Monday-Tuesday, July 18-19. Monday morning Mike made us breakfast, then took Nancy to the chiropractor. Nancy is off work this week on sick leave with a cracked rib, so we are getting to spend some unexpected time with her. After their return, we headed out to Lynchburg, TN to tour the Jack Daniels Distillery. Tennessee has lots of flowers and flowering trees, and there were some beautiful ones on the parking lot here that looked a lot like lilacs, but they were crepe myrtle.
This was an excellent tour, with a couple of short videos and a tour guide (the tour guide spoke "Tennesseeian," though, so we had a little trouble understanding him). This is the oldest registered distillery in the U.S., established and registered in 1866, and it even survived the Prohibition. And oddly enough, it is in a dry county in Tennessee.
We actually got to go into several of the buildings, and we even saw them bottling and packaging some whiskey. We were only allowed to take pictures outside the buildings, but it was a very interesting tour.
At the completion of the tour, we were given complimentary glasses of lemonade since they cannot serve any liquor in this county. Then we toured the town square of Lynchburg, and we had some lunch. Joe bought a leather belt and I bought a leather purse here. Mike wants Joe to keep him informed on how the belt wears. I thought maybe he was going to go back and buy one if this one lasts, but he bought a belt the next day himself, so I guess it has become a contest now.
Mike decided to be our tour guide for the afternoon, so he drove us to some of their rivers, dams (Normandy Dam) and campgrounds (Whispering Oaks). We later figured out that the campground tour was really to give us alternative camping ideas in case we wore out our welcome here.
It took him a long time to find the dam, but we saw some pretty country while he was looking for it. We spent several hours in the car. But we checked out several different campgrounds, and even found some wildlife. A really cute raccoon was checking out one campsite, but we couldn't get Mike to stop so we could take a picture (until he got so close he scared him away). He did redeem himself somewhat by finding a deer just a few campsites later.
We finally got back to the house (and our campsite) about 5:00.
We had another fun card-playing evening, although the guys skunked us once. We thought we might head out Tuesday morning, but we were having such a great time we decided to stay another day (and night). We went to a local restaurant for breakfast, then Mike toured us around again through some of the neighboring towns. We could see Mt. Eagle in the distance. We found 3 deer on a golf course he plays, so of course that added a little excitement to the trip (but he only found me a dead raccoon on the highway).
We shopped at a general store in another small town, where Mike bought his new belt (1/3 of the cost of Joe's), then he saw a pick-up truck they were selling corn out of, so he had to shop for that.
We picked up a watermelon at a produce market, then headed back to the house, shortly after noon. I caught a short nap, then we had another card-playing evening (and they skunked us girls AGAIN). But we shared a lot of laughs and old memories, and it was wonderful to get to catch up with Mike and Nancy after so many years. We are for sure leaving tomorrow, but don't know if we'll make Indiana. We contemplated taking some kind of tour in Nashville, but it's supposed to be 96 degrees there tomorrow, so we decided to wait for that tour on another trip, not in the summertime!
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