The area around Lexington has two main exports: thoroughbred horses and bourbon. We decided to spend the day visiting the second of these, as we are more likely to consume that product in the future (1).

There is a marketing group of distilleries which together run the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Which is really not much more than a list of distilleries grouped near each other. I looked at the group near Lexington and chose three to visit. Then our schedule (2) wound up with us being in Lexington on Sunday, when all the distilleries run shortened tour hours. Then I thought none of the tours required reservations, when it turned out that several do. So the end of all of this is that we wound up visiting two distillaries today rather than the three we had intended. Which, in turn, wound up being perfect.

The first stop was Wild Turkey. $11 per person for a one hour tour, including a tasting of four varieties. The tour guide was mediocre, the tour was superficial, and the bourbon was just okay.

The second stop was Buffalo Trace. Free. Caleb, our guide was excellent. No reservations, first come, first served. The tour was 90 minutes, Very detailed, with losts of questions and answers. The tasting yielded two drinks Sally liked, plus chocolate candy chasers.

I think I mentioned the other day that this hotel chain – 21C Museum Hotels – is serious about their art. Here are a few samples from the Lexington branch.

We finished off the day with a great steak dinner at Tony’s, a few blocks from the hotel.

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(1) The last time either Sally or I was on a horse was in college, when we took horseback riding to meet half of our PhysEd requirement. It didn’t end well.

(2) Many of you know that we rescheduled this trip from the spring, which resulted in the days we are in certain spots becoming suboptimal. But all is good.

Saturday we took a long drive to Lexington, the heart of horse racing and bourbon in Kentucky. As we knew, this trip involves more and longer drives than our previous ones, because as we’ve experienced the places closer to home we need to drive further to see new stuff. This drive was 280 miles, and took us almost five hours including a stop at our new favorite fast food place, Sheetz (1).

We’re staying at the 21C Museum Hotel. Their deal is that they actually have art galleries in their public spaces, and the exhibit at the exhibition hotel was very enjoyable. The hotel itself is very modern and streamlined compared to the country inns we were in for the last two stops.

After dinner, we walked around a bit and came across a Latino Festival around the block from our hotel. Music, food, people in costume, etc.

Sunday morning I went for an early walk. Saying the city was quiet is an understatement.

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(1) I mentioned the other day I had no idea what the name Sheetz means. I now know: the chain was started by Bob Sheetz in 1952.

We left our little Inn after a hearty family-style breakfast with our new friends from last night. The innkeepers served a full breakfast, but you got what they made – in this case, a cheese omelette, sausage, fried potatoes, English muffin, a pear swimming in sweet cream, etc. While it wasn’t to our taste, everyone else seemed to like it.

On our way, we made a quick stop in Harper’s Ferry, another historically significant location about 20 minutes from the Inn. Harper’s Ferry is where the abolitionist John Brown attacked a US armory, and was ultimately captured by an Army unit headed by Colonel Robert E. Lee. Today it’s a National Monument and a restored village, which is very cute. Unfortunately, the weather continued to not cooperate and we left after about 30 minutes, as it was drizzling.

But not before Sally scored some retro candies in a retro candy shop.

The trip down to Lewisberg, WV was pretty much all interstates. About 3/4 was heading south on I-81, which was chock full of trailer trucks. Several of the drivers didn’t seem quite in control of their rigs, moving in what seemed to be an uncontrolled fashion across their lane. This made me pretty nervous, and I kept my distance as much as possible. Then we headed west on I-64, which took us across the mountains, was much more picturesque, and had almost no trucks.

Lewisberg is the self-proclaimed “cutest town in America”, and all four blocks are indeed cute. Our hotel, the Historic General Lewis Inn, is shabbily elegant. Which is to say, it was probably very nice 150 years ago, but could definitely use an update. The bathroom in our room is definitely smaller than the one on our cruise ship last year (1). The electrical wiring is all surface mounted on the walls, as the rooms didn’t have outlets when it was built.

And it goes without saying that there were stairs. Many stairs.

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(1) Sally insists that the hotel was built without en suite baths, and our bathroom was originally a closet. I can’t argue with that.

Today we drove about 270 miles down here to Maryland. When I selected this place to stop, I was trying to find towns along the way to Lexington, KY to break up the drive, but it turns out this is where the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest Battle of the Civil War, was fought 156 years ago this weekend. About 87,000 Union and 38,000 Confederate soldiers fought here, and 23,000 of them died on September 17, 1862.

More about that later.

As I mentioned previously, we packed a little differently on this trip, making an attempt to isolate some stuff that can live in the car. For this first stop, at least, it worked – I carried less, and less heavy, stuff up the flight of stairs to our room (1). It remains to be seen if this organization deteriorates over time.

We pulled off the road for lunch and found a chain we have never heard of before, Sheetz (2). It’s a gas station, convenience store, and restaurant. You order on touch screens, and can extensively customize your order: we got turkey subs, and chose bread type, quantity of meat, size of sandwich, toppings, spreads, dressing, etc. The food was tasty and fresh.

We’re staying here one night at the Antietam Overlook Farm, and it indeed overlooks the National Battlefield. We did the driving tour this afternoon, and unfortunately the on-and-off rain made it less enjoyable (?) than otherwise (3). “Enjoyable” is a difficult word here, as we were where 23,000 men – almost 1 in 5 – died in a few hours. This battle was a tragedy of errors on both sides. Apparently, Lee attacked because he thought the Union army was smaller and in poor shape; in reality, they were in better shape than his army. Similarly, McClelland was tentative in pursuing Lee before and after the battle because he thought the Confederates had more men than they actually did. Lincoln fired McClelland for failing to finish off Lee, which could have shortened the entire war.

I only took a few pictures there, because (a) the weather was bad, and (b) all you see are grassy fields and trees, with monuments to the various Northern units that fought there. It’s only reading about what went on that you begin to appreciate it.

As you drive around, you see the spots where various fights occurred. It’s hard to picture these poor men dying at a rate of 32 per minute. Of course, the big shots back in Washington and Richmond were not in any immediate danger – but isn’t that always the way of war? The old fools make the war, and the poor and young die.

It’s clear to me, at least, that the old fools running the Confederacy were wrong for so many reasons – chief among them, that they were sending their own youth to die so they could continue to enslave other human beings. But were the old fools in Washington right? They were fighting primarily to prevent the southern states from leaving the Union; slavery – at least in the South – was something they had long acceeded to. Was it worth 620,000 American soldiers’ lives to keep the idea of the United States alive?

In any event, 156 years after the Battle, we’re staying at a lovely little inn.

We had a great dinner at the Bavarian Inn, just across the Potomic River in West Virginia. It was the first time in WV for either Sally or me. We ate in the Ratskeller downstairs rather than the fancy, white tablecloth restaurant upstairs.

When we returned to the Inn after dinner, we found the five other guests sitting in the lounge chatting and enjoying an after-dinner drink. We joined them and we all chatted about retirement, traveling and grandchildren. Very pleasant.

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(1) Our rooms are never on the main level. And these small places never have elevators or luggage porters.

(2) I’m not sure what the name is all about, but they play with it on the menu: you can get “burgerz”, “wingz”, etc.

(3) I seem to recall the weather was equally poor when we toured Gettysburg 12 years ago.