Bardstown, KY

For the week between our project in KY and the one in IN, we stayed for five days at My Old Kentucky Home State Park. The campground was a wonderful place, so peaceful and quiet, next to the golf course. The home at the park is a stately Georgian Colonial mansion, home of Judge John Rowan, cousin of Stephen Foster who visited in 1852 and was inspired to write the famous song, "My Old Kentucky Home", now the official Kentucky state song.

Bardstown is close to Lincoln's birthplace and childhood home in Hodgenville area. We stopped at the site of his chidhood home at Knob Creek first,

then in Hodgenville, where they have a statue of him as a child, which was commissioned in 2008

and one as an adult commissioned by congress and erected in 1909

We also visited the Lincoln Museum, which had life size dioramas tracing his life.

His birthplace is a National Historical Park with a granite memorial located on land where he was born and enshrines a 19th century cabin symbolic of the type of home in which he was born. The memorial building has 56 steps, one for each year of his life.

This Sinking Spring was used by his family.

Since Bardstown is the Kentucky Bourbon capital, we decided to take the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and visited three of the six distilleries. Heaven Hill

had the most extensive display area and seemed to be the largest visitor center.

Although their warehouses were on this site, their distillery was located elsewhere.

Maker's Mark was further out in the country and had a down home feel

and the only one where the tour actually went through the distillery

and the bottling process, where they were filling gallon bottles on this day,

as well as sealing with the hot wax.

Paul even tried his hand at it.

These are the actual labels being made on this machine!

We visited Jim Beam, which was in the opposite direction, the following day. Our guide was 8th generation Beam family member.

Thought it was interesting that a church would be located between two Bourbon storage warehouses!

One day we spent the day in Bardstown. The building that housed the visitor center was very impressive!

We visited Museum Row which included War Memorial of Mid America Museum and Women of the Civil War Museum

The War Memorial Museum included a display for each of the wars America has been in, from the Revolution to the current war. This was the World War II display

The women's museum honored the women who supported the troops as nurses, spies, as well as dressing as men in order to fight!

There is a copy of a letter from Lincoln to the troops to not harm the Angels of Mercy or their possessions, because they were taking care of men on both sides. At the Civil War Museum, there was numerous cannons, this one used by Lew Marshall, who later became the author of Ben Hur,

and other memorabilia.

A display on each of the battles of the war,

including Nashville and Franklin.

Located nearby was the Old Bardstown Pioneer Village

We had Kentucky Hot Brown for lunch

at the historic Old Talbott Tavern, oldest western stagecoach stop in America. It has been operating since 1779!

When we first arrived at the state park, Paul remembered his grandmother was buried in or near Louisville, so over the course of a few days of phone calls, he was able to talk to one of his cousin who knew where she had been buried. It was in a little town named Lawrenceburg, outside of Louisville. Her son (this cousin's father) had made arrangements for her when she was killed in an auto accident in Hope, Arkansas, in the early 1950's. It was about an hour away, so we took off and were able to find the spot she was buried, at the foot of her son, Herman VanDyke, but there is no headstone.

We left on Friday morning for Indiana, and are now excited to be at our next work site, New Creations Christian School.