This is the view from our hotel room window from last night (the Hilton in Lexington, Kentucky) - quite nice and not at all the sort of view they usually give to people on coach tours :-)
Overall though I wasn't all that thrilled about this hotel - it's in a part of the city that has absolutely no grocery shops or any real amenities apart from restaurants. Today we started off with breakfast at the deli round the corner - I was desperate for a continental breakfast - the best I could get was a tub of take-away fruit salad. However, it was nice and I also had a huge coffee which was possibly the best coffee we've had since we've been in the USA, so it's all good.
As you can tell from the heading of this entry, this morning we concentrated on Abraham Lincoln. During the first part of the drive, they showed us quite an interesting DVD about his life. Then, we got to go to the place where he was born. Now, they know roughly where he was born, but not exactly. They've found a log cabin which they know is not the one he was born in (testing apparently shows it's at least 25 years too young). And, he only lived here while he was quite young - by the time he was 5 the family had moved a number of miles away.
However, regardless of all that, the log cabin has had a memorial built around it, and a national park created around it.
This is the memorial:
And the log cabin is inside the memorial:
In the early 1900s they built a small inn and some cabins nearby, as it was becoming really popular to visit the site. That inn and the cabins have now also been dedicated as heritage buildings:
After this, we had quick photo opp at the home he lived in from when he was 5 until he was 7 - it is also part of its own National Park:
The rest of his life was spent away from here, so we don't get to see any other sites. I had not realised until now just how close to a king they regard Abraham Lincoln. It all seems way over the top to me, although I suppose at least in part that would be because we Aussies don't have any leader that we can (or want to) treat that way.
Anyway, next stop was Bardstown, first for lunch. We had a quick sandwich and then walked to the Bardstown Civil War Museum. We didn't have a lot of time to spend here, as it wasn't an official part of the tour - but in my feedback I'm going to suggest that it should be. There are a number of museums all set up together and given that the tour is meant to be concentrating on history to some extent, I'd think they'd be a great place to include.
Next stop was the Heaven Hill distillery where we got to taste their bourbon and also had a tour of their warehouse (but not the distillery). I've never really liked bourbon but regardless of that I found the tour to be quite interesting and well worth the time. Some things I didn't know:
* bourbon is legally the USA's national drink
* their master distiller is a member of the Beam family - as in "Jim Beam" - and in fact a member of that family has been their master distiller since the firm started just after prohibition
* there are many many bourbon makers in Kentucky, and there's only one that has never had a member of the Beam family work as their master distiller (Wild Turkey)
* although I've never heard of them, or any of their brands, they're the second biggest bourbon distiller behind Jim Beam (they've got around 23% of the market compared to Jim Beam's 25 or so percent)
* they pay at least $4million per week in excise to the US govt
And, later on, I discovered that bourbon isn't all bad. Cosmos had another 'wow' event for us when we got back to the hotel - a Mint Julep drink each. Bourbon, mint, sugar and water - a really nice combination. They had given us a teeny bottle of bourbon each as a farewell gift after the tour, and Paul and I had ours later with Coke. Also nice. I think we'll sleep well tonight!
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