Monthly Archives: October 2018

Something We’ve Never Done Before! A Tour of a Distillery.

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Before we left Bardstown Kentucky on Friday morning, we decided to check out the Distillery that our Camp Ground Host told us about. The little map that he provided was a bit confusing so it took us a half hour or so to find the Barton 1792 Distillery, best known for its Bourbon.

I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy such a tour, but it was really fascinating. I wish I could remember all that our wonderful guide, Katie, told us. I can’t but I’ll share what I remember, with some of the many pictures we took.

We waited in the gift shop for the tour to begin.

A few facts Katie shared about the production of Bourbon:

  1. It is made from mostly corn, mixed with some barley and rye.
  2. It has to be 51% corn to be called Bourbon.
  3. It can be made and bottled as Bourbon only in the US because of trademark

We walked over to the productions buildings where Katie explained much along the way. She showed us samples of the ground corn, barley and rye that was used to make the mash (starting process) and we had a peek in to see the Masher, but it was too noisy to go inside.

She told us of the strict rules for acceptance of corn from the farmers, and how it is brought in and emptied from the bottom of the trucks into the bins below the ground.

Next stop was a Ricker, the building where the barrels of brew are stored to age. They have 27 of these buildings, and they hold between seventeen and twenty thousands barrels each! Here we were able to take a sniff of a few barrels to see if we could discern a different aroma. Because all barrels aren’t exactly alike inside, the aroma and flavour differs. The barrels are charred inside to allow the liquid to absorb the flavour of the wood better. The barrels are used only once for Bourbon, but can be used once more to make Brandy.

From there we went into the Distillery, where we had to climb two flights of steep stairs. At the top was a hydrometer that measures the specific gravity of liquid to determine the alcohol content. It must be at a 125 before it is put into the barrels to age. We were given a chance to sip a sample that was a higher content. At first I declined, but my scratchy throat made me give it a try. It helped! Going down the stairs might have been a little more challenging!

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After that we went back to the Gift Shop for some taste-testing of finished products, Bourbon on it’s own, Bourbon paired with dark chocolates, and Bourbon Egg Nog.

If you get a chance to do one of these tours, do it. You’ll find it very interesting, whether you drink the stuff or not.

By the time we were finished the tour and taste-testing, it was lunch time. We drove back to the highway to the Walmart to get a few groceries and picked up a couple of Wraps to eat on the road. We wanted to get to Nashville before dark.

While Jim drove, I booked a site at the Nashville North KOA, one we’d stayed in on our last visit to Nashville. I was disappointed to learn that the Shuttle Bus no longer transports people from there to the Grand Ole Opry, something Jim wanted to attend again. But we were assured that we could get an Uber or a Lyft ride. I called the Opry and secured us two tickets for the evening show, way up high again, but still good.

I thought we’d have to rush to get ready after we arrived at the KOA, but then realized we’d gone through a time-zone change, so we had an extra hour. That was good because our neighbour wanted to chat. And the Lyft driver was forty minutes early so I did have to rush to finish dressing once we got that warning! We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our tickets and get a bite to eat at the outdoor BBQ truck and sit on the patio to eat. We even had some time to wander through the Gift Shop. We had to climb three flights of stairs to get to our seats, but that exercise did me good.

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I have to admit, again, that I wasn’t familiar with many of the performers, but they were fun to listen to. Some gave us some chuckles too. I still think that Mario Carboni belongs on that stage!

Carlene Carter
Cale Dodds
Gary Mule Deer

When we got home at 10:00 we had great internet reception, so I just had to finish my first blog post and get it published! I wished I could stay up all night and get caught up on the lot, but as it was I stayed up too late and had trouble sleeping.

It was a very busy few days. Saturday and Sunday we spent on the road. The Mount Pleasant KOA was our first stop in Texas and I enjoyed having good internet to get caught up with my blogging.

Sadly, I didn’t have enough time to publish this one, and it’s been three days since we’ve had WiFi.

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A Modern Day Noah’s Ark

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Thursday, Day Four didn’t get us very far, but that was by choice. After breakfast at another Cracker Barrel, we drove for another fifteen minutes to the popular themed attraction that was the reason for the campgrounds being full – Ark Encounter. Friends had told us about seeing it, so we thought we’d take a look.

This mammoth wooden Ark, built to the size mentioned in the Bible – 510 ft. long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high, sits high up on supports on a hill, outside Williamstown, Kentucky. It’s said to be the biggest timber-frame structure in the world, and for the price of $38 each, we got to do the tour through exhibitions and videos.

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The gardens on the way inside were beautiful, completed with some animals.

Inside the bow.

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It was interesting. I was relieved to learn that the “animals” in the many cages are not real, but created with 3-D computer sculpting, as are the animated people at the various stations. There are recorded sound effects, and voices.

Animals Two by Two

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Small Animal Cages
Urns of Feed
Animals divided by Kind
Larger Animal Cages
Dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs??

There were a few live animals in an open area.

Family life aboard the Ark

Bird Cages
Noah coaxing a bird back
Preparing dinner
Supplies for over a year

There are three decks.

Looking Up
Looking down

The work put into it is really quite amazing.

I found it to be a good glimpse into what life was possibly like so many years ago, but the brochure states: “all three decks of the Ark are full of state-of-the-art exhibits that will amaze and inspire you to think differently about the biblical account of Noah’s ark.” I have to agree with this statement, but my different feeling probably isn’t what the creator of Ark Encounter had in mind. I felt that the videos that tried to convince us that everything in the Bible is true, confirmed as being the absolute and only truth, were propaganda, an attempt to create a profitable theme park.

That might be just my opinion, but I saw few people looking very revered as they strolled through the exhibits.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has been on the tour. Tell me how it made you feel.

When the tour was over, we were ready for the delicious buffet meal at the onsite restaurant. It was huge, fresh and inexpensive. And there were more beautiful gardens on the other side!

New Adventures to Spice-up Our Annual Journey to Arizona

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We’re off again! That summer sure slipped by!

We must be slowing down in our old age. Despite dropping some things off at the motor home several times on our way by during the last couple of weeks, it still took us the better part of three days to load everything else that we (thought?) we needed once we had it parked outside the Condo building. By the time we were finally on the road at 11:30 on Monday morning, I think we were already tired. The rainy weather didn’t help to lift our spirits, and it turned out to be not a good day.

The driver side windshield wiper wasn’t hitting where it should, so when we reached Cobourg, twenty-five kilometers down the road, Jim felt he needed to purchase a new blade and install it. We were barely out on the highway again when I heard a thump and looked back to see the fridge door swinging open! That had happened once on our way home in the spring, but it was on a very bumpy road and it was forgotten about. Unlike the dual refrigerators meant for RVs, our newer house model didn’t come with any sort of locking system other than the suction seal. I managed to find some pieces of Velcro and secure it. An hour or so later, Jim was in need of coffee so we made a quick stop and got going in earnest.

A couple of hours later found us in the middle of rush-hour traffic going through Toronto, when traffic suddenly slowed to a stop and Jim had to brake very hard. The cars ahead of us loomed closer and closer. I saw Jim downshift and, fortunately, was able to make a quick lane-change to the left. Whew. He told me once it was over that the brakes had gone soft after the initial push. The rest of the way through the traffic he drove much more slowly and kept his hand on the gear shift, downshifting at the first sign of a traffic stop. It was already 4:15. We stopped to get brake fluid and that seemed to help a little.

There was no way we would make it to the US border before dark then, so we called Jim’s cousin, Marjorie and her husband Dave,  who had accommodated us on our way last year, and asked if we could once again park in their driveway. Of course we could. We stopped to pick up sandwiches. We arrived at Glencoe at 7:00 pm, just as the sun was setting.

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The rain had stopped somewhere along the way, but we hadn’t really noticed. It was a beautiful sunset, but then the temperature tumbled. We had a visit with Marjorie and Dave and then crawled into our cold bed. Jim discovered he’d forgotten the extension cord that he uses for his CPAP, so had to improvise. Last year, if the batteries were well charged before we went to bed, the inverter would keep them running for the night. But, of course, that wasn’t to be that night. Jim had to get up twice to turn on the generator. It was a long and stressful night.

In the morning, Dave made some calls and found a mechanic who could get us in to diagnose and fix the brake problem right away. After breakfast we said our thanks and goodbyes. When we got to the shop we had to wait for them to finish up another job before they could look at ours. The diagnosis was a blown brake line! It could have been worse. They set to work replacing it. Because the other one showed some signs of rust they recommended that be replaced too. Lunch time came and they took their break. We sat in the motor home reading. We had only snack food to eat without any electricity to even heat a bowl of soup. At 2:30 the job was done and it cost much less than we’d expected. At last, some good news.

An hour and a half later we were rocking with the waves of Lake St. Clair, on the little Walpole Ferry to Michigan.

 

Upon arrival, because we couldn’t fit through the scanner, we were told we’d have to wait in the office while they did a manual search. Hunger was making me fidgety and the one male officer was watching me. Maybe he thought I was nervous about something, but we had nothing to hide and we were soon on our way. I couldn’t help but notice the picture of a very stern-looking President Trump staring down upon us while we waited.

We stopped at the first place that we saw that served food – Hungry Howie’s. It was take-out only so we ordered a pizza and ate it in the motor home. We would have loved to just crawl into bed and stay there for the night, but we drove on for another hour then stopped for gas, picked up a couple of things at Walmart and hunkered down for the night. Our propane tank was empty by then, so we had to haul out one of our portable ones and hook it up so we’d have heat.

Day Three Brings Relief

We were up at six the next morning and waiting at the door for Bob Evan’s to open a half hour later. A big breakfast of Eggs Benedict got us off to a good start to the day. And except for a detour around Detroit that cost us some extra time, it was a very good day. We were in Ohio before noon and stopped for an early lunch at the Cracker Barrel. We were in Kentucky by 3:00 and looking forward to staying in our first Campground with propane, electricity and water. We hadn’t had a shower since we’d left home. But Oak Creek Camping was full, as were a couple of others in the area. We thought we would be stuck at the nearby Flying J truck stop. Then, a very nice man named Larry offered to let us connect to his electricity if we wanted to dry-camp at the empty space next to him. The office agreed. We could also get propane at the Flying J, and showers, and dinner! It worked out well after all.

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Piecing Together Memories and a Quilt

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If all goes according to plan, we will be leaving for Arizona one week from tomorrow. I haven’t had anything new to write about for the past month because, other than visiting family, we’ve been staying close to home. And because, I have to admit, I just didn’t feel much like writing, anything.

What I have been doing, besides playing pickle ball and ukulele,  is trying to piece together some quilt blocks using some of the many pieces of fabric and a few completed blocks that my mother had left from her years of making her whole family at least one, if not two, beautiful old-style quilts. I remember some of the fabric as being left-over from some of the clothes that she, or I, had made for me or my children.

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I’ve done a lot of sewing myself since I first learned in high school, but my only attempt at quilting was a small patchwork wall hanging that I made for my daughter, featuring a picture of some of her pottery, when she graduated from Kootenay School of Arts more than ten years ago.

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So last winter I took what I had down to Arizona and a friend, who is a master of making quilts, helped me decide what I could do with what I had. I would need some more fabric to balance out the pieces that Mom had, and she took me shopping for that. Next, I bought myself an inexpensive sewing machine (I hadn’t taken mine with me) and the necessary cutting and measuring tools. But then, we both got busy with our own lives and I spent only a few hours sorting the pieces.

A couple of months ago Jim finished off an area for me to use as a sewing room in our basement storage area, and I finally got to work. But it’s been a challenge. The blocks that Mom had made were a combination of squares and triangles. My friend measured the squares and figured out what size square I’d have to make to create more triangles to go with them, allowing for the joining seam,

I thought I had it all figured out. Starting with pieces that Mom had already cut, I put together my first block. Sadly, it was smaller than the blocks that Mom had. I looked more closely at Mom’s and discovered that she’d used a much smaller seam allowance! I took it all apart and redid it, using the same smaller seam. That made only a little difference! Frustrated I left it for a week or so, thinking about it.

I finally went back and took one of Mom’s blocks apart to see what the difference was. I learned that her triangles weren’t true triangles, and they were actually smaller than what I’d expected. But some of her squares were bigger. I wondered how she’d managed to put together those decent looking blocks, and why nothing was exact.

Eventually it occurred to me that, from the evidence of the pen outlines on the pieces of squares and triangles, Mom had drawn out each piece before cutting it. She must have made herself a pattern. I have no idea how she figured out what size triangles she needed, but she must have adjusted the edges to match the edge of the square that she had to sew them to.

I trimmed the squares that needed to be; I could do nothing about the triangles and I couldn’t replace them because I had none of the whole pieces of fabric, so I made a pattern to match Mom’s so any new ones would be the same, and I adjusted the best that I could. I put Mom’s block back together, and put together a new one, using the same seam allowance for both. I was thrilled to find that they both came out pretty close to the same size and alignment, needing only a little trimming. However, they were smaller than the originals. I’ve had to adjust the other three completed blocks to match, and I’ve started putting new ones together.

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More adjustments need to be made along the way. It will be a slow process to complete this quilt, but I feel that I need to do it. It is teaching me much more than just how to create quilt blocks.

It has given me a new understanding and admiration for my mother. When I think about it, I know why she didn’t get the triangles and squares all conformed; I know why her triangles were not right-angle triangles. When my mother was in school, back in the early 1900’s, complicated math didn’t exist in elementary school. In fact, it didn’t exist in elementary school when I attended either. Arithmetic, which consisted of learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide, was what we learned. Like so many girls, and many men of Mom’s era, she never got to go to high school. She never learned geometry. She never knew anything about triangles or equal sided squares.

So how did she learn to piece together quilts? She must have learned from her grandmother (who raised her after her mother died), who learned from her mother. I’ll bet they all had cardboard or newspaper patterns that might have been passed down through the generations, and possibly grew smaller or misshapen over the years.

Mom, you would be blown away if you could see the amazing quilts being made today!

 

But, you may or may not be impressed to know that they are mostly done with the help of machines, not hand-stitched at quilting bees as yours were.