Catch up time

Wow...we have not filled in our blog since Saturday morning. I guess we have to get caught up. 

After writing that blog, we headed out to visit a couple more distillers. It was a beautiful morning, and we went into Louisville to visit the distiller of Bulleit Bourbon. This was interesting in that the bourbon is distilled at another site to the specifications of Tom Bulleit, the originator of the everything Bulleit. There is a working still onsite, just there so you can see everything in "miniature." This still produces only one barrel per week--not quite enough to make a distillery profitable. But a very nice tour. And a nice tasting at the end.

Further into Lousiville, we stopped at Bluegrass Brewing for lunch and a local brew. A bit of a disappointment, but you don't know if you don't try.

We followed this with a walk to Evan Williams. Here we only visited the gift shop, as we bumped into one of the people we saw on the Bulleit tour, and he told us we wouldn't really learn anything new. There was, however, a neat giant sculpture/fountain as you enter the building. It is of bourbon being poured into a glass of ice. Water runs down the sculpture from the upstairs. My picture does not do it justice.

Sunday morning we were on a mission--the Knickerbocker Saloon in Lafayette, Indiana. It is Indiana's oldest bar, established in 1835 and issued Indiana's first liquor license. This was a 183 mile ride north. We landed in the afternoon at a state park, which was very nice. There was a nice bike path, and we went for a nice 4-mile ride. Various organizations had placed scarecrows along the bike trail for Halloween, and being the idiots we are, we took a few photos with the creatures.

Then into town, which was quite nice. Being the home of Perdue University, the town had a number of restaurants and bars. The first place visited was the aforementioned saloon. In some respects it was not what we expected. Having view their website, we understood that they have a kitchen and expected a bit of a crowd. Neither was present. I was not disappointed, however, as the few people there were friendly, which included the bartender. Her name was Julie and she spoke to us quite a bit about the place. She told us she had never met a Knickerbocker before. It is a great looking bar. The original bar was replaced (one of many restorations to the building through the years) in1891 by Dutch craftsmen with solid cherry and black walnut. It is what you see there now. A great visit.

The next morning, we drove back through Louisville and straight to Nashville. This was Monday, October 12th, Jessica's birthday (Happy Birthday, Jess). After a little rest from the drive, we went into town to the Bluebird Cafe. 

Unfortunately, it was too crowded for us to get in, so we headed to the Honky Tonk Highway. This is a couple blocks of restaurants and bars, with just about every one offering live music everyday starting in the afternoon and rolling well into the night. It was raining hard with quite the display of lightening, so we ducked into a pub for some dinner. We came out to a downpour, so another bar filled the bill. A little band was playing there with a pretty good guitarist and fiddle player. We ended up, though, at The Stage bar, where there was a really good band playing. We hung out for quite a while, watching the dancers and the band, featuring a very good female singer and a really good guitar player. It was fun watching the band, seeing them having fun onstage interacting with the crowd and doing a little clowning around with each other.

We had another great day today, but I think I'll save that for a the next blog. Tomorrow we're off to Memphis.