Kentucky Derby Museum and More

Last Monday we left Paducah and drove to Elkhorn Campground in Frankfort, Kentucky. We're here for a week to explore the Louisville, Lexington and Frankfort areas.

Yesterday we visited the Kentucky Derby Museum on the grounds of Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Admission was $15 which included a thirty minute guided tour of the grounds, an excellent eight minute movie, and two floors of museum exhibits.

The Churchill Downs facility is much bigger than I expected. Our tour guide Bob was full of interesting information. The first derby was held in 1875. The race has been run for 142 consecutive years starting the year before Custer's Last Stand.  The original track was founded in 1873 by Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr, the grandson of William Clark of the famous Lewis and Clark duo. He originally leased 80 acres of land from his uncles, Henry and John Churchill.

Names of the winning horses are displayed all along the buildings. Only three year old thoroughbreds are allowed to race each year with a field of a maximum of twenty horses. Therefore, a horse can only race once in its lifetime. Each year about 44,000 thoroughbreds are born in the world, so the top twenty are certainly an elite group.

Winners of the triple crown are in gold lettering with a crown. Only twelve horses have won the triple crown. Secretariat won the triple crown in 1973 and still holds the record winning time for each of the three races of the triple crown. When he died an autopsy was done, and it was found that his heart was three times larger than the average thoroughbred.

We saw the paddock area and the tunnel where the horses enter the track. The grandstands only hold about 55,000 spectators. Attendance has been around 170,000 the last few years. All of those extra people are spread around the grounds and in the infield area, where they stand the entire time.

There are actually fourteen races on derby day. The Kentucky Derby is the 12th race of the day. I can't imagine being jammed into that place for an entire day with all those people.  The track is 75% sand, and is a one mile oval, but the race is 1.25 miles long. So, the horses actually start .25 mile before the finish line and the portable starting gates are quickly moved out of the way as the winner will be thundering past in less than two minutes. The white pole in the picture below is the finish line.

There are over 1,200 betting windows as well as betting machines throughout the facility. We heard several estimates, but it sounds like at this track only, nearly $200 million dollars is bet on Kentucky Derby race day with about $25 million going just to the derby itself. All of these bets are cash only. Can you imagine the security needed for all of that money!!

The winner of the derby in 2016 was Nyquist. This statue is in the courtyard painted in the colors of the silks the jockey wore.

The movie in the museum was on a brand new state of the art 360 degree screen, the largest in the world. It was very informative and well done.

We saw lots of exhibits in the museum. One showed many of the hats worn by spectators. I thought this one was funny as it represents everything Kentucky from the Colonel to the bourbon to the roses to the horse on top. It had won a people's choice award.

We had our picture taken by a statue of Nyquist. The garland of roses presented to the owner of the winning horse has 564 roses. It is made by the Kroger floral department.

The average jockey is between 5'2" and 5'4" tall and weights 115 pounds. The jockey plus his saddle can not weigh over 126 pounds. They are weighed before the race and again after the race. If they lost weight during the race, they are disqualified.

This is done due to cheating in the past. It seems some jockeys would put lead pellets under their saddles and throw them out at the back side of the track where officials couldn't see them. Our guide suggested that's where the phrase "get the lead out" originated. The saddles are amazingly small.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Churchill Downs, and would recommend it if you are in the Louisville area. We continued our day south to see how close we could get to Fort Knox.  It's about 30 minutes south of Louisville on Hwy. 31W. Here's the view from along the highway.

We saw a sign for a visitor center and drove in. It turns out the center was for people who want to visit the Army base which Fort Knox is built on. Below is the view from the side.

I saw a documentary on the History Channel about Fort Knox last winter. The show was done in the 1960s and was the last time any film crew was allowed inside. It was very interesting. Did you know that during WWII, England sent the crown jewels by ship to Fort Knox to have them protected from the Nazis.

Another 30 minutes south of Fort Knox is the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park. We might as well go there, too. Lincoln's father bought a 300 acre farm in Kentucky for $200. Abraham Lincoln was born there in a small log cabin on February 12, 1809. There was a land dispute and the Lincolns had to move to another farm. They then moved to Indiana when Abe was seven years old. He never lived in Kentucky again.

A group of businessmen and citizens established the Lincoln Farm Association to raise money to preserve Lincoln's birthplace and establish a memorial in 1906 near the time of the 100th anniversary of the president's birth. They raised $350,000 from 100,000 citizens to build a memorial to house Abe's birth cabin. President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1909, and President Taft dedicated the marble and granite memorial in 1911.

There are 56 granite steps leading up to the memorial, one for each year of Lincoln's life. I was amazed at the size of this memorial in rural Kentucky. It was originally thought the cabin at this spot was the original cabin Abe was born in. It has since been established that it is not, but the cabin inside the memorial is a symbol of the cabin he was born in. It's size is 16 x 18 feet, which makes it a bit smaller than our RV.

So, our loop of a trip yesterday was almost 200 miles total. We saw a lot and really enjoyed the day. Stay tuned for more sightseeing in the days to come.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Kentucky Dam

Yesterday was forecast to be a warm sunny day, so we decided to take a drive to the Land Between the Lakes area about 25 miles from Paducah. The Woodlands Trace National Scenic Byway runs through the middle of the land between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley.

On the way, we saw a sign for the Kentucky Dam Visitor Center and decided to take a look. It turns out that after the great flood of 1937, the government decided to dam the Tennessee River in this area to control the continued devastating flooding. Creation of the dam formed Kentucky Lake. The Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River nearby created Lake Barkley. The 170,000 acre narrow strip of land between these two man made lakes formed The Land Between the Lakes recreation area. I never realized these lakes were man made. It makes sense as both of them are long and narrow, not the typical lakes we're used to seeing.

Kentucky dam was completed in 1948 and is the longest dam of nine on the Tennessee River. Creation of the dam and reservoir involved the purchase of over 300,000 acres of land and displacing 2,600 families.

A large platform was built at the bottom of the hill in the lake for fishing. We also saw quite a few fishing boats near the dam. Must be a good place to catch fish.

After visiting the dam, we continued to the scenic byway road. The Land Between the Lakes area has several places to visit including a 1850's living history farm, elk and bison prairie, planetarium and nature center. Each of these places has an entrance fee of $5 per adult. We weren't interested enough in any of them to pay the fee.

We did find a hiking trail through the woods to stretch our legs for a bit. It was just like hiking in the woods in many other places we've been, but a nice day to be outside and get some exercise.

We also stopped at Patti's Settlement in the town of Grand Rivers near the entrance of the Land Between the Lakes. It's an 1880's replica settlement. The buildings are very close together with lots of trees and foliage between them, so it was actually pretty hard to see what the buildings looked like other than the porches of each one. Lots of gift shops and restaurants; a typical tourist attraction. There was a nice gazebo where weddings are held. Miss Patti's Restaurant is famous for their two inch pork chop with special sauce; but at $24.99 per plate, we passed.

Fall foliage is just starting in this area. I think in a week or two the drive between the lakes would have been much prettier. It's pretty much just a wooded drive, so not really that much to see. There is plenty of primitive camping and boating opportunities; so if that's what you enjoy, it is probably a great place.

There are also some state parks in the area with many recreation opportunities. Back in 1990, we stayed in a very nice lodge at Lake Barkley State Park and played golf on their 18 hole golf course.

Today is a day of rest and football watching. Tomorrow we drive to Frankfort, Kentucky. We're there for a week and will be exploring Louisville, Lexington and Frankfort from that location.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

National Quilt Museum

Yesterday morning Kevin dropped me off at the National Quilt Museum in downtown Paducah, Kentucky. The museum is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. There are two large galleries with quilts on display. Periodically, displays are changed. For my visit, one of the rooms was quilts from a guild in New York, and the other was vintage quilt tops that had been rescued and quilted using modern long arm machines. It was an interesting blend of old with new.

There was a sign stating photos were not allowed to preserve the quilts. I had my cell phone camera without a flash, so I cheated and took two photos of quilts that I thought were spectacular. There were many amazing quilts, but the ones I liked the best were truly works of art made without using any type of pattern. The creativity and artistic talent of these quilters was inspirational and humbling.

This one was based on The Lord of the Rings. Most of the design is done using a technique called thread painting. Use of different colors of thread and detailed quilting creates the design on a solid colored piece of fabric. Amazing!

The Kentucky Derby quilt looked like a photograph. It was beautifully done with so much attention to detail. Breathtaking! My photo is a little blurry, but you can see how lifelike it looks.

I spent about an hour and a half at the museum, and enjoyed my visit. I wish there would have been more quilts on display.  Several beautiful stained glass windows were on display in the lobby. I loved that a double wedding ring quilt pattern was used to make this window.

An arrow on a sign pointed to a side room and a wooden quilt. I went into the room and looked for the wooden quilt. There was a beautiful quilt on the wall, but I couldn't find the wooden quilt. I thought maybe the quilt on the wall was a fabric replica of the wooden quilt. Upon reading the display information, I finally figured out I was looking at a quilt carved out of wood. I would have never believed it. It's made of bass wood and was amazing!

Lewis and Clark's expedition brought them to the Paducah area. This sculpture on the grounds of the quilt museum commemorates their arrival and interaction with the Native Americans. William Clark purchased the land where Paducah now stands in 1827 for $5.

I called Kevin when I was done at the museum, and he met me downtown. Paducah is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. Throughout it's history, there have been several devastating floods. After the flood of 1937 where the river crested at over 60 feet, the town built a 12.5 mile long flood wall to protect the downtown area. Part of the wall has murals painted on it depicting the history of the area. All the work was done by volunteers.

This mural depicts snapshots of some of the worst floods. Look closely at the top right corner. There is a cow that ended up on the second floor porch of a downtown building during the flood of 1937. The picture was featured in National Geographic.

Paducah's location on the rivers made it a busy shipping port. The railroad also played an important part in its history. Steam engines operated here until 1960 transporting coal and other goods. There was also a large shop here that built and repaired train engines. This train is on display next to the flood wall.

We stopped at the Kirchhoff's bakery for a delicious snack, and wandered around the downtown area. Our map showed two quilt shops. Unfortunately, one was closed until March and the other seems to have been torn down. I try to buy fabric from each state we stay in, but it is hard to find fabric specific to each state. Most of the time any state fabric is for the sports teams. I'm collecting fabric to make a quilt out of all 50 states once we've been to them all. I'm hoping I'll find something with horses on it in Lexington.

We discovered another microbrewery called Paducah Beer Werks. It opened in 2015 in the old Greyhound bus terminal. The sign on the outside reminded us of the Greyhound terminal in Milwaukee where the letters on the sign were BUS. Nice job converting an old building.

Kevin enjoyed a flight of five samples. I thought the bar top was really cool. It looked like the outside of old buses. The bartender told us there were over 70 coats of polyurethane on top of the metal.

On our way home, I spotted this church next to our campground. I love all the different sites we see in our travels. I looked up this church. It's their second location as they outgrew their original spot in the downtown area. All are welcome with no judgment on dress, length of hair or amount of tattoos. The music is rock with the words changed based on bible teachings. Sounds interesting.

Today we will continue our touring in The Land Between the Lakes area of Kentucky.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Paducah, Kentucky

We left Wisconsin on a beautiful sunny fall day on Monday and drove to Carlock, Illinois. We got there around 2:30 pm and checked in at Kamp Komfort RV Park. We like to keep our drives to between four and five hours a day, so this was a good place to stop.

We were checked in by a very nice lady. She gave us a long, full hook-up, level, pull through site near the back of the park. The park is beautifully maintained and landscaped. The only bad thing is it is right next to I-74 and the road noise is pretty bad. It was great for a night or two, but I wouldn't want to be there for an extended time.

As you have probably heard, the tiny house movement is becoming quite popular. I've watched the Tiny House show on HGTV a few times, and find them very interesting. We saw our first one in a campground at Kamp Komfort. Makes you wonder what their story is.

We left Carlock Wednesday morning and headed to Paducah, Kentucky. We had been in that area many years ago on a long weekend trip with our friends Jim and Sue. At that time, we had just bought our new conversion van and decided to take a road trip. We stayed at the lodge in Lake Barkley State Park in the Land Between the Lakes area. Little did we know that it was a dry county, so we drove to Paducah to purchase some libations.

There was quite a bit of construction on I-57 in Illinois and we were delayed over an hour and a half by all the slow downs. Along the way, we saw this gigantic cross. I'm not sure what it was for, as I didn't see a church near it.

We also saw this motorhome towing a travel trailer. Upon looking closer, Kevin noticed the license plate was a Texas in transit plate. I'm guessing they were being delivered somewhere. It did look kind of funny, though.

We're staying at Duck Creek RV Park. It's conveniently located to downtown Paducah and has all the amenities we need. A full hook-up, level pull-through site with a clear shot to the southern sky for a satellite signal. Other than that, it's pretty much a gravel parking lot. Not a destination park, but a good spot to stay while exploring.

Yesterday we ran some errands and took a walk in John Nolan Park. It's a large park in the city with a large fishing pond, some very nice playgrounds and a hiking/biking trail.  Some workers were putting up lots of large Christmas light displays. I'm guessing you can drive through the park and see all the lights when it's all done. Looks like it will be really awesome.

We stopped at the Dry Ground Brewing Co which was opened in 2014 in a former Coca-Cola bottling company. It's a beautiful building that's being restored and the brewery is in one corner of it.

The story goes that in 1937 the Ohio River flooded Paducah and the first bottling plant was submerged. The owner, Mr. Carson, used an empty syrup keg to float out of the second floor window to reach a rescue boat. He said if he ever reaches DRY GROUND, it is there that he would build a new bottling plant. In 1939 he celebrated the opening of his new facility located 31 blocks from the river across the street from the Red Cross evacuation site where he had been off-loaded following his rescue. Thus, the Dry Ground Brewing Co. Great story.

Kevin ordered a flight of six samples. I had a cranberry hard cider, which was quite good. Kevin says all the samples were good, but his favorite was the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Rapture. It's really amazing how many microbreweries are popping up all over the country. We are making an effort to search them out and help them stay in business :)

Today I'm going to check out the National Quilt Museum, and we'll do some exploring downtown. Unfortunately, some rain is predicted so we'll see how much exploring we accomplish. Today is also my mom's 79th birthday, so I'll be calling her later. She is in excellent health for her age and plans to live a long time. You go, Mom!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Finally On The Road Again

We are very fortunate to have found our summer jobs at Derge Park in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. It's a beautiful location, the campground is small and easy to manage, and most of the customers are great. But, after six months in one location, we are more than ready to be back on the road. After all, that was one of the main attractions to this full time RV lifestyle.

Our plan is to come back to our jobs at Derge Park for a few more years until we can fully retire, and then do some summer traveling as well. Time will tell how that works out.

Sunrise has been happening later as fall has arrived. I have witnessed some spectacular morning colors. Here is one from last week.

We've been quite busy the last few weeks taking care of errands and business before we leave Wisconsin for the winter and visiting with family and friends to say goodbye. We will be back for Christmas this year, so the time between seeing our family won't be that long.

On Thursday our friends Tim and Pam had us over for a farewell lunch. They have a home on the lake across the road from the park, and we've gotten to know them since we've been working here. Pam made a delicious lasagna, salad and garlic bread lunch. One of Tim's many hobbies is home brewing. He made Kevin a wheat home brew with special labels just for us.

You can see the picture of the truck and fifth wheel with the caption "Home is where you park it". The "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" is a heading on my blog. He gifted Kevin a 12 pack of the delicious brew. We are certainly lucky to have such generous friends. They are hoping to take a trip to Florida this winter, so we may be meeting up with them sometime in February or March.

I have reservations booked through October. It was surprising how busy campgrounds were as I started making our fall plans in August. Many of them have Halloween weekends, so they book up.

As we slowly head towards Florida, we will be staying in Bloomington, Illinois; Paducah and Frankfort, Kentucky; and Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee. That takes us through October. No firm plans for November yet, but will be making our way through Alabama and Mississippi. I want to do some exploring along the Natchez Parkway. We will most likely be spending some time in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Beginning December 1st, we have reservations at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Alabama for a month. January will find us in Fort Pierce, Florida; February in Naples and March in the Clearwater area and then slowly heading north to be back in Wisconsin for Easter.

If anyone has suggestions of things to see and do along our route, please let us know. We're looking forward to exploring some new areas for us.

The RV repair guy installed two new heating elements and a thermistor in our refrigerator, and that seems to have fixed our problem. We learned a great deal about how these refrigerators work, and are keeping our fingers crossed that the problem has been solved!!

I'm very much looking forward to new experiences and sites in the coming months, and will be blogging more often as I will hopefully have some fun and interesting adventures to share. Sitting stationary in one place for six months doesn't do much for my blogging mojo.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Madison Quilt Expo

On September 8th, I attended the Quilt Expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. This is the fourth time I've gone to this event. There are hundreds of vendors with quilt related items, as well as over 400 quilts people have submitted for judging. There are also numerous workshops and mini sessions to attend over the three day event.

I didn't attend any sessions, and I spent less than $40. That's very good.  Instead, I volunteered three hours in the display area to make sure people don't touch the quilts or eat or drink. I've done this before. I get free parking and admission and get to walk up and down the aisles and admire the amazing quilts. Here are a few that I really liked.

This one is such an optical illusion just in the way the squares are laid out and the use of color.

It's hard to really appreciate the next one from a picture. The horses are filled in with sewing and different thread colors. It's a technique called thread painting. I can't imagine the amount of hours and spools of thread used. And, what an amazing job! Very deserving of a blue ribbon.

This one was just so much fun! I love all the monsters and the border.  Click on the picture to enlarge.

The next three pictures are all the same quilt. The panels are attached like little tents. The first view is straight on which doesn't really look like anything.  The second view is from the left and the third view is from the right. I've seen this technique before, but find it very fascinating.

I walked over 13,000 steps that day, so not only did I really enjoy seeing all the quilts and vendors booths, but I got a lot of exercise.  Of course, there were so many outstanding pieces, I can't even begin to share them all. The ones above are just a few that caught my eye.

Things here at the park are winding down. We leave three weeks from tomorrow. We were nearly full this past weekend with very nice weather.

Our Norcold refrigerator has been acting up the last few weeks. A couple of times it has stopped working. If we shut it down and restart it a little while later, it comes back to life. There is a RV repair place in Beaver Dam, so Kevin stopped in to ask the guy if he did any mobile service. He doesn't, but it turns out Kevin knows the guy from his days in the automotive business, so he will do mobile service for us. Small world!

Because it is an intermittent problem, it's hard to diagnose. He talked to Norcold, and they feel it is the thermistor and/or heating elements. So, the parts have been ordered, and he will install them this week. Hopefully, this will solve the problem. Of course, we are four months out of warranty, so too bad for us!

Our weather has been above average and quite wet so far this month. Fall is definitely around the corner as some trees are starting to turn. I love this time of year.

We were going to go golfing today, but Kevin stepped wrong yesterday and sprained his ankle a bit. It's not super bad, but he needs to ice, rest and elevate it so it doesn't get worse. He has plans to golf with a friend on Tuesday, so hopefully, it will be better by then.  Bummer!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Bar Hopping With Eric

Well, I believe this was a first. It's not too often we go bar hopping with one of our kids.

In the past few years as we traveled west along Hwy. 151 in Wisconsin, we kept seeing billboards for The Grumpy Troll Brew Pub in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. On my way back from Nebraska a few weeks ago, I also noticed a sign for Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona, along the route to Mount Horeb.

So, this summer we decided on a day trip to explore both of these microbreweries. Eric was on vacation last week, so I invited him along. He arrived at our place on Thursday around noon, and we headed out. Mount Horeb is about an hour from our campground, and that was our first stop.

The Grumpy Troll is in a renovated old building. There was construction work being done on the side of the building. It looked like they were expanding their dining room. Kevin and Eric each had a flight of 5 beers. Each 4 ounce sample is $1.50. They both agreed that the beers were tasty. We also ordered deep fried white cheddar cheese curds and Grump chips, which were homemade potato chips. Both appetizers were good.

I had to laugh at one of the appetizer selections. It was an Uff Da pretzel served with a couple of different dipping sauces. Our daughter-in-law Cathryn is from Moorhead, Minnesota and is of Norwegian heritage. Once in a while she uses the phrase Uff Da, so this is for her :)

I'm not a beer drinker, but I ordered an apple hard cider brewed on site. It was okay, but didn't have enough apple flavor for my liking.

We had visited Mount Horeb several years ago, and I remembered lots of troll statues around the downtown area of town. Trolls are a big deal in this town. After leaving the pub, we drove around, but there weren't as many trolls as I remembered.

Our next stop was Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona along our route back home. This is a newer microbrewery in an industrial park with just a tap room for tasting. No food is sold, but customers are welcome to bring in their own food. We saw two groups that had brought in their own food.

Again, Kevin and Eric sampled four beers served in a clever holder shaped like Wisconsin. They were made of wood and for sale in the gift shop for $55.

At this point, my phone battery died so no more pictures. The guys both enjoyed their beers, and then we headed back home. As we skirted Madison, there was once again construction traffic to deal with. In our six years of full time RVing, we have traveled around Madison every year, and there is always construction. What a pain!

Kevin cooked brats on the grill for supper at Eric's request. Eric spent the night, we had a nice breakfast the next morning, and he went back home to enjoy the rest of his week off of work.

On Sunday my family came for a picnic. It was another warm and humid day. There have been so many humid days this summer. I'm looking forward to some crisp, fall days. The flies and bees were quite pesky, but we still had a good time.

This weekend is Labor Day Weekend, and the campground will be full. Three of the sites will be occupied by friends of ours. We're looking forward to a fun weekend with these long time friends.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!