Bardstown, Kentucky (day 2)

Turned out to be another beautiful blue sky day yesterday, although quite a bit cooler. High was around 58F ( 14C).

We asked if we could leave Sherman parked at the library while we walked downtown and they said that was fine. So we took Whiskey for a nice walk around the center area of Bardstown. It’s quite a nice little town, except that they are in the middle of renovating the roads and sidewalks in the core and so there’s a lot of construction going on.

When we got back to the library, we drove Sherman to the “My Old Kentucky Home State Park”, which was only a couple of miles away. They have a small campground, 32 RV sites and a tenting area. Cost was $20 for water and electric in the RV section, but we didn’t need either so we asked if we could park in the tenting area and they agreed and charged us $12. Again, there is nobody else around although by dusk there were about 8 sites taken in the RV section.

Took Whiskey for another walk after lunch. Across the road is the picnic area, and we thought they messed up because the picnic area should have been the campground. Further from the main raod and more area to have the sites spaced out. Somebody wasn’t thinking. We tried taking a trail off the picnic area, but it seemed to become a dead end and rather than try and hike our way through the brush we just turned around a took the trail back.

Whiskey was pretty tired by this point and was quite happy to keep Sherman company while Ruth and I rode our bicycles over to the Heaven Hills Bourbon Distillery. We knew it was close by, and it turned out to be less than a mile each way. We got in the entrance door and we were immediately sent off towards the theatre where a tour had only just began.

This distillery has been in operation since 1935, however there was a big fire in 1996 that destroyed the actual distillery building, so that is now done in Louisville and the product is then shipped to this location for storage and bottling.

There are nine of these storage buildings which were all built around 1971. They are now building two more. Each building contains 20,000 barrels of bourbon. Each barrel contains enough product for about 200 bottles.

The tour was free, and included two sample shots of bourbon. There were 17 of us in our group and we were led into the tasting area where each barstool had two glasses of bourbon and a little jug of water and a couple of tiny vials of testing product for your sense of smell. We then were taught how to properly process the taste and smell of the bourbon.

Considering it was free, this was a pretty good tour. Although I was a little disappointed that it didn’t include seeing the bottling plant. For that, you had to pay for the VIP tour which was $25 per person and you also got a couple of samples of premium bourbon.

Got back to Sherman, and Ruth did some baking while I puttered around outside giving Sherman a bit of a cleanup.

Watched the newest Robin Hood movie with Russell Crowe. Not bad, but we thought they could have picked a better Maid Marion!

It was a little cool last night. Temperature inside Sherman when we got up at 7am was only 46F (7C)! Had to put the furnace on for a bit.

Today, we are making our way to Mammoth Cave National Park which is only about 70 miles away along a scenic 2 lane road.

Doubt we’ll have any internet there, but you never know. So you may not hear from us again until Monday. I guess we’ll see!

October Fuel: $375.00
October Propane:
October Groceries: $258.79
October Booze: $99.98
October Overnight: $22.00
October Entertainment:

Here's an updated map since our last map...and includes today's drive to Mammoth Cave...