Summer Vacation Day 3

Day 3 -  Frankfort KY -  2 distillery tours and then up to Dayton OH to the Wright Brothers National Park.

We started off this morning at the Elkhorn Campground in Frankfort, Kentucky.  I will post a separate review about our stay, but is was pretty good.

We filled up first thing this morning.  Our travels the last half of yesterday were pretty efficient.  Calculated by hand we got 19.5mpg and the Ford computer said 18.0.   They are off a little, but I will take 18-19mpg.   I think it was mostly since we were running 45-55mph during that time.

We backtracked a little and headed for the Bourbon Trail.   Though not hitting everyplace on it, we got a good sampling of the various sizes of operations.

During the summer the distilleries are generally shut down due to the heat.  Apparently there is not enough river water to keep the mash cool to the optimum temperatures.   So today we did not see any in operation, but it was interesting never the less.

Our first stop was the Four Roses Distillery .  Unfortunately they are undergoing a large expansion this summer doubling their production size so we did not get to see the production facilities (they were in the process of installing a massive tank and constructing the building around it.).  We did get to see a nice video and the beautiful grounds and buildings that make up the factory.  Tasting afterward was really good and we got souvenir glasses.

Our second stop was the Wild Turkey factory.   I call it a factory just because of its size.  A huge operation on an industrial scale.   It was really nice to compare the Limestone Distillery from yesterday, a small operation to Four Roses a medium size operation and then to Wild Turkey, an industrial operation.

From the factory we then headed to Dayton Ohio.  The traffic was horrific through Cincinnati due to construction and an accident.  Our stop was the Wright Cycle Company Visitors Center.  Officially known as the Dayton Aviation Heritage Historical Park.

It was a very nice park.  It took us about an hour to look around. We were rushing it since we arrived at 1600 and they close at 1700.   They had all sorts of exhibits, many of them hands on.   They told the story of the Wright brothers from their printing business to their bicycle business and then to the plane business.   Super interesting.

 In addition to the Visitors Center they had the Cycle Shop.  It also had several exhibits and would qualify as a site into itself.

After we went there we stopped for the night at our final destination,  the Dayton KOA.  We will provide a separate review on this later.