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camping, Eclipse Trip, Fort Massac State Park, school bus RV, Skoolie

Our Eclipse Trip (Part 5)

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(Continued from Part 4)

The view of woods to our east.

So, waking up at Fort Massac was nice, but warm and humid.  We spent the morning setting up and leveling the bus a bit with some pressure treated lumber under the back wheels.  But the site that we had was awesome.  We were on the edge of woods that spanned some 2 miles behind us, and at the end of a loop, so we had a grassy area next to our site on the south side, with a neighbor to the north.

An old park map showing the loops and historic fort sites.

We were at Site 36, which is on the farther loop from the river, but it ended up being more secluded and quiet, as the end of the first loop had a bike/hiking trail running right behind it.  Just at the end of our loop was a road that went to the old group camping area (no longer used) where we could get right on the bike trails.  (More about those later.)

The bus happily resting at Site 36 in Fort Massac State Park.

So, just on the edge of our site was the firepit, which is probably the most elaborate pit I’ve encountered so far.  Growing up in the Adirondacks, I was used to mortared stone firepits (almost fireplaces) with inset, hinged iron gratings.  Going to the Sprague Brook and Evangola parks, I got used to minimal steel rings with either a hinged steel grating, or one that had four different settings of heights, but never truly left the fire area.  The  firepit that we had at Allegany State Park was the most rustic, with just a ring of stones and no grating (And as such, we picked up a cheap grating at the camp store, which when it dies, we’ll replace with a more durable one – they’re good to have!).

The firepit for our site at Fort Massac.

But the firepit here was impressive.  The grill not only had a really nice handle, but was mounted on a post that allowed the grill to swing around to the back of the firepit, and then continue around to be back over the fire. The mechanism of it also allowed one (who was wearing gloves, so as not to get one’s hands all covered with rust, soot, and grease) to tilt the whole rotating arm so that the grill could be raised or lowered to the desired height above the fire for cooking.  This last was an important item, as I love to cook over the fire. The only downside what just how tall that steel ring was!  You’d have to be right on top of the fire to enjoy it.

Our site in the shade!

But when we arrived, keeping warm was the least of our worries. Temperatures were in the 80’s and 90’s with really high humidity.  Luckily, our site was one of the few with larger trees, so we had shade for most of the day, and with the grassy area nearby, when there was a breeze, we got that too.

When we got in the night before, we had stopped at the Welcome Center/Museum to check in, but it was closed.  After unloading the bikes, I rode over to the Welcome Center (which had AC!), and found out that for this park, we merely had to check in with the Camp Captain.  This was an easy thing, as we had reserved with ReserveAmerica and I had pre-registered and printed that sheet out, so all the data that was needed was right there. We also found out that the last fall, several trees had come down and the maintenance crew had cut and split them, and we could take 10 pieces of wood for free, which made the fire thing a whole lot easier.

Stone bifaces, points, and hand hoes from all across Illinois.

So, after setting everything up, we spent a little time checking out the park.  It was only about half a mile to the Welcome Center/Museum, and we spent a couple of hours looking at the collections. There were rows and rows of stone tools behind glass, and drawers and drawers of them as well.  The collection was from Quentin Richey, who drilled wells for many years, collected the artifacts starting in childhood and continuing over all over the places he worked, especially in Southeastern Illinois.  After his death, his family donated the collection (which had been on display in a local restaurant) to the state, so that more people could enjoy and learn from them.  It is a really impressive collection.

Yep, we found historic lead dice on display.

There were also artifacts from the historic forts that were built on the riverbank, as well as reproduction uniforms, and other items to replicate what everyday and household items from the time would have looked like.

Pioneer household items (actual artifacts and replicas) on display.

 

 

 

The Forts at Fort Massac.

The Fort of Fort Massac is actually two Forts, as mentioned in Part 1 of this adventure.

Southwestern blockhouse, large structure, and northwestern blockhouse, seen across the ditch that would have been between the double palisade walls.

The original French Fort is now merely earthworks, and the historic recreation of the American Fort that was built in 2002 had lost its palisade walls during the intervening years.  But the three blockhouses, two large structures (barracks and storehouses) and one smaller structure were standing, though locked and closed the whole time we were there.

The Eastern view from Fort Massac.

But with the view that one could get over the river, it was easy to see why this location was called ‘The Gibraltar of the Ohio’.  The rise on this side of the bank was easily 30 feet above the river level, and if guns were mounted in the blockhouses, they would have a significant range advantage over any guns mounted on watercraft.   Obviously a good location for maintaining control of who went past on the Ohio.

We also spent a little time biking our way over to the nearby McDonald’s.  This is way off our usual track for camping, but the McDonald’s was the closest source of wifi we could get (even as limited as it was).  We needed that as our son is learning Esperanto from Duolingo, and was on a streak of continuous days that he didn’t want to break.  As such, we went and bought an item from the dollar menu and got a cup of ice each day, while he used his tablet to do his work.  If the wifi was feeling agreeable, I was able to get a weather report, otherwise, I just got frustrated.

But our first day ended well.  We were settled, leveled, provisioned with wood, Duolingoed, and where we needed to be for the Eclipse in a couple of days. It was still hot and humid when we got to bed, but it cooled down overnight.

(Continued in Part 6)

Bulliet (Stitzel-Weller) DIstillery, camping, Destination, driving, Eclipse Trip, Fort Massac State Park, school bus RV, Skoolie

Our Eclipse Trip (Part 4)

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(Continued from Part 3)

The Wanderlodge behind us.

Now full of pizza and wings, we set off to find our way out of Butchertown.  Along the way, we were followed (and passed) by a beautifully kept Wanderlodge.  These are the ‘official’ company made RVs built out of school bus bodies (from 1968-2009).

The Wanderlodge heads off to parts unknown while we turn left. We had way more windows, though …)

As the Wanderlodge headed off on it’s own adventure, we made our way back onto the highway and over to the Bulliet Distillery.  The distillery is the only one in a rather industrial area just outside the city (map here) limits of Louisville as it was secured before the area was developed because of the availability of good water (and also to avoid paying taxes).  As it was, there were plenty of trucks and parking lots for heavy vehicles along the way.

One of the newer storage buildings.

The distillery was originally the the Stitzel-Weller Distilling Company  which was founded in 1935 with the combination of the distributor W. L. Weller & Sons, and the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery.  Known for their ‘Old Fitzgerald’, ‘W.L. Weller’, ‘Pappy Van Winkle’, and other brands through 1972, when the distillery closed though the storage buildings continued to age barrels (at the height of it’s operations, the storage buildings could house 800,000 cases worth of bourbon).

Our tour guide walking us through the distilling process on a display of the facilities.

Bulleit was started (again) in 1987, and used some of the facilities at the Sitzel-Weller plant (though production other that R&D was moved before our tour – be on the lookout for a chocolate rye to be coming out in a few years!).

In the cooperage.

One of the cool things on the tour was seeing one of the few remaining historic cooperage buildings still with gear in it.  It had the facilities to empty a leaking barrel, remove the ends and bands, and allow the staves to be splayed, replaced, or leaks packed with rushes (rushes impart no odd flavors, it turns out).

A quick lesson on repairing a leaking barrel.
Quality control is first!

The highlight of the tour was the tasting. We tasted not only the regular Bulliet, but the 10 year-old, the single barrel uncut, the Rye Whiskey, and

some of the historic blend that’s being made with some of the orphan barrels that were left over when Bulliet took the space over.

But alas, it was over all too soon.  Though we did still have a drive ahead of us, and one of the things that I never seem to be able to do is get to a campground while it’s still light.  So, off we set for Metropolis.

And wound up in a traffic jam.  There were two accidents within a mile of each other and the multiple lanes of traffic were just crawling.

Finally we were in the clear and moved easily down I-65, until we hit the interchange with the Western Kentucky Parkway, which becomes I-69 near Morton’s gap. The interchange had a 15-20 minute stop-and-go traffic jam because of the merging with the Elizabethtown exits, but before we could get to that we had to climb the hill.

And the boy got plenty of reading done …

But once we got onto the Parkway, the engine was nice and cool, and we sailed along.  The Parkway runs nearly straight west, but with lots of hills, though none big enough to slow us down to shift into fourth.

Finally, we hit the end of I-69 where it intersects with I-24, which we took toward Paducah.  We got glimpses of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, but it was starting to get toward evening and I had high hopes of getting to Fort Massac before dark. (I seem to have a hard time ending up at our campsite before dark for some reason.)

Looking west from the I-24 bridge over the Ohio River. Metropolis is just a few miles downriver.

But there was still some light as we got through Paducah and headed back across the Ohio River again and into Illinois.

Our exit was just past the bridge, and then it was only a couple of miles to our site.  Finally, we were at our location for the eclipse, safe, sound, and kind of tired!

 

(Continued in Part 5)

Destination, driving, Eclipse Trip, school bus RV, Skoolie

Our Eclipse Trip (Part 3)

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(Continued from Part 2)

Friday morning found us off to Metropolis via Louisville.  After a nice breakfast with our friends, we set out on an overcast day, finding our way to OH 562 to get us to  I-75, as I-71 was closed before the bridge to Kentucky.  Not surprisingly, the traffic was a crawl until we got over the bridge and into Kentucky.

It would have picked up more for us, had it not been for the hill. Called the ‘Cut-in-the Hill‘, it climbs about 380 feet over 4 miles, and a calculation over that distance gives it a 2% grade, though the steepest part reaches a about a 3% grade.  And as we were nowhere near up to speed when we hit it, we crawled up at 40 mph, but we weren’t alone, as there were several tractor-trailers in the same situation.

But on the other hand, there was a huge duck atop a building (Cornerstone at Norwood along I-71, for the 23rd Annual Rubber Duck Regatta)

But after that, the drive was pretty nice.  After the rain, the day was a little cooler than the first day, and the engine temperatures didn’t need as much attention, even with the hills and high speeds.  It did still take some attention, as there seemed to be more ‘discourteous’ drivers (not leaving space, weaving in/out of lanes, speeding in excess, cutting nearly sideways across several lanes of traffic to exit suddenly) here than there were in Ohio, and THAT was more than I’m used to dealing with on the road in New York.

But by the time we got to Louisville, though, I was used to it and was being a bit more careful than usual.  Before we were really deep into the city, we had to pull off because the Embroiderer’s Guild of America (EGA) is headquartered in the Butchertown neighborhood.  As my wife is a member of the EGA, and they have a small collection of high quality needlework, we needed to stop.

The Water Tower & Pumpworks around 1860.

As the name suggests, Butchertown was originally full of stockyards, and near where the Beargrass Creek was rerouted to, making it a great place to dump all the unwanted trimmings and such so they would float away to the nearby Ohio River.  So it was a great drive along River Road (right along the river) from the Louisville Water Tower Park to what seemed an overly industrial area for embroiderers.

But the EGA Headquarters is in a readapted historic leather work and cotton sash factory and warehouse (The Pointe), so that explained it.  However, the kind of residences that would have been for workers in such a mid-to-late 1800’s area were small and densely packed, and many didn’t have off-street parking to speak of.  Meaning that there wasn’t anywhere for us to park the bus! There were, however, a number of businesses around with large parking lots, so my wife went off to see if any of them would give us permission to park, while I waited in the bus to be technically ‘standing’ in a no-parking area.

The bus in the Butchertown Pizza Hall parking lot.

After making her way from business to business around the block, she came back to direct me to the parking area of the Butchertown Pizza Hall, where she spoke with one of the owners, and where, as we drove up, employees were moving cars from the back of the lot to give us space to park!  My wife had said that we would definitely buy something there, the owner had said that we didn’t need to, but we were determined to have lunch there after we’d gone to the EGA Headquarters.

A closeup of one of several wall-length hangings at the EGA Headquarters.

Being only a block and a half from the headquarters, it took little time to walk over there and make our way to the back of the building to see what there was. The re-purposed building was high-ceilinged, bright, and airy with terrific heavy wood floors.  The EGA offices were likewise bright and airy, and the displays of needlework were well-displayed over the walls of the small gallery.

The EGA dollhouse, full of miniature embroidery!

We spent a half-hour or so looking over the stitching, the needlework in the display dollhouse, and chatting with the staff members there, especially as one was about to be heading off to Tennessee to watch the eclipse!

And more modern needleart …

After that, we headed back to have some pizza for lunch.

We expected the Butchertown Pizza Hall to have pizza, but they also had wings, so we opted to not get individual lunch specials, but get a pizza with slices of home-made meatballs and mozzarella, and an order of bourbon-honey wings (we were in Kentucky so it made more sense than hot wings).

Our Butchertown Pizza Hall pizza!

The pizza was a full 18″ pizza with a fairly thin crust you could fold to eat.  The sauce and meatballs were really nicely spiced/herbed and the pizza as a whole was really filling!  Even with our growing boy, we barely got through half of it.

And some bourbon-honey wings!

The wings were just awesome.  And coming from Buffalo, I guess you could say that we’re sort of ‘wing snobs’.  While Buffalo is known as the ‘birth place of chicken wings’, even in Buffalo, people know where the best wings in the city are and what makes a good wing.  The Butchertown Pizza Hall wings had the hallmarks of great wings, being completely cooked through, still tender and juicy, with crispy skin.  The sauce was really well put together, being just a bit sweet and buttery, with a well-rounded bourbon flavor that made them way too easy to eat.

While we finished the wings, we had to get the rest of the pizza to go, and left feeling very satisfied and happy that we’d found the place. It was well worth the stop.

Then we headed off to the Bulleit Distillery, originally the Stitzel-Weller Distillery, which was only 20 minutes away.

(Continued in Part 4)