our travels went through mountainous terrain and sparsely populated areas. We like to keep our travels to about 300 miles a day but sometimes the availability of campgrounds dictate. Our stop for the night was at Jim’s Camping in Milton, W. Va. . about 18 miles from Kentucky and more than 360 miles from home. Jim’s Camping was a small campground but had full hook-ups including 50 amp electric for $25.00. After setting up we went out to eat at Shonet’s Café, a local eatery. We ate from the soup and salad bar which had good homemade soups and good salads.
This morning, Tuesday, we continued westward on I-64. The weather was sunny and very warm, temperature reached close to 90 degrees. We are scheduled to go into the rally on Wednesday morning so Tom had made reservations at a campground, Elkhorn Campground, in Frankfort, Ky. We had less than 170 miles to travel today and then about 80 on Wednesday to Louisville. We arrived in the campground about noon today so we had the afternoon to explore the area. We ate lunch at the La Fiesta Grande restaurant- Mexican, of course- first. Daniel Boone’s grave is in the Frankfort cemetery, at least, the Kentuckians believe his body was relocated here from a cemetery in Missouri. The Missourians say that the body of Boone’s slave was sent instead and Boone remains in Missouri. Anyway, we went to the cemetery and saw the grave stone for Daniel and his wife, Rebecca.
From the cemetery we could see the capitol building across the Kentucky river so we drove over to that area. There were beautiful flower gardens on the grounds and a large floral clock.
Our last stop this afternoon was at Buffalo Trace Bourbon Distillery, a distillery on the Bourbon Trail across Kentucky and into Tennessee.
We went on a tour led by “Freddie”, a gentleman that grew up at the distillery. The name Buffalo Trace comes from a time when buffalo lived in this part of the country and the site of the distillery, located along the Kentucky River, was the path that the buffalo traveled to cross the river as they moved west. The warehouse has 10 stories that store the barrels of bourbon for aging and the quality of the bourbon differs from the various levels, the best quality bourbon is on the lowest story, the more inferior quality on the upper stories. The temperature variance from top to bottom affects the quality.
The grounds around the distillery are well groomed and there are numerous flower planters and gardens.
The tour ended with a sampling of the bourbon. It was a very interesting tour with a wonderful guide.
