As you can tell from the title, the fifth day of our Niagara Trip was the busiest day of the trip. It was also one of the most interesting, stimulating, and peaceful--with one exception.
We left Ashland, Ohio early in the morning and headed for the tiny Ohio town of Peebles. Actually, I do not think we ever saw Peebles because our destination was the Serpent Mound. What is the Serpent Mound? Well, the Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348 feet long, three feet high prehistoric effigy mound. It was built on what is known as the Serpent Mound Crater Plateau. It is the largest serpent effigy known in the world. It was built by the Adena and Fort Ancient cultures of Native Americans between 800 BC and 1650 AD. Nobody knows how or really even why the natives built it although the serpent's head and certain other features align with astronomical events such as the summer solstice. The picture that I took above is the tight wrapping of the tail. The only way to see the whole serpent is from the observation tower that can be seen in the top right of the picture. However, the observation tower was closed for repairs while we were there. It looked to us like it had been closed for a long time and needed no repairs, but who knows?
It was while walking around in the peaceful park of Serpent Mound that Kellie and I encountered the only problem of the day. This older woman was with an old man, a teenage boy, and another younger woman who might have been her daughter. I don't know if someone in the family was deaf, but, apparently this woman thought they she needed to shout everything she said including as she read the signs explaining the Serpent Mound's structure. I grew particularly annoyed as Kellie and I were trying to read a couple of signs about the studies of the site and the surrounding burial mounds when she starting shouting, "We will eat at the Dairy Freeze. The Dairy Freeze! It's just a few miles back. Does everybody want to eat at Dairy Freeze?" I almost said to her, "How about you go get in your car and make your meal plans while the rest of us enjoy the peace and quiet of this ancient burial place." But I didn't. How rude she was! Do people not know how to act?
After leaving Serpent Mound, Kellie and I drove through some gorgeous hill country in southern Ohio to the town of Ripley where we crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky on a very beautiful and modern bridge--which I will not show you a picture of because of limited picture storage here at WIX. We crossed into Maysville, Kentucky, which is the hometown of Miss USA of 1999, Mrs. Heather French Henry. Yeah, who knew! But the town is proud of it, and they named the main road into town after her.
The next stop of the day was at the Blue Licks Battlefield where the last battle of the Revolutionary War was fought on August 19, 1782 after the war was officially over. In this battle, Colonel John Todd and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Boone were routed by combined British, Huron, Delaware, and Shawnee forces. About 54% of Todd's and Boone's forces were killed or captured. One of the dead was Daniel Boone's nephew Thomas and one of the injured was his nephew Squire Jr. Anyhow, here is a picture of the memorial to the fallen on that day, including the enemy combatants on the backside.
After wandering around in this neat little state park, we were headed down the road to Lexington when we say a road sign that said, "Last Home of Daniel Boone in Kentucky," so we turned around and went down the road to see the last home of Daniel Boone in Kentucky. Here it is.
Daniel Boone lived in this home from 1796-1799 with his wife and three of their ten children. The owners of the home are very insistent that this is a RESTORATION of the home and not a replication. The cabin has been moved 700 feet from where it was originally sat because the small creek out of sight to the right was dammed to make a pond just below this property. What was amazing to me was that Mr. Boone gave this cabin to his daughter Rebecca when he took the rest of the family to Missouri. Rebecca and her husband Philip Goe raised eleven children in the one room cabin!
After leaving the Boone cabin, Kellie and I were getting pretty hungry, so we thought we might drive into the small town of Paris, Kentucky to find a place to eat. Well, we didn't find a good place to eat, but we did find the ONLY legal distillery in Bourbon County, Kentucky. The Hartfield & Co. Distillery. For a mere $10 bucks each, we got a grand tour of the distillery (two whole rooms in an old warehouse) and a sample flight (pictured below). On the left, looking a lot like water, is White Whisky, otherwise known as moonshine. It is distilled whisky that has never been barreled. Its only flavor comes from its ingredients. Kellie and I bought a bottle of this since it was the cheapest. If you would like a taste, come on by. The other three samples are simply different ages, proofs, or barrels. One is four years, one is a pre-prohibition style, and the far right was the "Exceptional Barrel." I have to admit. I do not find that whisky gets better as it is aged longer in a barrel. It simply tastes more like the wood of the barrel it was stored in. I know! I know! That is what "good" whisky is supposed to be all about--the aging, but my personal taste says the longer it stays in the barrel the more it tastes like the barrel, and I have never wanted to eat or drink any type of wood, so I say keep my whisky young, light-colored, and not wooden.
The young man who provided our tour of Hartfield and Co. recommended a place called Charlie Brown's as the best place to eat in all of Lexington, so we followed his advice and went to this place he recommended. Kellie and I each had a beer, we shared a huge batch of fried mushrooms, and each had a burger that tasted like it was made the old-fashioned way on a flat grill. The ambience was pure college town schtick, but it was good food and an enjoyable atmosphere. I would like to go back to Lexington some time and look around. Never fear though. I would never root for the Wildcats--ever!
Well, that is it for Day Five.
Hey, I figured out how to share all of the pictures from the trip. Click on the link below and go to my Google Picture album. You should see all the pictures there. The album places them in alphabetical order, so they are kind of random. ENJOY!
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