Day Five - Oak Grove, MO to Louisville, KY

Day Five

Oak Grove, Mo to Louisville, Ky

So it was almost 4 am when we got going. Tanner got a bunch of snacks to eat while he drove, to keep himself awake. I tried really hard to sleep in the truck. I have been struggling. I have some lower back pain when I’m sitting or driving for too long. And I am bad at sleeping sitting up anyways.

That was the longest single stretch of driving we have done. Tanner drove for four hours straight. I slept for part of that.

As it got lighter out we came to St. Louis, the last big city we had to drive straight through. It was just after 7am on Sunday morning. That was less challenging, and we made it just fine. All the places we had driven through but couldn’t stop and see were starting to make us sad.

Sunrise was hard to see behind the clouds and haze, the sun is peaking out here as we drive east

St. Louis

This bridge meant we were now in southern Illinois, I missed the welcome to Illinois sign

I took a turn driving while Tanner napped in the truck. My back did surprisingly well. The truck does have a cruise control as well. We haven’t gotten to use it much, it sucks on hills, we only use it during daylight hours, and it won’t let us set a faster speed then 71 miles per hour. But during the day in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois and Indiana it was nice to have.

We stopped for breakfast at nearly 8:00 am. We went to Cracker Barrel, Tanner had never been to one. I also saw a combination PizzaHut and Taco Bell!

Breakfast was fine. That was the first and only day we ate badly in the truck, since Tanner needed to snack while he drove, and he was sort of spoiling himself.

Missouri, southern Illinois, and Indiana all looked very similar, lots of corn. After wanting a picture for days I finally got my picture taken with some corn! There was some in Indiana that came right up to the rest area. As we entered Kentucky the land became less flat, we drove over more hills and rivers.

Thanks Tanner, this photo I waited for through four states turned out really well 

We did some research on the phone and decided on a hotel that was a good value, and would be cleaner then the Motel 6 we stayed in back in Wyoming. We were making pretty good time and had left so early, we were worried we would be too early to check in to our hotel, but we lost another hour, passed into the Eastern Time Zone. 

Tanner was excited to see Kentucky limestone

Entering Louisville

Passing over the Ohio into Kentucky proper 

More giant construction projects in the cities we keep passing through

So we arrived at our hotel in Louisville at 3pm and checked in. Yay!

That meant we actually got to play tourist. We both took a nap and showers. Then we drove into downtown Louisville in the Subaru.

Tanner had looked up the “Urban Bourbon Trail” in Louisville back in Seattle. We tried Doc Crow’s Smokehouse and Raw Bar first. We had appetizers, oysters, fried green tomatoes and crab cakes. The oysters were kind of fun, we got three of each they were offering, so three from Connecticut, three from New Jersey and three from Virginia. I got two champagne and bourbon cocktails, they were fantastic and surprisingly different from each other. Tanner tried a full pour of W.L. Weller Antique 107 and a sample size of Four Roses Single Barrel. He liked both of them. Both were barrel proof, so very strong, both were tasty.

They had a major fire here on Bourbon Row. The old building facades are from the original distilleries, which don't operate in the city any more.  So they are hugely propped up, it was interesting. 

Pouring over the giant whiskey menu

Then we walked to two other bourbon bars/restaurants, both were closed. Turns out other cities are not super active on Sunday nights. We went over to one more place, called Haymarket. It bills itself as a “dive” bar for bourbon. By Seattle standards it was fairly typical, pin ball, weird art, lots of odd knick knacks, real independent business feel. It did have a comprehensive selection of bourbon. Tanner says it had a little bit of everything, and covered all the bases, even if they couldn’t have every bourbon available. The bartender walked up and gave us some waters and started asking what bourbon we liked. He picked us out right away as bourbon tourists. Both of us liked the recommendations he gave us, I tried an E.H. Taylor, and Tanner tried a Willet Rye. The bartender’s name was Stubey, he very friendly and doing a great job. We chatted we bit, but we kind suck at that. So we listened to him chat to other patrons about the local music scene, bourbon, and cocktails. He made Tanner (I was the DD) a delicious Old Fashioned. Finally it was getting late enough that we had to head back.

We were both hungry again, so Tanner made us go through a White Castle drive thru. We got back to our Microtel, which we loved, and went to sleep. I didn't take a photo of the Microtel. I actually missed a photo of Cracker Barrel too. We were so tired and grumpy, after basically driving for two days straight. I am so glad that Louisville made up for it, we had a blast.