Clarksville, IN / Louisville, KY
It was another lovely weekend, both activity and weather-wise (I feel sort of bad because the 2nd major, catastrophic hurricane in 2 weeks is hitting FL: Hurricane Irma. Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston and So. TX exactly one week ago). It was bright and sunny with clear blue skies and temps in the upper 70s here.
On Saturday, there was a lovely kiddush lunch sponsored by the family who had the baby naming 2 weeks ago. We didn't get home until 4:30pm. We took a little nap and then caught up with our reading.
Sunday was another gorgeous day and we decided to attempt to do what we had planned for the previous Sunday. This time we were successful! We wanted to tour Waterfront Park (
https://louisvillewaterfront.com/) and then tour the Evan Williams bourbon distillery.
We drove downtown and parked in front of the Louisville Slugger Field, where we took out our urb-es and rode about 1/2 mile to the beginning of the park:
There is so much to see and do in the park and you can read about most of it in the link above. There was a juried art festival going on which we had hoped to visit, but we went in the wrong direction (more about that later).
First stop was at the pier with some beautiful scenery of the river and bridges:
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| Yes, Mitch on his urb-e |
There are quite a few sculptures around the park. This one was the most interesting:
Not sure what this is supposed to be. Looks like a weird face from this angle (upon further investigation, it's called Tetra. Here's what it's about:
https://louisvillewaterfront.com/explore-the-park/features/tetra/)
There was also a meditative waterfall which ran about 1/2 mile, with several sections where you can just sit and listen to the trickling water. It culminated in a dancing fountain:
Video of the fountain:
We saw signs to Festival Park which is where we assumed the arts festival was being held (we didn't pay attention to the name of the fair - "Big Four Art Festival" which would have told us it was near the Big Four bridge to the east, not festival park to the west). So we kept riding westward, passing the Belle of Louisville and the Jefferson, two of the original paddle wheel ships which now gives tours (the green stripes is the marked bike path).
We kept riding until we came to the end of the park and found ourselves under the highway. We looked at the map to confirm this, then looked up the arts festival and realized our mistake. The original plan was to tour the park, visit the arts fair, then take the truck over to Evan Williams, which was about 1-1/2 miles away. We discovered, however, that we were pretty much aligned with the distillery, so we backtracked a little to find a place to cross (about 3 blocks down) and hit there instead.
Lovely sculpture outside:
They call the tour the Evan Williams Experience, and it really was an experience! Unlike the Heaven Hills tour (or the winery, gin, brandy, and moonshine tours we've taken in the past) where you get to see the mash pots, stills and barrels, this tour had the format of an interactive museum. We started with a video of how Mr. Williams was chosen to be the wharfmaster back in the 1700s (portrayed by actors in a realistic colonial setting. It was a stormy night and on the sides of the small auditorium were additional projectors making it look like windows where we could see the storm (so that it felt like we were in the house with them).
Next, we entered a room which resembled the town and the wharf. There were props along the edges and on either wall were projections of actors: 1 side were townsfolk doing town chores like planting and smithing. On the other side was Mr. Williams directing business transactions (again, actors speaking, making it feel very realistic).
We then got to see the mash pot and stills. They only produce 2 barrels a day at this location; all their production is done in their other 53 locations, so this is mostly for show.
Cheryl, our tour guide, in front of the shiny stills:
We next entered an area that was a replica of how the street looked back in the 1930s (when Prohibition ended). One of the storefronts was a bar (also where mail was picked up). This was the 2nd to last stop on the tour, where we got to do the tastings.
The last stop, of course, was the retail shop, although we didn't buy anything. It was tempting to purchase the very limited 23 year old bourbon, but not at $300 a bottle. Not only way out of our budget, but I wouldn't want to ever drink it (not because it wouldn't taste so awesome, but because it would feel like putting $300 in the toilet). If I'm going to spend that kind of money, it should be something that has lasting value, like artwork, not something that will be consumed, albeit very much enjoyed. Same principal why we don't spend more than $10 on a bottle of wine, although I'd love to taste a $500+ bottle!
Another interesting item in the building was this huge water sculpture of bourbon being poured into an overflowing glass. It was at least 3 stories high. Here are photos from the first level looking up and the 2nd level looking down:
After the tour (it was about 3:00), we rode our urb-es back to the truck, which was on the same street, just 1.5 miles down the road. We were thinking of going to the art fair, but being late and another 2 miles further, we decided to skip it (we've been to plenty of art festivals and although there are some amazing things to see, we knew we wouldn't be buying anything anyway). We did have some grocery shopping to do, so that's how we spent the remainder of our afternoon.
