So Many Exciting and Beautiful Places!

The main purpose of this trip was to visit the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Six different distilleries were featured in January, 2012: Old Turkey, Four Roses, Jim Beam, Woodford Reserve, Maker’s Mark and Heaven Hill, all located along the Bluegrass Parkway between Lexington and Bardstown, KY. None are more than 90 miles from Lexington.

The Kentucky Distillers’ Association formed the Kentucky Bourbon Trail in 1999, probably to give people something to do there besides attend the Kentucky Derby. You can pick up a souvenir passport at any one of the distilleries, and use it to track your visits. If you stop at all (please time this over a few days), you can get a free Kentucky Bourbon Trail T-shirt. We only visited three, so no T-shirts for us.

Distilling bourbon is a time-honored tradition in Kentucky. Bourbon has been distilled since the 18th century, but the term began to be used consistently in Kentucky in the 1870’s. The US Congress declared bourbon to be a “distinctive process of the United States” in 1964. Legally, you can’t call your product bourbon unless you use at least 51% corn, and age it in new, charred, white oak barrels for at least two years. It must be distilled to no more than 160 proof and entered into the barrel at 125 proof. It must be bottled at no less than 80 proof. Also, it must not contain any added flavoring, coloring or other additives.

Charred Oak Barrel

The charring of the barrel releases the sugars and gives the bourbon its hue and flavor. Most of the used barrels are sold to distilleries in Scotland for scotch, or to wineries in California. There are also some bourbon beers which have been aged in the used barrels.

In years past, people would buy the used barrels, take them home, put two or three gallons of water in them, roll them and let them bake in the sun. This process, which recaptures some of the bourbon from the barrel, results it what is called the devil’s cut.

Evidence of the Angel’s Share. This is a healthy tree.

The angels get a share as well. A fair amount of alcohol evaporates during the distilling and aging processes. This evaporation causes a fungus to grown on the bark of surrounding trees and bushes, giving them a black color. That black color is the evidence of the angel’s share. Every day, the angels watch over the process, guaranteeing a good batch, so I guess they earn their share.

Almost ten years after the cross country road trip with son Sean, Mark and I took two road trips to warmer climates. In January, we drove to Florida and back, and in February, we drove to Arizona and back.

On the first day of our Florida trek, our new SUV packed, we headed out with the intention of going as far as we could before stopping for the night. We reached Cedar Falls, IA in time for lunch at the local Maid-Rite. We’ve enjoyed many Maid-Rites in our home town, so we figured we need to try this one out.

Maid-Rite has been around since 1926, started by butcher Fred Angell in Muscatine, Iowa. There are several locations in the Midwest, mostly in Iowa. If you haven’t had one, it’s a loose meat sandwich made with crumbled ground beef and spices, like a sloppy joe without the sauce.

After lunch, we went in search of the Iowa 80 Truckstop, which bills itself as the world’s largest truckstop. It is certainly the largest one we’ve ever seen. There are a couple of restaurants and a very large store, as well as a theater and barbershop, and showers for truck drivers. You can get anything you need for your truck, or even place an order for a new truck.

Iowa and Illinois had been hit with a snow and ice storm the day before, so we saw quite a few cars in the ditch. At one point, the saw the aftermath of a crash between two semis. Traffic was backed up for a few miles, moving at a snail’s pace as the accident was being cleaned up. One trailer appeared to have been cut in half, the other was pretty beat up as well.

The next day we drove to Lexington, KY, where we visited the largest independently owned bookstore in Lexington – Joseph-Beth Booksellers. The name comes from the middle names of its founders, Neil and Mary Beth Van Uum. While we were there, we picked up a book about Kentucky Bourbon, since we were now in official bourbon country.

Working my way through the best books about cross country travel, I’ve started one about a trip from New York to Alabama: The Cruise of the Rolling Junk by F. Scott Fitzgerald. At first, I thought Junk referred to the state of the car, or the fact that it was filled with junk, but after reading a review, realized that Fitzgerald meant the ancient Chinese sailing ship called a junk.

In 1920, just months after they were married, Scott and Zelda set off from their home in Connecticut to find biscuits and peaches in her home of Alabama. They set out with very little money and an unreliable car (so the title really could be referring to the car.) The car was a used 1918 Marmon, built by the Marmon Motor Car Company of Indianapolis. The company operated from 1902 to 1933, and was known for building both touring cars and racing cars.

Two years after this trip, in need of money, as always, Fitzgerald wrote about the journey, hoping to sell it as a three-part journal to the Post. He was turned down, and tried a few other avenues, finally selling it for only $300 to Motor Magazine.

Fitzgerald’s writing is beautifully descriptive, and I can almost see the areas he and Zelda are driving through. Their escapades surely inspired some of his later writings. It is a short book, easily read in an hour or two, perhaps while you are riding shotgun on a future road trip.

We haven’t taken a similar trip from Northeast to Southeast, but we did do two different road trips in 2012, during which we put over 6,000 miles on our car in two months. The first was from Minnesota to Florida and back, the second from Minnesota to Arizona and back.

Stay tuned.

Northern Exposure, Roslyn, Washington

Sean and I are both fans of the television show, Northern Exposure, which aired from 1990 – 1995. This was one of the few shows that I caught from the very beginning, since even the ads were quirky enough to grab my attention. It was an intelligent comedy, with enough drama to keep me interested. The characters were likeable, even the irascible Maurice Minnifield.When I try to decide who was my favorite, I have to say most of them were: Chris Stevens the DJ/philosopher, Ed Chigliak the filmmaker wannabe, Ruth Anne Miller the elderly shopkeeper make the top three for me. Of course, I liked Joel and Maggie and Marilyn and Hollis and Shelly and Maurice and ….

I think every member of my book group was hooked on the show – we met on Monday evenings and would always break up in time to get home to watch the current episode. This was in the days before DVRs.

The show was set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, but Roslyn provided the backdrop. Fortunately for us, it was on our route, just a few miles off of Interstate 90, although I believe anything within a hundred miles of our route would have been close enough.

Downtown Roslyn was no bigger than downtown Cicely was. Roslyn’s Cafe (actually the Roslyn Cafe with “‘s” added for the show sits one one corner, about a block from The Brick bar and restaurant where Holling and his sweetheart, Shelly, held sway. Also on main street are the storefronts for Dr. Joel Fleischman’s office and the KBHR radio station where Chris worked, most memorably as “Chris in the Morning.” Chris played an ecclectic selection of songs which was part of the show’s appeal. No moose on main street, however. We also drove up the hill to Maurice’s home, and viewed some of the other houses that were featured in the show.

So happy that we stopped here.

Cicely’s Main Street

Apparently shot through a car window

The Brick Tavern