Bardstown

Kentucky – Sunday, December 9

I woke up to thunder and lightning – haven’t heard much of that on my journey so far. It was raining hard, so I took my time getting ready and packed up, and the storm began to move on. I decided to take a gamble on the rain, and headed out for a walk in Bardstown with Tula. Bardstown is a fun old town, dating back to the late 1700s when it was a popular stagecoach stop for people like Daniel Boone, and other prominent political and social people of the times. It’s also a central location for numerous bourbon distilleries – the local water and limestone provide the perfect conditions for producing all the bourbon. It still amazes me to drive past so many huge rectangular 3 to 6 story brick buildings that are all used for storing the aging bourbon in thousands of charcoal singed barrels (and each barrel can only be used once). There are still old inns and taverns in town, and the rain let up and I thoroughly enjoyed a 3 mile walk past old historic buildings, a festive Main Street, and out into neighborhoods. Even though it was a rainy Sunday morning, there were a lot of people out and about. With a late start and a long walk, I couldn’t resist stopping for a very late breakfast at Mammy’s Cafe – with a name like that, it had to be good, and it was!

I then continued heading toward the Kentucky/Ohio border – I’m taking a 2-day break in Ohio for some grandma time and babysitting the 2 grandkids. I can’t let toooo much time pass in between visits with them! Along the way I stopped in La Grange for some more walking, and got in 1.7 miles before the rain started again. La Grange has a long Main Street with what I thought were old trolley tracks running down one side of the street. Then I heard a freight train coming, and realized they were train tracks, not old trolley tracks. The huge, long train went right through the whole town with no fences, guard rails or anything – right along all the parked cars. It just seemed a little out of place – kind of dwarfing all the shops. But there are signs saying trains are not allowed to blow their horns in town.

Since I wanted to get to Tara’s house before it got too late, I didn’t make a donation today and will simply double up on a day when I’m back in Kentucky. And I will walk the remaining miles for today later too. I made my way to Ohio through the rainy gray late afternoon – looking forward to a warm fire, homemade soup and family time 🙂