Last Day

Friday, June 20, 2014 - written Wednesday

We spent the night in Somerset, KY.  Today turned out to be the last day of our MG Adventure.  The 2 MGs from Florida headed north.  The Virginia MG headed home. Two of the North Carolina MGs traveled the back roads to home.  One North Carolina regular car headed to Kingsport, TN - antique shopping along the way.

Four MGs left the hotel parking lot in Somerset, KY.  We headed by highways and interstates to Knoxville, TN and on toward Asheville, NC.  By the time we stopped for lunch, it was pretty much decided that this would be the last day of Le Tour.  We were close enough to home or a relative that we each did not feel the need to spend another night at a hotel.  Ken and Ann waved goodbye just before Asheville - they were close to home.  Doug and Kim waved goodbye when we were near their destination at a Highlands craft show on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Gary and Wayburn split off when they were close to their daughter's house in the Winston Salem area.

Ron and I continued on I-40 to home.  We weren't that far away.  And we could, if all went well, make it home in time to change vehicles and drive to South Florida to attend his 50th high school reunion.  So that was our plan.

We arrived home in the late afternoon, unloaded the MG, parked the MG in the garage, repacked the suitcases, loaded up the truck, and off we went - south down I-95 to West Palm Beach, FL.  This time we were traveling in a comfortable, air conditioned Ford F150 - what luxury after 9 days in the MG.  We got some distance down the road to the middle of South Carolina where we spent the night.  Then it was up in the morning to finish the trip.  We arrived at our friend's house in Lantana in time to visit for a short while, shower, change into dressier clothes, and go to the dinner dance at the Mayacoo Country Club.  Ron had a good time talking with his classmates.  Then back to Jim and Hope's house for bed.  We were all up bright and early Sunday.  Enjoyed our day visiting with our friends.  We also went by the cemetery to say "hi" to the family.

Monday morning we took off again to head north up I-95 - home to Rolesville.  Good trip(s) all!

Here's a look back at our travels:
MG - 9 days driving - covered 1,617 miles

• traveling about 50-55 mph on back country roads
• and twisty mountain roads

Ford - 2 days driving - covered 1,500 miles

• traveling about 80-85 mph on the interstate

In addition to an excellent MG Adventure, I got 13 photos to add to my total for the Moss Challenge.

Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries

We visited two more Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries - Jim Beam and Maker's Mark.  I have learned that you can visit two distilleries (not 5) in one day.  Each tour and tasting with shopping afterwards takes from 1-1/2 to 2 hours.  The rest of the time is driving country back roads from one distillery to another. So we did Jim Beam in the morning, had lunch, then visited Maker's Mark in the afternoon.

We started today by checking out of the French Lick hotel, having breakfast at McDonald's down the street.  We were on the road just after 7:30 am.  There were 7 cars when we started out.  PJ and George were leaving later and driving to Mammoth Cave.  Dennis dropped out to go direct to Johnson City to visit family.  Jim dropped out just afterwards.  We saw several Amish buggies and 2-wheeled carts on the road as we drove the back roads to Jim Beam.

Then the 5 of us arrived at the Jim Beam American Stillhouse.

Doug, Gary, Ron, Ken

Our tour guide Shelby (a member of the Beam family)

Ron and Bill pouring wine from the barrel which will be mixed and later bottled

Pat selected a bottle on the line, cleaned it, it was filled and capped, and the cap was dipped in wax, and the bottled was engraved - HAND MADE

We each had our choice of 2 of all of the Jim Beam brands to taste

We decided to have lunch at the cafe on the Jim Beam campus.  Afterwards we drove to Maker's Mark.

Our tour guide Cindy

The bottling line

Our taste testing

Taste testing room

Pat bought two bottles of Maker's Mark and got to dip them in the red wax

During today's driving we had to stop a couple of times to check out the cars and to make a repair.  All in a day's travel in an MG.

Replaced a coil in Doug's MG

After our distillery tours and tastings, we drove to the hotel in Somerset, KY.  We met back up with PJ and George and an MG from Wichita.  We all went to dinner.  We met back at the hotel lobby to discuss the next day's itinerary.  We decided to make a change.  We will not tour Cumberland Gap National Park, will cancel our hotel in Kingsport, and finally decided to take the interstate highways and drive through Knoxville, TN, to just east of Asheville, NC, where we will spend the night and then travel to our respective homes on Saturday morning.

Car Show

Today was CAR SHOW day.  We drove the MG from the hotel parking garage to the hotel parking lot.  We were directed to our spot on the car show field.  There were some 350 British cars - mostly MGBs - on the field.  I've included come of the photos in today's blog and all the rest can be looked at on the tab called MORE PHOTOS on my blog. 

We had 3 car winners at our tables.  Yeah!

All 3rd place winners in their class:  Doug & Kim - MGB Roadster, Joyce & Craig - MGC GT, Dennis & Pat - MGB GT

After the car show we all pretty quickly returned to the air conditioned comfort of the hotel.  It got muggy again in the afternoon. We relaxed and returned to the hotel event center for pre-dinner cocktails and dinner.  There were some 400+ people at the awards banquet - good food again!

Tomorrow we will all check out and start our journeys home after another good NAMGBR event - MG2014.

Crafts and Repairs

The Card Making class was on today's agenda for me.  We got to select the package we would work with.  There were items in the baggie to make 2 cards with envelopes.  And then we got to select from probably a 1,000 different items already punched, cut out, stamped, etc. to use to complete our design.  There was glitter, colored pencils, pens, tape, glue, extra paper, sayings, punches, stamps - all expertly organized and arranged.  My workroom at home should be so ready.

This is what was in the baggie I selected

Sylvia and Pat L are designing their cards

Pat R and Sylvia working on their cards

Ron's agenda was not as much fun.  The agenda for Ron was to make more repairs to the MG.  The driver's window jumped off its trolley.  Ron had to remove the door panel in order to fix it.  He's had to fix it before.  He installed the new thermostat, test drove the car, didn't like the results, punched a hole in the bottom of the just removed thermostat and reinstalled it, test drove the car, same results.  Then he fixed the engine fan switch, test drove the car.  Some other mechanics couldn't figure it out either.  Oh well, will have to just watch the gauge on the way home.

Otherwise it was another easy day and muggy - got up to at least 95 degrees.  There was a cool breeze on the big front porch that we enjoyed while we rocked in the rocking chairs and chatted with friends.

Easy Day

Today was clear and sunny but turned quite warm and very muggy this afternoon.  We had an early breakfast.  Then I went to the Chocolate Candy demonstration.  Carol Brown was a wonderful teacher - taught us tips and techniques to make chocolate candy including bark, turtles, and covered popcorn with sprinkles.  Of course, we had to taste test which I certainly did!  So I was eating chocolate at 8:30am.  I recommend this "tech" session.

Carol telling us about thee tools of the trade

Another tech session about the electrical systems of MGs

We did the laundry - a necessary activity.  After lunch, we traveled through some of the back roads in the area looking for signs for the scavenger hunt.  Along the way we found neat roads - one was gravel for about 3 miles.  We just kept going to see where it would lead us.  It led us to some cute signs (not for the scavenger hunt) but for our friends from Australia.

We backed up to get these two signs

Wasn't sure what it was till we saw the back side of the sign

Gravel road somewhere in the woods

Pretty back roads

We continued on our way to the Spring Mill State Park where we had dinner at the Inn.  The food was delicious and plentiful. 

Ron, Judy, Bruce, Craig, Joyce, Dennis, Pat, Wayburn, Gary

Lining up at the buffet

After dinner, we decided to skip going to the drive-in movie as it was too muggy out for us and it was about 3 hrs to dark when the movie would start, and we were pooped.  We went back to French Lick. Met up with friends and drank an MG Mule cocktail made with Maker's Mark whiskey, ginger mix, muddled lime, and sprite over ice.  Wow!  Also tried some homemade summer wines that were equally delicious. So we think we made a good decision to head back to the hotel after all.

Successful Repairs

Today was a day to make repairs to the MGs.

AND to register for MG2014 - get our name tag, get tickets to activities, receive our pre-purchased regalia, push a pin in the US map to show where we came from, sign up for events, bid on items at the silent auction, and reserve a seat at the awards banquet.  It was fun to turn around during registration and find another friend who had arrived.

Buying parts

More vendors

Where are you from?

The first repair / lesson was to replace Ken Os water pump.  He had a new water pump and the tools were supplied by the repair team.  The repair team did an excellent job working together in the shade of the hotel's parking garage.

Also repaired was Craig's alternator, Dennis' coil problem, Gary's throttle cable, and a diagnosis of a  second MG with a water pump issue.

Repair of three MGs

All were successes.

Happy Father's Day - Chris came with a bottle of antifreeze for his father Ken

Successful repair of the water pump!

Other MGs were getting washed and polished.

 

What do Roses, Turkeys and MGBs have in common?

HOT WATER!  Let me explain.

We started off bright and early under bright and sunny skies.  We left the hotel at 8:05am heading for Lawrenceburg, KY, going to the first of two distilleries to visit today.  Our first Kentucky Bourbon Trail distillery to visit was Four ROSES.  What a big and beautiful manufacturing campus!  We were the first tour of the day at 9am and our guide was Leila.  We watched a video to learn about their distilling process and then toured the plant. At the end of the tour we had a tasting of three brands of Four Roses bourbon.  Very smooth!

A car show at the Four Roses Visitors Center

Video at Four Roses

George and Ron

Sign in 4 languages - Japan and Europe are big markets

Tasting - got a free glass

It was 1-1/2 hrs later when we said goodbye to Four Roses and headed just up the road to the Wild TURKEY Distillery.  They have an even bigger manufacturing campus - acres of land and dozens of buildings.  The tour covered several buildings - so much distance was on the tour that we had a tour bus.  Our tour guide was Aaron.  There was a lot of information to absorb, as well as absorbing the "angel share" by osmosis when we toured the warehouse where some of the barrels will sit for 6-10+ years.  Then came the tasting.  We each had our choice of 2 of the 8 brands of Wild Turkey bourbon to taste - some really strong and others smooth.

Chairs outside Visitors Center

PJ and Mike riding the Turkeys

Inside the warehouse - Aaron next to 10+ year old barrel of bourbon

In the fermenting area of the plant

Our tasting

The distilling process uses HOT WATER to activate the various recipes of corn, rye, malted barley, and yeast to produce the bourbon.

Our tastings were followed by lunch at Eduardo's Italian Restaurant.  It was a good place to have our meal and get ready for the long drive to French Lick, IN - the end of Le Tour to MG2014.  We spent more than 1/2 a day in the same town - we hadn't yet left Lawrenceburg.  We drove lazy country roads - good MG driving roads. 

Left - Janie, George, Pat R, Norm, Joyce, Craig, Mike, Doug.  Right - Paul, Ron, Ken, Ann

Wayburn, Kim, Doug, Mike, Craig, Joyce, Norm, Pat R, George, Janie, Deanna

Not long after lunch Ron pulled off the road because his temperature gauge was getting high.  The fix was identified as being a fault in the fan switch causing the water in the radiator to be HOT WATER.  Ron (with the help of the ladies) made a temporary repair and we were off again. 

Ann, Kim, Deanna, Wayburn, Pat W

Who really fixed the car?

We were sailing along Hwy 56 to French Lick, time and miles were getting longer, and our bladders were getting fuller.  We finally found a place to stop in Scottsburg.  Ken and Ann's MGB was way overheated.  A quick look determined that the issue was the water pump - HOT WATER was draining onto the asphalt.  It was determined that it would be a big repair.  A tow truck was called - Mad Cow Towing - to get the car to French Lick where it could be repaired after the engine cooled.  Most of the group traveled to the hotel with Norm leading the way.  Gary, Wayburn, Ron & Pat, stayed with Ken until the tow truck was confirmed as being on its way.  Ken finally arrived at the hotel after 9:00pm.   

Ken O, Ken D, Ron

All is well once again.