Kentucky bound with 150 miles until we hit E’town. The actual name is Elizabethtown, but no one calls it that. It’s my birthplace and a central spot for visiting family, but the town I grew up in is Radcliff, a bit farther north up 31W.

We’re home!

Welcome to the Knobs region of Kentucky! In 7th grade there weren’t enough Kentucky history books to go around, so those of us in Ms. Pace’s class had Kentucky geography. Hence, I learned we lived in Knobs vs. bluegrass, coal/mountain, etc. The July before my senior year of high school I moved to Midland, in the very flattest part of Michigan.

You want flat roads? Sometimes you have to cut them into the hills. This is along I-65, between Louisville (a glorious city and the first place we hit after endless Indiana) and E’town.

Another instance of cutting roads into hillsides.

This may seem weird, because I’m a lifelong pacifist, but you can’t visit where I grew up and not encounter tanks. We saw several along the roadside. This particular one is smack in the middle of my hometown, Radcliff, and along the parade route of the annual Golden Armor Festival. Radcliff is a bedroom community to Fort Knox, which meant we had to fill out federal forms at school every year to say whose folks were military to channel the appropriate amount of aid, some of which came in the form of Army surplus food for the cafeteria. The building back to the left used to be the town fire station; when I was small the siren would blow at noon and that was my signal to go home for lunch.

LOL the game theme. We passed the gold vault an hour before and it looked solid as ever.

We visited with several relatives, among them an uncle who lives “on post,” as we always said, meaning on the Fort Knox base. I have an entry pass for the next year after stopping into this building and presenting ID for clearance.

I finally saw part of Mammoth Cave! The lighting makes much of it look reddish, which didn’t concern us, as we grew up with red clay for soil. Running the picture through Photoshop’s auto toning and coloring functions, however …

… makes it look like this. Brings out the carved graffiti, huh?

A ceiling from descent behind the Frozen Niagara section of Mammoth Cave.

When I lived in Kentucky, I never visited Mammoth Cave, so it was a must-see on our whirlwind visit. We took the Domes and Dripstones tour, 280 stairs and 250 feet down, through narrow water-carved passages that had us ducking and twisting. Still, there were a couple of “rooms” with benches for 100+ people. Definitely returning and checking off as much in Mammoth and the numerous other area caves as possible.

Michiganders have the Mystery Spot, and Kentuckians have the Mystery House in Cave City. Billiard balls do roll uphill and if I revisit I will jump off that table (I have a fear of jumping off things). Bonus: Dali and Escher in the entry gallery.

As if Cave City’s caves – Mammoth, Diamond, Lost, Horse, Hidden River, etc. – weren’t enough, and the Mystery House didn’t satisfy you, there’s Dinosaur World.

Could I sleep here? Surrounded by bourbon on all sides? Heaven Hill in Bardstown is worth a visit, with rickhouses built seven high, housing ricks three barrels high and 16 long, rolled into place by hand so each cork faces between 11 and 1 o’clock. The windows are opened in April and closed in November, and that’s the extent of the human interference.

Heard of the angel’s share of bourbon evaporation? Here’s one of the Heaven Hill angels.

Some historic barrels in storage.

One of the rickhouses at Heaven Hill.

If you take the Mashbill tour at Heaven Hill, your guide will explain how to “nose” bourbon and offer three tastings, consumed first neat and then adding two drops of water and waiting several minutes. We started with Larceny 92 proof, followed by Elijah Craig (father of bourbon) 94 proof and Rittenhouse 100 proof. We also learned about “bottled in bond,” demanded by doctors prescribing whiskeys for medicinal purposes and the first government declaration of consumption standards; food didn’t come until five years later. This is one of 16 stops on the Bourbon Trail (and a fine Monday brunch). Radcliff, my hometown, now has the Boundary Oak Distillery, so named for a tree at the edge of Lincoln’s birthplace, and the distillery is trying to get added to the trail.

LEFT: Many of the offerings at Heaven Hill I could get easily in Michigan, but not this one. RIGHT: North Hardin Class of ’82 has an annual picnic, with family members and other classes welcome. We didn’t recognize one attendee so I asked him who he was (’86 with another tie) and he asked whether I liked bourbon (duh, but he didn’t know me). He worked at 1792 Barton, a highly regarded nearby distillery, and gifted me this 95 proof 8-year-old sample. When I saw someone entering Heaven Hill for the workday with a square box under his arm about the height of these bottles, I wondered if he was doing the same thing.

On our way south through Indiana we saw a billboard for Rubbin’ Butts BBQ and determined we would have to stop on the way back, for a photo if nothing else. If you go to the left door for Rubbin’ Tails (seafood), you are directed to “enter through Rubbin’ Butts.”

This – THIS – is the Pig-E-Chonga, a flour tortilla filled with your choice of pork or chicken (pork, duh) and baked beans, deep fried to a golden brown, smothered in queso (!) and drizzled with BBQ sauce. We sat at a table designed for three; how often does that happen? Other culinary pit stops included the chicken rings and zesty zing sauce at White Castle (flattened chicken nuggets with a horseradish-based sauce; nothing craveable) and the (Larceny) bourbon salted Twinkie at Heaven Hill. My nephew protested that it was just a chocolate-covered Twinkie; his mother retorted that this was not a bad thing and she was happy to have another one in the cooler.

Souvenirs from Heaven Hill. The flask is foldable and the top is a shot; I do appreciate good design.

Clerk at the Midland corner liquor store likes my newest T.