I made a tough choice a couple months ago. Race Branson 70.3 or go to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this weekend. They are opposite extremes of two things I like to do. I chose "anti-training" and had an absolute blast. I went with a friend from work (Larry), his friend Bill and one of my college roommates, also Bill.
Larry is a real student of bourbon. He studies every thing about different bourbons, distilleries, master distillers, etc. It was really fun watching someone passionate about something be in the holy land. Larry struck up conversations about bourbon with lots of total strangers and had a blast.
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| One of the cool buildings on the grounds Maker's Mark |
The weekend consisted of walking around the festival grounds, sampling bourbon, touring distilleries and playing poker. Perfect for a group of middle aged guys! We toured three distilleries, Heaven Hills, Maker's Mark, and Jim Beam. Each tour was interesting and we learned something new each time. The smell of evaporating bourbon in the rick houses was pleasant. Each rick house holds 20,000+ barrels of bourbon where the barrels will sit for between two and 17+ years while they age. Each barrel weighs 500 pounds so the wood structures are pretty sturdy. Interesting engineering info is that the rick houses have plumb bobs in the corners which the workers use to make sure the weight in the rick house is distributing evenly.
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| One of the rick houses at Heaven Hills |
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| Another rick house |
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| A couple stills at Maker's Mark |
We had a great weekend of teasing each other which made for a really funny trip. It's not often I laugh as hard as I did on this trip. Besides the ribbing, we also did random funny stuff. How random? We'll be chuckling about this one for a long time and every time we play cards for the rest of our lives. While walking around town we walked past a dirty, old little girls shoe sitting at the bottom of a light post. After walking by it countless times on Friday, I picked it up without the guys noticing. Then on Saturday night there was a big hand between me and Larry. After he raised me I said "I call" and with a perfect delivery "and re-raise one small child's shoe". I'm crying giggling just typing this. Priceless. Oh, and I still have the shoe. I predict it will be bet again in the future......
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| The shoe |
4 comments:
Sounds like a fantastic weekend. I can totally see that shoe thing being hilarious. I mean, I laughed when I read it, but for you guys who were there I'm sure it was priceless. So is there a bourbon relay in your future? :)
Good choice! I would have picked a weekend without training too.
Those are good...and hilarious- memories.
You need weekends and days like that every so often. Laughter is a wonderful substitute for workouts!
Anti-training...I love it. Sounds like a really fun weekend and a nice escape from the grind. Too funny about the shoe...
I love the anti-training post. Nice pics too. Glad you had a good time.
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