The Great Lakes Tour and Kentucky, 2016

[XCovlov70]

Then it's those evening thunderstorms that are coming over here, picking up more water as they cross the Atlantic and with the time shift, dumping that rain in the daytime while our evenings/nights are dry!

[ssicarman]

A few days later and wishing we had evening thunderstorms. They stopped a few days ago. 30-35 degrees C and only dropping to half that overnight. Sitting out on the deck right now enjoying the sun set and the gradual drop in temperature as the house is heating up from the days heat soak. These temperatures are not what this Alberta boy is used to or tolerates well.

[ssicarman]

Onward with the trip. Maker's Mark Distillery.

Left off the road and up the hill

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Now down the hill

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A bit more down and up and we get to the parking lot. Not full which is good for getting onto a tour.

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i seem to remember something about gathering nuts. This little fellow is (lower left).

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The visitor center where you buy the tour tickets. It is an old house.

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So begins the tour. Down the hill and into the black buildings

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They have done a nice job on the grounds.

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Our tour guide

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Tanks where they cook the sweet mash. It is very warm in the room and smells like warm grains and corn, which is of course what they use, very homey type of smell.

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This is the money shot. Two pipes (the copper ones to the rear) coming down from upon high with their clear gift of distillation. What looks like water in the glass squares is not.

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The tour showed us the distillation area and condensation towers before these

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These are the tanks were the sour mash goes and ferments for about three days (?) before it goes to be distilled. The tanks here are made from cypress wood and are supposed to be quite old. The cypress slats of the tanks are replaced as needed. If you look at the tops edges of some of the slats they are quite worn. Looks like a boiling bubbling pot but it is not bubbling from heat. Finger dipping to get a taste was invited.

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On to the next building

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The printing presses where they print their labels for the bottles

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Art installations on the grounds made from heating oil tanks I believe.

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This is where the magic happens

The barrel warehouses where the aging process goes on. Entering the warehouse was like hitting a wall of booze. You go through the door and boom. You breath and smell nothing but fumes. The Angel's share.

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Off to the next building

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The bottling room. Being here on a Saturday they were not bottling so all was quiet

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Somewhere in all of that is where they do their famous red wax seal dip to the top of the bottles.

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Next

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The tasting of the product

They sell four levels of Bourbon. On the left clear unaged basically moonshine. Next is their regular seven year aged. The Maker's 46 and the Private Select. I liked the first and the last more than the two middle ones.

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Passage from the tasting rooms to, of course the gift shop. No photos of the gift shop but it was full of things you could spend your money on including Bourbon. For some reason it was only one brand though.

https://www.makersmark.com/

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Done for the day so back to Brookings KY hotel and then off to find some BBQ. A few shots of the road back.

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[ssicarman]

Next up we have a a few shots driving around Louisville and from a trolley tour we took of the city. Pretty much in the downtown area.

As we were told on the tour Louisville has the largest collection/amount of Victorian homes on the US.

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Got a bit lost looking around and ended up going north into Indiana for a bit before getting turned around and back into downtown Louisville.

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Parking found. Trolley tour tickets bought and wandering around waiting for the tour to start.

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Off we go on the trolley

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Looking across the river

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Victorian house with the stables in the back

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A pink house that used to a Gentleman's Club among other things apparently

http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/ky/pink_palace.htm

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Churchill Downs

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University of Louisville

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Downtown building

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[ssicarman]

Sadly it is now time to head home. If for the only reason we know the weather back home is a bit cooler than here in Kentucky.

Heading out of town.

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So many places to go. St Louis wins out.

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A very out of focus picture of the Arch as we pass through the city

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Over nighted in Kansas City. Another night of BBQ. Sadly no pictures of anything in Kansas City.

http://woodyardbbq.com/

Next morning north to hit South Dakota to go west
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I forget which state this was, I suspect South Dakota. It was wonderful to be able to burn up a lot of miles. At 80-85 MPH the fuel consumption was up but still ok ish. 85-90 not so much.

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Reasons 80 MPH is nice.

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Overnight in Chamberlain SD, seemed to be a nice town. Next morning west again with a damper day

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Getting closer to Wall and Wall Drug. I suspect we began to see the billboards for Wall Drug when we crossed into SD

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Getting close to the Black Hills

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Getting back into the western fall colours---yellow

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Mile 3, must be Montana

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Oh oh. Something brewing

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We seemed to skirt all the bad weather promised by the dark cloud which I did not mind

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Looks like those dark clouds did more than leave rain behind

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We overnighted on Great Falls. The weather was still OK, you could get away without a jacket. The next day we headed north into Canada. It felt like as soon as we crossed the border we hit snow. There was a fine white powder drifting across the highway. By the time we got into Lethbridge we had snow falling but not sticking. By the tme we got into Calgary........

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So end of the day driving. End of the trip. We enjoyed the trip but a bit to much driving for the amount of time taken. Also looking at the last bunch of pictures I begin to suspect that the camera is having focus issues.

Final cluster picture

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[XCovlov70]

Some nice shots in your last update!

We could do with some of that snow over here at the moment to reduce the 'human leaking' problem!

Thanks for sharing, we've enjoyed the trip!

[jesus10]

Welldone!