Monday, October 4, 2010

Train Weekend






My Old Kentucky
Dinner Train















The Abbey of Gethsemani




















Monon BL2 at
Ky Railway Museum















Small Whiskey Still at
Oscar Getz Musuem











Everything is Old
Kentucky Something
or Other








Cuzzin Ricky and I headed South Friday morning for the great Commonwealth of Kentucky to attend the Monon Railroad Historical Technical Society Annual Convention. After breezing into Bardstown that afternoon we stopped for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie at Pat's Place. No luck on the pie but they did have cake. Pretty darn tasty cake at that. We also had dinner there later on that evening - great Beef Manhattan and they had pie with dinner.

After we got checked into the motel we went to the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. Lots of distillation history here. I guess that would be only fitting since Bardstown is the bourbon capitol of the universe. I didn't check the itinerary of the Monon group prior to leaving or I would have seen that they were going on a tour of one the distillers. I've been on a few of these before, but I wouldn't have minded going through another one, especially one I hadn't gone to before. As it was, the museum covered not only whiskey distillation and all things thereof, it also covered local Bardstown history as well. Not a bad trade-off.

Saturday morning we headed south to New Haven to the Kentucky Railway Museum. It was a beautiful day for a train ride through the countryside of Kentucky. The train was pushed along by an old steam locomotive and heading the train was the ex Monon BL2. They didn't make too many Bl2s in the first place and the one here is one of only seven left. When I worked for Uncle Pete at the weld shop in South Hammond, I used to see these all the time. It never occurred to me to take pictures of all that stuff while I was there. The Monon was taken over by the L&N just a couple of years later. I could have had a lot of great photos or probably more like it, a lot of crappy ones taken with a little Kodak Instamatic. Regardless, the train ride was a lot of fun and you can't beat the sound of a steam whistle blowing for a crossing.

Saturday afternoon we road the Old Kentucky Dinner Train. The Missus and I took the dinner train a couple of years back. The service and food was great then and still is now. The ride is a relaxing two hours of eating, conversation and sightseeing. The dining car we were in was top shelf all the way. If I win the lottery and have millions at my disposal, I think I might get me a car like this to travel around on.

In between the two train rides, we took a little side trip to the Abbey of Gethsemani which was the former home of Trappist Monk Thomas Merton. We didn't have much time to look around but it was kind of a bonus, just the same. I didn't realize it was as close to the Railway Museum as it was, of course after giving Ricky a couple of wrong directions, it was a little farther away than it should have been. I've read some of Merton's writings and it was nice to experience a place where the people don't talk. The world could use a little more of that. The monks support the Abbey with the sale of cheese, fruitcake and a few other things made there. I bought myself a little fruitcake - made with real Kentucky bourbon, of course. Fruitcake really has an undeserved bad reputation. Real fruitcake is worth searching out. I haven't tapped into mine yet but I'm looking forward to it.

Sunday morning we checked out the swap meet and headed for home. We made a stop in Linden to check out a boxcar belonging to the Monon Society that's in need of some repair. Something else for me to fix and might make for an interesting blog post some time. There's a little bit of personal history involved.

And a good time was had by all!

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