GINNING

Since our release at Amazon’s SDF-1 facility in Campbellsville Kentucky, we have been ginning around a t a good clip ! We had a storm that night and then heard later on the weather channel that it been a near miss by a tornado ! It got us up out of a fatigue driven sleep when a limb hit our air conditioning cover on the roof, breaking it.

The next day we slept in a bit, then finished rounding up our plunder and leaving out for Hohenwald Tennessee. Overnighting on the Oliver Travel Trailer’s Factory Parking lot. Up early the next morning for a whirlwind tour of the plant with lots of photo opportunity’s.

Driving late that night, we pulled into the Kinfolk’s driveway in Arkansas.

The next morning it’s up early for driver’s license renewal, oil changes and just on and on.

New air conditioner cover in place. Curt’s Tire and RV had the cheapest one available. Today things slowed down enough, after a week, that I remembered, “oh geeze I didn’t Blog lately !” ! It’s time to slow down a little and get a cup of coffee with a slice of Betty’s fresh Apple pie.

Hey ! Geeze ! Is that Apple pie winking at me ?

MARK

While in Lebanon, we went by the Maker’s Mark distillery. Here are some more “ yep, they too were closed “ photos.

We should have realized we were a bit early when we took this photo.

The sun is still behind the hill.

Stacked limestone fence on the road into the distillery.

Can you see the “SEE ROCK CITY” sign on the barn in the background ?

Covered foot bridge over Whiskey Creek.

Antique fire truck decked out for CHRISTmas. How about that cool old gas pump ?

COFFEE

It is our regularly scheduled day off at Amazon’s SDF-1 facility. It is late in the peak season and everyone is beginning to look a bit tired. We slept in this morning, which is quite a luxury for us, because our normal work day begins at 0430 hrs.

As the coffee pot percolates and the news channel on the Tv is mindlessly jabbering as the “talking head” rattles on ceaselessly about the weather, we look out of the office slide window, enjoying it. It has been cold for long enough that the ground temperature is low, so the snow that is wafting down, will accumulate.

As I type, Betty sets a cup of steaming coffee in front of me.

At first sip, I note that the ground is covering quite rapidly with snow.

Vegetating in Campbellsville !

Tank

To Tank or not to tank, cold weather campers must consider ! Camping in cold weather has it’s own set of considerations and water freezing up can be a camping trip spoiler. We do it a couple of different ways.

Way #1. Our home made freeze proof water hose. It works well, but in some campgrounds it just isn’t long enough. Then when it is long enough to reach, it has it’s own set of problems, such as the campground’s side of the freeze proof faucet,  can freeze, so you have to freeze proof it also, ect, ect..

Way #2. The way we are doing it here in Kentucky at the Green River Lake State Park. Here is a look at the campground’s freeze proof faucet.

Though it is freezing outside, note the snow on the ground, this faucet automatically drains back down below ground level so it can’t freeze.

We keep the hose drained on a gradual incline, as in this photo.

To make sure the hose drains, the hose is loosened like this photo.

Note the lady bugs seeking the small warm place near the water inlet. There is a check valve out of sight inside that keeps the water from coming all the way up to the fitting where it could freeze.

The city water system is separated from the water pump and tank by another check valve, so here is how we fill the tank from our outside kitchen sink faucet.

Here is how the kitchen faucet looks before the hose is hooked up.

That short coiled fill hose is kept drained and at the ready in the outside kitchen sink.

In this photo the hose is on a incline to aid in draining and the end is off the ground so it can’t freeze to the ground.

It is about a ten minute process to hook up, fill the tank, then re stow the hose.

LIMESTONE

We went back to the Limestone distillery and found out why they were closed the other day. They had been broken into and had a fire. We didn’t get to tour the distillery area but did get to taste the shine and there was lots to see anyhow. We took lots of photos, so here is a look.

This bar is made of barrel staves, some with the bung still in them.

The counter top was cork.

More barrel stave and top art work.

There is a passport book that tour takers can get stamped and the end of the bourbon trail stops, gets you a cool tee shirt.

I kindof ‘ wanted a tee shirt, but passed, I thought I just didn’t want to have that much tied up in a tee shirt. Click on the photos for a larger view.

When Tim Smith came out of the woods and went legal, he has his shine made here.

Barrel and scale for weighing.

Autographed photo of Tim.

Silver serving tray in the tasting area.

A very large old “worm” in the lobby.

Now that’s a work of art !

Even tinier yet !

Now, about the taste test, you might ask ?

The “sugar shine” proofed at 100 proof and it was a bit hot for my taste.

The “revenge” was smooth, very smooth, but a lower proof.

There were other fruit based  liquors to be sampled, but, I just never much cared for the fruity stuff and I didn’t try them.

MOONSHINE

On a day off we went to one of the local distillery’s to see what all the noise was about. Naturally we took a few photo’s along the way. We went to Lebanon Kentucky where Tim Smith’s, now legal, moonshine is made. You may remember Tim as one of the stars of the TV series “MOONSHINE”.Here is a link to his web page . http://climaxmoonshine.com/

Here is some photo’s of the distillery.

 

Are they country you might ask ? Well, they are on a rural free delivery route, note the mail box.

The building front.

The entrance. Yup, they were closed and we didn’t get the tour and moved on after checking back a couple of times. Since we rise at 0415hrs. each work day, we got a early start and thinking they might open later, we had breakfast at the Huddle house. Still closed at 0930 hrs. , and no operating hours posted that we could find.

We moved on down the line.

CAVE

Veterans Day weekend, we are on our “work Hardening” schedule at SDF-1, and we had a day off. We drove over to the Mammoth Cave National Park.

Because of the Holiday, the tickets were free ! It is a bit hard to get there, but well worth the effort. You will never be able to see it all in one trip. Bring your Rv and stay in the campground for a week, and you still won’t see it all.

As is our usual practice, we took the back roads and came in through the community of Cub Run and across the Green River on the ferry. The cool small ferry ride was one of the high points of our day. It was after boarding that I picked up the camera and shot this short video from behind the wheel.

Ferry Crossing as seen from behind the wheel, across the hood

Our “back roads agenda” always seems to surprise and amaze us. Here are a few photos that we snapped along the way.

These silent sentinel’s still stand watch over a old home place.

Faded history shinning in the early morning sunshine.

Harvested Tobacco hangs in the drying shed.

The identifying quilt block patch on this Tobacco Barn has a familiar sounding name.

The Park has a fleet of Eco Friendly vehicles to service the visitors needs.

CAMPGROUND

The Green River Lake State Park has so much to offer it’s campers ! Here is a look at a few of it’s features.

It is November, so the store has just closed for the season.

The wifi is from these repeater towers and it ain’t bad at all !

The front gate is closed this late in the year. The campground host takes care of everything at his site or from his golf cart.

There are several docks, boat ramps and parking areas.

There are several playground areas.

A two way dump station.

The amphitheater.

The storm shelter and additional laundry room.

Here is what our campsite looks like.

All in all, it is a cool place to stay !

GREEN

The Sugar Beet Harvest is over and we have arrived at the Green River Lake State Park, in Campbellsville Kentucky. Here is a look out of the office slide window.

The campground has lots of Sycamore trees with varying shades of golden Fall colors that grace the air with their flights in the light breeze. Here is a look at the front of our campsite.

As in most of America’s Heartland States it is Deer Season and fishermen are still out on the lake. The beautiful trees also screen the satellites from our roof dome, so , we deployed our tripod dish. We receive the local TV channels out of Louisville, in addition to all that other satellite feed stuff .

 

In this campground there are no sewer hookups. We will have a “pump out” service that comes every Monday. Since we have three different dump valves, we have marked each of them with red tags to help the pump out crew locate them.

The campground has a store, a laundromat and a shower house. Several nice playgrounds and a ampitheatre just above the beach.

There is good internet wifi here with several repeaters scattered around the park.

We have two bars of cell phone signal here.

I’ll try to shoot a quick video look of the campground for a later blog entry.