Finally strung together the footage from our bike trip through Kentucky Bourbon country. Enjoy!

One of the adventurous things I've been a lot better at this summer is exploring the parks around my area. Lola and I went hiking on three consecutive weekends at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and it is definitely a favorite activity for both of us.  I had been on the gravel Towpath a few times, but never the dirt, wilderness paths before our first excursion.
The first time out we checked out the Oak Hill and Plateau Trails for a 5.27 mile roundtrip.

The second time out we parked at the Stanford House and to Brandywine Falls and back. The bridge to connect to the Brandywine Gorge Trail was out, but Lola took full advantage of the short stop to take a nice break and swim in the stream. We logged 4.3 miles on the day.

Our most recent hike started at Kendall Lake. We took the Cross Country Trail, connected to the Salt Run Trail, then took the Lake Trail back to the parking lot. This route had it all - ponds, streams, woods and meadows for a total of 6.56 miles.

We've checked off a lot of the CVNP trails in just three trips. Looks like the weather will be nice again this weekend and some more hiking will be in store!

Four Roses was another very old company, and the main distillery building was a National Historic Landmark. It had a completely different look, with Spanish-style buildings that the original owners fell in love with when they visited California a long time ago. (click the pictures below to enlarge!)

We headed out from Four Roses to get to our last destination of the trip: Woodford Reserve. It was 8 miles to Wild Turkey then another 11 on to Woodford Reserve. We stopped at Wild Turkey and called Hank to pick us up for a few reasons: the long rest made our legs incredibly stiff; the hot midday sun was now beating down; and Woodford's last tour of the day was at 3pm and we wouldn't have made it in time if we biked the whole way. As it was, we ran into the building just as the final tour was called to line up and ready to depart...we made it just in time! Woodford Reserve contained beautiful, old limestone buildings that referenced back to the original owner's Irish heritage. We were so lucky we made this tour because we finally got to see a distillery during production! All were shut down for a few weeks as they normally do in the hottest summer months, so Woodford was the only one where we got to see the whole bourbon-making process at work. It is also the only bourbon distillery that uses a triple-distilled process, as you can see with the three, big, copper distillers below.

Our bourbon bike trip was now complete! We stopped shortly down the road to eat and change, then drove back to Kent and back to reality. In all we biked 75 miles in two days over terrain that none of us ever wish to embark on again! We were able to visit six distilleries and add in some other historical stops along the way. As someone who hates the taste of bourbon and whiskey, I would still highly recommend a weekend trip on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail to anyone! It is a fascinating process rich in history and tradition, and can only be truly and fully experienced here in central Kentucky in the United States. I hope you all enjoyed the recap of the trip. I'm working on a video and should have that up soon! Stay tuned for more adventures and trips along the way...as always, thanks for reading!

I have to start the day 2 post by saying that Friday's ride was probably the most physically exhausting and difficult thing we have done in our memory.  The Kentucky hills are so brutal! And we had climbed some big ones! So, with a lot of debate and conversation, we eventually decided to hang up our bikes for the day and let our bodies rest before riding again on Sunday.  It worked out well, because we were able to add in another distillery visit and get one we had planned for Sunday out of the way, which left us time to do more tours than we originally had planned.

Wild Turkey was one of my favorites because, of course, its name and logo. It was also really neat for me to see that the company had these old ceramic collectable decanters on display. My grandparents have had these at their bar forever, and I never really knew what they were. I definitely see them with more value now that I've learned more about them and have visited the distillery.

Bubba was our tour guide at Wild Turkey, and he was also great! It truly was hard to find a bad tour guide at any of the places we visited. A bonus at this stop was that I even got to do a little hunting and walked away with two hens :)

For dinner, we headed to a well-known spot in the town and area, the Beaumont Inn. The grounds includes a tavern where we ate that used to be the old carriage house. The food and atmosphere was great. Hank checked a big item off the bucket list by trying Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, which comes from Buffalo Trace and is extremely rare. Bottles of the kind he tried go for a few hundred dollars - very premier stuff and some claim it to be the best and the most expensive bourbon in the world. Very cool moment to watch Hank try and enjoy it! The Beaumont Inn is a very historic building that was originally used as a school. We were able to go in and walk around the first floor. It is preserved to be in its original decor and contains so many amazing antiques and artifacts. I was in heaven! I wished I could step back in time and live there in that beautiful house.