caves, bourbon and other such things from KY
So this weekend was utterly fantastic. there's so much to share, i'm a little lost on where to begin. most people in this situation would start at the beginning, but as i'm not exactly sure where that is in this story, i'm just going to start where i want and hopefully you all can figure out the rest.
Right...so here it goes.
Matt and Dan J. drove in from St. Louis this weekend and Mary drove in from Indy 'cause i had this great idea to go down to Mammoth Cave. We used to go all the time in grade school since it was only about an hour away from Elizabethtown where i used to live (and no, Orlando Bloom does not really live there and nor was the majority of that movie even filmed there which makes me mad, but that's a whole different story for another time). Then again, there wasn't much to do in E-town (as the natives called it) so we tended to go on the same field trips year after year. It was either Mammoth Cave or the science museum in Louisville. Anyway, i had not been back to Mammoth Cave since i graduated from 8th grade, but being the longest cave system in the world it is pretty cool and my brother confirmed this fact when he went this past summer with one of his friends from out of town. therefore, i decided to try and talk a few friends into coming to visit and road tripping down there with me. Thankfully i have cool friends who will do things like that. Plus i wasn't going to stop bothering them until someone said they were coming. ;) Originally there were supposed to be 6 of us, but a couple of conflicts came up at the last minute, so we were down to a more manageable 4 by this weekend. Thursday night i cleaned and made my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (since CSI was a repeat) since i had promised them baked goods from our new kitchen. I attempted to make the lasagna Thursday night too...but the lids on that jars of sauce refused to open, it was late at night so i couldn't bang them around, plus i just had this horrific vision of the jars shattering and sauce and glass going everywhere so i postponed the actually lasagna construction until i got home from work on Friday night. My mom couldn't open the jars of sauce either, but thankfully my brother was home and he has a lot of upper arm strength so he finally got them open and the lasagna was saved. Matt and Dan arrived around 7:15 and i did a graceful nose dive on the slick driveway when i went to go greet them (stupid Death Rain). The lasagna was well received by all. Mary showed up a little before 8 so we ate muffins and then watched the beginning of the World Series game. - go Cards! - This got a little old after a while so Dan, Mary and I went out to get Grater's and beer. yes, ice cream and beer...classy i know, but it worked well as our little snack while we watched the Cards trounce the Tigers in the rest of the game. The Cards are the Champions of the World! Hoot, hoot!
Saturday we were up and gone by 7 AM (EST) after going to bed around midnight and headed down to Mammoth Cave. The boys slept the whole way down while Mary and I caught up and admired the fall foliage. We arrived in Cave City (which has Dinosaur World, and the largest concentration of putt-putt golf courses, and rock and gun souviener shops that i have ever seen) a little before 10 (EST), which was 9 AM 'cause Cave City is in Central time, so we really arrived just as the first tours were leaving. We toured the gift shop and the store with petty stuff (it was supposed to say pretty, but the "r" had fallen off the sign) and then went on the Frozen Niagra Tour, which, admitted, does have quite a few steps and running water and the whole "frozen Niagra" monkier really has nothing to do with water at all. and there were bugs. and bats. and tour guides with really bad jokes. but on the whole was quite fun. then we ate lunch, walked the trails a little and consulted Tom-Tom. We tried to find the Maker's Mark distillery, but we found the Heaven Hill one instead, but it worked out ok since they made bourbon too. our tour guide who looked and sounded like a tipsy Paula Dean, was quite amusing (and had had a couple of samples already). I got to try bourbon for the first time while sitting in a room shaped like a giant barrel. Good times, good times.
From there we drove up to Newport on the Levee for dinner at the Turkish resturant. We walked the Purple People Bridge (the bottom where it is free, not the top where you have to pay) to Cincinnati and then back again. Then it was off to Haufbrau Haus for some german culture and the boys got some very large beers. Then it was home again. A good day, but a very long one. thank God it was time change weekend - i really used that extra hour of sleep!
Sunday Dan made chocolate chip pancakes and the boys left around 10 to head back to STL. Mary left about an hour later and then all was quiet again. My dad and i ran errands and the rest of the day was pretty low key after that. thankfully Mary and I are attempting to plan a trip to IU sometime before Thanksgiving so my next road trip is not too far off. I so heart my friends who come visit.
Right...so here it goes.
Matt and Dan J. drove in from St. Louis this weekend and Mary drove in from Indy 'cause i had this great idea to go down to Mammoth Cave. We used to go all the time in grade school since it was only about an hour away from Elizabethtown where i used to live (and no, Orlando Bloom does not really live there and nor was the majority of that movie even filmed there which makes me mad, but that's a whole different story for another time). Then again, there wasn't much to do in E-town (as the natives called it) so we tended to go on the same field trips year after year. It was either Mammoth Cave or the science museum in Louisville. Anyway, i had not been back to Mammoth Cave since i graduated from 8th grade, but being the longest cave system in the world it is pretty cool and my brother confirmed this fact when he went this past summer with one of his friends from out of town. therefore, i decided to try and talk a few friends into coming to visit and road tripping down there with me. Thankfully i have cool friends who will do things like that. Plus i wasn't going to stop bothering them until someone said they were coming. ;) Originally there were supposed to be 6 of us, but a couple of conflicts came up at the last minute, so we were down to a more manageable 4 by this weekend. Thursday night i cleaned and made my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (since CSI was a repeat) since i had promised them baked goods from our new kitchen. I attempted to make the lasagna Thursday night too...but the lids on that jars of sauce refused to open, it was late at night so i couldn't bang them around, plus i just had this horrific vision of the jars shattering and sauce and glass going everywhere so i postponed the actually lasagna construction until i got home from work on Friday night. My mom couldn't open the jars of sauce either, but thankfully my brother was home and he has a lot of upper arm strength so he finally got them open and the lasagna was saved. Matt and Dan arrived around 7:15 and i did a graceful nose dive on the slick driveway when i went to go greet them (stupid Death Rain). The lasagna was well received by all. Mary showed up a little before 8 so we ate muffins and then watched the beginning of the World Series game. - go Cards! - This got a little old after a while so Dan, Mary and I went out to get Grater's and beer. yes, ice cream and beer...classy i know, but it worked well as our little snack while we watched the Cards trounce the Tigers in the rest of the game. The Cards are the Champions of the World! Hoot, hoot!
Saturday we were up and gone by 7 AM (EST) after going to bed around midnight and headed down to Mammoth Cave. The boys slept the whole way down while Mary and I caught up and admired the fall foliage. We arrived in Cave City (which has Dinosaur World, and the largest concentration of putt-putt golf courses, and rock and gun souviener shops that i have ever seen) a little before 10 (EST), which was 9 AM 'cause Cave City is in Central time, so we really arrived just as the first tours were leaving. We toured the gift shop and the store with petty stuff (it was supposed to say pretty, but the "r" had fallen off the sign) and then went on the Frozen Niagra Tour, which, admitted, does have quite a few steps and running water and the whole "frozen Niagra" monkier really has nothing to do with water at all. and there were bugs. and bats. and tour guides with really bad jokes. but on the whole was quite fun. then we ate lunch, walked the trails a little and consulted Tom-Tom. We tried to find the Maker's Mark distillery, but we found the Heaven Hill one instead, but it worked out ok since they made bourbon too. our tour guide who looked and sounded like a tipsy Paula Dean, was quite amusing (and had had a couple of samples already). I got to try bourbon for the first time while sitting in a room shaped like a giant barrel. Good times, good times.
From there we drove up to Newport on the Levee for dinner at the Turkish resturant. We walked the Purple People Bridge (the bottom where it is free, not the top where you have to pay) to Cincinnati and then back again. Then it was off to Haufbrau Haus for some german culture and the boys got some very large beers. Then it was home again. A good day, but a very long one. thank God it was time change weekend - i really used that extra hour of sleep!
Sunday Dan made chocolate chip pancakes and the boys left around 10 to head back to STL. Mary left about an hour later and then all was quiet again. My dad and i ran errands and the rest of the day was pretty low key after that. thankfully Mary and I are attempting to plan a trip to IU sometime before Thanksgiving so my next road trip is not too far off. I so heart my friends who come visit.