UMTravels

As is usual when I travel with Rache, he is up and out in the morning while I sleep in – though today, not as late as I’d like. Rache went to a Waffle House nearby, I opted for the free breakfast at the hotel. Nothing like biscuits and gravy to start the day!

Our first stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky is at the site of the “real” Bowling Green Massacre (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, CLICK HERE). The fake one was a Trump spokesperson’s talk of radicalized US Iraqi’s plot on Bowling Green. In a humorous twist of irony, click on this link: https://www.bowlinggreenmassacrefund.com/ — which if you go to donate, you are taken to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) site to make a donation.

A massacre DID occur in Bowling Green – when a sink hole opened under the National Corvette Museum and swallowed nine pristine Corvettes – so our first stop is to the museum.

Lots of pretty cars….

And a few crumpled ones that the museum decided not to restore…

And here is the site of the massacre….

The yellow line is the cave outline, the red, the sinkhole line.

And you can even pick up your new custom ordered Corvette at the museum. The factory is on the other side of the freeway – sadly, factory tours are cancelled until 2019:

That was a fun couple of hours! And if you needed air for your tires, the Michelin Man was stationed in the parking lot:

In hindsight, I wish we pocked our head into the classic car sales lot next door:

Next, we headed to the Corsair Distillery in downtown Bowling Green – but the tour wasn’t for almost an hour so we opted for the Historic Railpark and Train Museum that we passed on our way into town:

Luckily, we tagged along with a tour that had started a couple of minutes earlier…

We got a tour of the engine:

The mail car:

The dining car:

There was also a sleeper car:

And the President’s Car (president of the L&N railroad):

Along with getting to see from the outside several other cars awaiting restoration, including a hospital car:

And what they call “The Jim Crow” car which was divided into Whites Only and Blacks Only seating:

The caboose is refurbished, and rented out for birthday parties and the like:

After the tour, we walked through the museum proper:

Once again, we are off schedule for doing the Corsair Distillery tour, and I need food! Biscuits and gravy only last so long. Hello Gerard’s Tavern:

Yeah! A full bar! Sadly, the bartender is the manager who said, “I’m the guy that hires the bartenders and I don’t put one on for lunch service.” But it wasn’t bad – the Old Fashioned that I have in DancingBear’s honor.

And the food was great – I had the fried chicken sliders, the right amount of food for me:

We were still early for the Corsair Distillery tour, so we poked around:

Turns out, we got a personal tour – as we were the only two on it:

These are the two still they use for their vodka and gin like spirits. All the bourbon production has moved to Nashville now that craft distilleries are OK in the city.

This is the mash bill for making their gin…

And warehouse storage:

And high-tech bottling line. All the labels are hand applied:

Fun tour, but now it’s time to head to Louisville…and sadly, a two-hour backup because of a big rig rollover…

Tonight, we are the Microtel Hotel on the edge of Louisville, Kentucky. Oddly, no photos. Not as nice as the Baymont, but it still had a mini-fridge in the room.

I DID get photos of our dinner at Mark’s Feed Store – a BBQ place:

Rache and I both got the same thing – the 6-rib basket. Comes with two sides. Sadly, we could have shared one order. We maybe could have skipped the fried pickles – but I always have to try them:

And the 6-rib meals…

Because we were first time customers they kicked in two slices of buttermilk pie (a little sweet for me) and a bottle of their mustard-based sauce. Too bad they didn’t have a full bar!

Back to the room and our usual routine. Rache in bed early, UncleMarkie watching TV into the night.

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