Our big summer trip this year took us down to Kentucky for the Ritterbusch family reunion. But before I share about that, I'll start at the beginning where we started the trip with a few days in the Bourbon Trail area. We started our trip on Thursday after work and spent one night in a new to us campground called Moraine View State Park located between Bloomington and Champaign. It was the perfect amount of driving for our first night and the campground there was beautiful! We'll be planning a trip back there next year for sure. It's a great potential Cuzzies Camping location - if everyone is willing to camp again :)
We just had one night there with Mom and Dad and Friday morning we made our way down to Louisville where we spent the day, and then eventually on to Bardstown where we'd spend 2 nights and Liz/Bobby and cousin Jeff all met us there.
When we first started talking about going to Kentucky for the reunion the girls perked up - "We're going to Kentucky? Can we go to Claw Zone? It's not a scam." After a few additional questions we learned that there was a special arcade in Louisville, called Claw Zone, and it's not a scam! The girls had seen a YouTube video talking about this place and the tag line of the video must have been "Its not a scam" because that's really all we ever heard about it. So much so that we have renamed it "Claw Zoneitsnotascam". We joked we were going to make t-shirts we heard it so much!
So - we decided we'd work it into our itinerary and make their dreams come true! Mostly Hazel's 11th birthday fell smack dab in the middle of this trip, so I wanted to do something special for her. The girls were so excited about Claw Zone and I knew we'd be spending a good bit of time doing stuff they had ZERO interest in (Bourbon tasting), so we threw them a bone, and took them. We started the day with a stop at Angels Envy (a favorite of both Mom and I). We didn't have time to do a full tour but we had a drink at the bar and stopped in the gift shop to get some new bourbons we can't get near us.
Since we didn't do a tour at Angels Envy we didn't learn much about the brand or their process - which I'm a little bit bummed about, but it means that we can do that the next time we are down there. It was tough because we had the dogs with us at this point (since we were just driving through to our campground) and it was already pretty hot (more on that later) so we couldn't spend a bunch of time at Angels Envy. That being said, the most notable thing I learned there was that I need an ice cube brand for my at home bar. You can see it a few pictures down, the angel wings they imprint on the ice cube. So - you can be sure that's on my Christmas list this year.
After Angel's Envy we made our way to Claw Zone and let the kids run wild there. We gave them each $50 and Dad and Ryan hung out with them in Claw Zone while Mom and I got the dogs and went to the Mexican restaurant in the same parking lot. The guys would say that they had the hard part - that we had the easy job, sit with the dogs and drink margaritas and eat chips and salsa but Mom and I contest that the dogs were stressful and getting a table big enough for our group was a challenge and well, I suppose each of us has a different perspective on this point of the story. LOL!
I know you are dying to know - so, was it a scam? The girls would say (and Ryan would back it up) that it was not in fact a scam. That they were both able to win a lot of prizes and that the owner was really very sweet and helped Hazel more than once when he saw her struggling, even to the point that he'd open up the game and move the prize she wanted a little closer/easier so she could win at the game. I'm glad we worked into the plan for the trip - and honestly, the margarita was exactly what I needed!
I know you are dying to know - so, was it a scam? The girls would say (and Ryan would back it up) that it was not in fact a scam. That they were both able to win a lot of prizes and that the owner was really very sweet and helped Hazel more than once when he saw her struggling, even to the point that he'd open up the game and move the prize she wanted a little closer/easier so she could win at the game. I'm glad we worked into the plan for the trip - and honestly, the margarita was exactly what I needed!
(This is one of my new favorite photos!)
After Claw Zone and Mexican food we finally made our way to our campground for the next two nights - White Acres Campground. Here's what I'll say about the campground. It wasn't our favorite, a little run down, definitely don't plan to use the bathrooms, but it was centrally located to so many distilleries that it worked for our purposes. Not the campgrounds fault, but definitely impacting my overall rating of the campground is that by Friday night, an hour or so after we arrived, it poured rain. And it continued to pour rain for the next two days. They got over 6 inches of rain in 36 hours - roads were washed out, dams overflowed - it rained and rained and rained and the campground turned to mud. I'm so bummed I didn't get a photo of the mat outside of Liz and Bobby's camper - it was a red muddy pool of muck. Mud was the main theme of the next two days. Mud and rain.
We didn't let the rain get us down though! Saturday we had two stopped planned. I'd booked us a distillery tour at Bardstown Bourbon (very much worth it!) and we made a stop for a cocktail at Chicken Cock Distillery - because, how can you NOT go there with a name like that? You can see that they fully leaned into the name with their branding - the napkin in the picture below says "With a name like Chicken Cock, you better be able to back it up".
Somehow we managed to spend 3 or 4 hours at Bardstown Bourbon and got zero pictures of us there but Liz/Bobby, Mom/Dad and Ryan and I did a tour there and I'm so glad we were able to figure out way to do that because we learned SO MUCH from the one tour. I have lots of bourbon facts I can share with anyone who cares next time we're together, but I'll save you from having to read them here :) Feel free to suck as much knowledge you want from me on this topic if you are interested.
Abby was so sweet and she babysat Mason and Liam (and Hazel too I suppose) so that us adults could have a little date day for a few hours. Most of the distilleries don't allow children on the tours (which, makes sense, it's not for kids...but it makes it hard for parents to enjoy this part of the world). Because kids weren't allowed in most places it really limited the amount of places we could go. Well, the kids were one reason and the fact the bourbon is 40%+ ABV makes it hard to do more than one or two tastings in a day. It's not like beer or wine...it's too high powered!
Bardstown Bourbon was beautiful and the tour was great there. We had linner (lunch dinner) and a lot of laughs with the 6 of us. It stopped raining for a short window of time while we were there and as soon as we were done with linner we headed back to the campground to relieve babysitter Abby. We were able to quickly grill up dinner for the kids before the rain set back in again and it continued to rain for the rest of the night. Not ideal weather for camping, but thankfully none of us were in tents! Camper life is the only way to camp :)
Sunday the rain started to clear and then the heat set in. We spent the rest of the trip in a "heat dome" meaning the daily temperatures were in the high 90s with heat indexes in the 105-110 range. But more on that later. Sunday we packed up campers and caravanned our way over to Red River Gorge, but we had one more distillery to stop at - Buffalo Trace. A year ago when we started planning this trip I tried to sell Liz on the idea that they should join us. It's a few hour drive from their house and it seemed like they had to come for at least part of it. When I told her were were going to the Bourbon Trail area her first response was "that doesn't sound kid friendly" - and then (thank you Instagram for always listening to us) within a few short days she was being served up videos of how kid friendly Buffalo Trace was. I think it's the real reason she even considered coming - lol!
The videos weren't wrong - BT was great for kids and dogs! We didn't know it when we planned it, but kids and dogs are allowed on all of their tours and tastings (with the exception of a bottling tour, which makes sense). The grounds were beautiful and the whole operation was a well oiled, money printing machine! We watched people carry boxes and boxes of merch out of that place and while we didn't have BOXES, I think we all spent a hundred bucks or more there. Gotta say though, they nailed the price point for drinks. $6 cocktails on a shaded patio...music to my ears and I was happy to hand over my money.
If you are ever looking to plan a trip to this area, add Bardstown Bourbon and Buffalo Trace to your itinerary. We'll be planning a trip back to this area of the world for sure. Likely adults only for a long weekend - add it to the vacation bucket list!
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