On our way to the Kentucky Derby

This is the spring trees in Mammoth Caves National Park.  See the white cloud looking thing?  That is Dogwood.  It reminds me of clouds in the deep forest.

One of the roads runs right through a river.  Instead of a bridge they have a ferry that can hold three cars at a time.  It is towed along a high tow line.

We visited several distilleries.  This one is really fancy.

This one has a master distiller that has been there for 60 years.  His son is taking over soon.  It seems that being a master distiller runs in a family. 

This place hand fills their bottles and hand seals them.

Everyone of the distilleries has a visitor center. It was truly interesting to see how each of them work their product.  The recipe is generally the same with minor variations.  You'd think they get together and work together.

We started our Rally by going to Lexington to visit a horse training center.  These horses are two and are getting use to a race track. They are beautiful.

I got a shot of a horse with all four feet in the air.  As a matter of fact I got three shots.  I did good!!!

This horse has won several races.  And she is 9 years old.  Her trainer said she still likes to run so he lets her. 

We drove up the road to a park that has a theme of horses.  Surprise.  This was a show of horses from around the world.  This is a Morgan from the USA.

A gypsy horse from around Serbia.

And the Austrian Lipesaner.  I spelled that really badly, but you know what I mean.

Tuesday we went to Churchill Downs for breakfast and a tour of the race track.  The gray haired man is a commentary? from CNN. He was right by our table.

The room was in Millionaire's Row, and it is huge.  There must have been 500 people in there.  But the food was pretty good.

We got to watch some of the 3 year olds train.  It was awesome.

We had to get our picture made with our hats.  That wasn't my derby hat.

The place is very big.

The next day we did a lot of touring.  This is the Louisville Slugger factory.

We also went to My Old Kentucky Home.  Apparently Steven Foster wrote the song for this house.  He was a cousin of the owner.

I got stickers for my scrapbook here.  Everything has a gift shop.

Derby day  This was our section.  It was in the shade (thank goodness) it was really sunny.

Even some of the men wore hats.  The people watching here was better than Key West.  Some of the men wore the most outlandish suits.  One I saw on the big screen looked like a rubics cube print.

Everyone was standing up in the stands and I couldn't see the flag thing.  So I took a picture from the jumbo tron.

Josh Grogan sang the anthem.

Horse getting ready to go into the gate.

I couldn't see the gate.  But I held my camera up high and got this shot.

 

 

I'm glad I went, but I'd not do it again.  There was 170,514 people there.  We didn't do much walking around because of the crowds.  The seats in front of us were mostly empty until the Derby was run.  And they were pretty much empty during the last two races.  I can't believe people pay that kind of money just for the two minute race.  I guess there really are stupid rich folks.

 

We left Louisville this morning and are now in Columbus Ind.  Tuesday morning we head for Effingham, Ill.  We'll be at Aunt Beverly's for Mother's Day weekend.

That's it for now.  Love, Mom and Dad

Wright and the Opry

While we were at Red Bay waiting for service, we drove up to Florence, Ala.  We wanted to see the Indian mounds (or at least I did) and the site was closed.  Well, there was a Wright house there and it was open.  We toured it and it took over an hour.  Our docent was full of knowledge.  That cover back there is a car port.

One side of the house was all windows.  This was the dining room.  A couple and their four boys lived here until the wife needed assisted living in 1998.

Her kitchen.  The first kitchen was about he size of a wet bar.  Four kids????

The halls were all shelves. The doorways were only 2 feet wide except for the front door.

We got finished in Red Bay and drove to Nashville.  It was Thursday so no show, but we took a backstage tour of the Opry.

This is where the stars check in and get their dressing room.

The place where your grandparents sat.  They were on the ground floor.

This wooden circle is from the original stage at the first theater, the Ryman.

Back of the stage

This is what a audience member might see on show night .I took pictures of some of the dressing rooms but they were too dark to share. 

 

We were in Red Bay for 8 days for 4 hours of service.  But the people were friendly while we all waited our turn.  At least I now have a working microwave. We're in Kentucky today.  We're heading out to Mammoth Cave National Park this morning.  We're in Cave City.  Tomorrow we head out to Bardstown and on to the Bourbon Trail.  We have six days before we meet up with the Derby Rally.  Sounds busy and a blast. 

Love, Mom and Dad

We spent Sat. and Sun. afternoons with  Sally and her family.  Pepper is a hoot.  She was so interested in how Uncle Sonny and her were related.  She asked all sorts of questions.  And she took to your dad right away.  He was delighted.

We're in Red  Bay, Alabama now at the Tiffin service center. While we are waiting to get into a service bay we took a tour of the Tiffin Factory.  It was loud but interesting. The guys build the inside before they put on the sides.

This a rig finished just before it goes to the paint barn.

Still waiting so we drove into Florence for lunch.  On the way back we went to the Coon Dog Cemetery.  It's out in the sticks.  And you have to prove your dog is a Coon Dog to get buried here.

There are tons of graves of dogs there.  Coon Dogs are very revered here.

 

 

We found out today that we will probably get service on Monday.  Cross Your Fingers!  There is not much to do here in Red Bay.  We could go to Mississippi to see Elvis' birthplace.  Or where Helen Keller was born.  Both of these are  a fifty mile drive round trip.  But the people here are really nice.  You all know how I hate to wait for things.  I've been really pretty good waiting this time.  Tomorrow we are going to an Indian mound site. We'll see what we will do Sunday.  But I'll bet most everything will be closed.

That's all this week.  Love, Mom and Dad

The end of our tour

While in Savannah we had a riverboat tour.  When we were taking off the Nina and the Pinta pulled into port. 

All tied up to the pier.

We had a trolley tour of the city.  We had the whole trolley to ourselves.

The houses are huge and from before the Civil War.

This is The Angel Oak just outside of Charleston.  It's at least 450 years old.

We visited the only tea plantation in North America.  We bought tea. Surprise

This is the machine that harvests the tea.

We tried to get to Patriots Point last Saturday.  The point was all closed off because of a fun run.  We wandered around waiting for the roads to open and were only one hour late.  It was a hoot.  This is an old diesel sub.

That is the Yorktown.  We also saw a destroyer.

Later on in the day we got on a ferry and went to Ft. Sumter where the first shot was fired in the Civil War.

The entrance to the fort.

That is a shell still in the wall from when the Union got the fort back in 1863.

We went to Asheville, NC last Sunday.  This is the last stop of the tour.  We had a free day so we drove on part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Nothing was green yet.  As a matter of fact part of the parkway was closed that day for a while because of snow.

Tuesday we went to Biltmore to visit the House.  It's huge and has 250 rooms.  We couldn't take pictures in the house, so I bought a book.  We climbed a lot of stairs from the third story to the basement.  I was pooped.

 

After we left NC we drove to Stone Mountain in Georgia to rest up for two days.  We camped in Stone Mountain Park.  It is really pretty.  We went to see the mountain carving and this is as close as we could get.  It really is huge and pretty.  The mountain is a large stone.  We drove around the four mile road that encircles the rock.  It's really weird; there is very little growing on the mountain itself.   Just one huge rock.

 

 

We are in Breman about 10 miles from Sally's right now.  We go to her house tomorrow.  We leave Georgia Monday morning to go to Alabama.  We're going to get a few things worked on at the RV factory in Red Bay.  That's all for this time

 

Love, Mom and Dad