Mac and Nette's Retirement Adventures: Leaving Indiana after 6 weeks of fun & friends

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Leaving Indiana after 6 weeks of fun & friends

Wednesday, September 29th, we left Elkhart Campground about 10:00am heading for Anderson, IN and Timberline Valley RV Park. We had a pretty uneventful trip. Only a couple of stops for fuel and drinks.

We arrived at Timberline Valley RV Park 2:00 and got all checked in. We noticed a man that came in the office at the same time as us and he looked very familiar…

We went to our site and began setting up and he was parking right next to us…Mac and him started talking and we finally figured out who it was!! It was Bill Joyce and Diane Melde! We visited for a while and then went on in to our own RV’s. What a small world this is.

Thursday, we went in to Indianapolis to visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. This is a great museum!

We also took a ride around the track…it is huge!

Friday, we packed up again and headed to Shepherdsville, KY to Grandma’s RV Park. We had just pulled in to our site and started setting when we looked up and saw Chuck & Kathy pulling right next to us. We didn’t even know that they were headed this way!!! What a great surprise!

Saturday we decided to go take a tour of the Jim Beam & Maker’s Mark Distilleries. The Jim Beam Distillery is very large but we were not allowed in the actual Distillery. We were shown a replica of a still….

and were told that the evaporation from the barrels leaves a fungus on the buildings and trees. They have a hard time keeping their vehicles clean. This evaporation is called “The Angels Share”…

We were taken in to one of the warehouses that store some of the barrels..wow…there are LOTS of them in there…and that is just a small amount of what is in all their other warehouses.

After leaving Jim Beam, we headed out to find Maker’s Mark Distillery. The GPS must not have been real sure where we were going because she took us on a very scenic route….but we did get to see some men harvesting Tobacco…that’s something we had never seen before.

We arrived at Maker’s Mark…now this is a much smaller Distillery than Jim Beam, but the tour was really nice. They took us through the whole process of making their Bourbon. We went from grinding the grain clear through to the assembly line where they bottle the Bourbon and seal the bottles with wax. We didn’t actually see them doing this since they don’t work on Saturday’s, but it was a more in depth tour than Jim Beam’s.

Sunday we just kicked back and relaxed since we were expecting Kevin & Arlene to arrive sometime after lunch. They arrived and got all set up…Kathy had put a roast and all the fixings in the crockpot and I added the salad and we all had a very nice dinner together…Thanks Kathy!

I had been feeling kind of pukey for a couple of days and not feeling better,so on Monday the rest of the gang headed out to see the Slugger Museum in Louisville and I stayed at the RV to rest up. Sounds like they had a great time.

When they got back, I decided to join them on the short trip to the General Patton Museum at Fort Knox. It was interesting, but not really a lot there.

Today, after breakfast,

we all jumped in the pickup and headed to Louisville to take the tour of The Kentucky Derby Museum and Churchill Downs. It was amazing to see all of the displays…

and to see the guys racing against each other…lol.

Then we were off on the tour of Churchill Downs. This place is huge. It makes you want to close your eyes so you can hear the horses come thundering down the track.

It just surprises me that all the seating is metal folding chairs in the bottom area…I guess it is better than bench seating…lol

We went in to the Derby Cafe and got something to drink and then we were off to our next destination….Brooks Hill Winery. We tasted a few types of wine and Arlene bought some Riesling, and I bought some Cherry-Cranberry Wine. We’ll have to drink that while we are at Defeated.