Louisville, KY

Well, we got a slow start leaving from Bardstown, KY, on Sunday morning...but we managed to hit the last stop on the Bourbon Trail -- Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. Now this is a large operation. While some of the other distilleries were quaint in their smallness and such, Jim Beam is impressive in its scale and the entire campus smells of bourbon...yum. We were offered a tasting of two of their bourbons. The first was the Jim Beam Devil's Cut, a bourbon made by extracting the bourbon trapped in the barrel wood after aging for 6 years and then blending it with another bourbon. Very strong and described as a mixing rather than sipping bourbon, so this one could be used in place lighter fluid. Jus' sayin'. The second bourbon we tried is the only one on our entire trip I could actually imagine drinking again on purpose. It's Red Stag by Jim Beam, a bourbon infused with black cherry flavor. Ken thought it was too sweet and I imagine most bourbon drinkers would agree with him, but at least I found one I enjoyed a bit...and, hey, Kid Rock shills this stuff. How bad could it be?

Next we pointed the RV toward the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. There is a GIANT bat at their front door, which looks kind of funny in the middle of a very pretty downtown Louisville. The tour of the factory was great and we even got to watch the lathe making some major league Louisville Slugger bats! At the end of the tour, they gave us each a souvenir bat to beat each other with! It's been great! Here's Ken hitting the largest baseball I've ever seen...by the way, it says "Kentucky Mirror and Plate Glass" on that baseball.

Rookie mistake #5: Spending the night without air conditioning parked at a gas station lit up like a baseball diamond with the unending sounds of trucks and other motorists all around the RV will result in a poor night of sleep. Jus' sayin'.