Winter Epic: Buffalo Trace, Smokey Mountain, Orlando, Blue Spring State Park

Back at it again. I’m leaving later then I would have liked, but that’s life. The overall plan this year is the south west. Lots of time in Florida and check off a few more national parks I haven’t been to yet. Every other year I have either driven east or west, which doesn’t do much for the cold. Finally I’m heading straight south, hopefully to sun shine a sandy beaches.

Saturday Jan, 3 2015

I packed up and left around 1030 in the morning. I was just in time to meet my brother Adam along with his girlfriend Caitlin, who were out for brunch with my cousin Arielle and her boyfriend. Next I drove to Indianapolis hopping to see a relative. I couldn’t get a hold of him so moved on to Louisville. Very glad to see it was 60 degrees out. There was a ufc fight I was trying to watch, but after calling 10 bars no one was showing it.

Sunday Jan, 4

Today I got to hang out with a good friend of mine that I never get to see. Vince and I went to school together but he moved to KY after sophomore year. He’s a biology teacher and also works at a car dealership. I’m glad it worked out and we could catch up for the day. After leaving I drove to Lexington and grabbed a beer near campus. There was a charity casino night going on so I headed out after that.

Monday Jan, 5

I was up early and went over to the Buffalo Trace Distillery. I was the only person on the first tour. I took the bourbon barrel tour, which goes into extreme detail about the barrel itself. The first thing he told me was that the recipe is half the taste, the barrel is the other half. They still aren’t exactly sure what makes the specific flavor in each barrel. Everything affects it, where the tree was grown, elevation; top half vs. bottom half, which side of the hill it was on. Then he took me to where they fill the barrels with white dog. It’s slightly watered down moonshine that goes in the barrel clear. Several years later you have bourbon. For a whiskey to be considered bourbon there are several rules to it. A few are it has to be aged in an unused charred white oak barrel, must be 51+ percent corn, made in the USA, and between 80 and 160 proof. Straight bourbon must be aged for at least 2 years. They were just opening some barrels when we were walking by. Next we went through the bottling area and over to the warehouse. The next tour I went on was the hard hat tour. This goes over the recipe side. Bourbon made with rye is going to have a stronger flavor with a harsher bite to it. Bourbon made with wheat is going to have a smoother sweeter taste. This was followed up by sampling. When I left the distillery I headed to a place Vince told me about in Daniel Boone National Forest. I didn’t feel like hiking around so I just drove through, and stopped at the visitor center. The ranger told me about an overlook I should check out. This area doesn’t look like much in winter, lots of brown and grey. I drove along back road heading south until it started to get dark. Then I hopped on the freeway and made it to Great Smokey National Park.

Tuesday Jan, 6

Tuesday I made the mistake of asking a fat guy for hiking tips. I ended up doing a couple mile hike along a river then back around through several abandoned cottages in the woods. The woods here defiantly had more green then the day before. After hiking I talked with a man in the parking lot about kayaking. He does some kayaking through Florida and had several good spots for me to look into. My next stop was Congaree Nat Park in South Carolina. I drove to Columbia and picked up a few things at a camping store. It was already getting dark so I decided to just sleep in the park and look around the following day.

Wednesday Jan, 7

I was up early today and was the first one on the trails. This is always nice because you will always see the most wildlife, and this place was full of it. Congaree is considered a bottomland hardwood forest, basically a swamp forest. Tons of birds and critters everywhere you look. This was the first time I saw a wild pig. The first place I hiked took me through a place that was once logged. It had lots of smaller vegetation but it wasn’t extremely interesting. So I extended the hike through an area of the old growth forest. It turned out to be about 14.5 miles but well worth it. The size of these trees is incredible, but it’s hard to picture that they can take hold in the loose swampy soil. They also all seem perfectly straight. After hiking I started south again. My friend Zach contacted my saying that he was working in Orlando for the next few weeks and had an open room. Zach is Dave’s roommate in Grand Junction CO, who is Jim’s friend in Denver, who is Matt P friend from college, who is my brother’s friend from high school. So were practically family. I hiked longer than I expected so I wasn’t going to get to Orlando until 11pm. That was a little too late so I finally pulled over near Daytona.

Thursday Jan, 8

In the morning I bummed around Daytona for a few hours then drove over to Orlando. Zach builds massive aquariums. He said I could come by and look around the job site. When I got there I was shocked. I was expecting a few large fish tanks maybe in a nicer hotel or restaurant. No, this was a several thousand+ gallon monster complete with 2 full circle walk through tunnels. He showed me around the site and everything they were doing was interesting to me. They still had an hour of work left so I went and picked up some pizzas and cleaned out my car. I meet up with Zach and drove over to the extended stay hotel he was at. I got a chance to clean up, and we soon went out for some much needed beers.

Friday Jan, 9

The weather down here isn’t acting typical. They highs were only in the low 50s. I’m not complaining but it’s defiantly not what you think when you’re looking for a Florida vacation. So I really just did nothing today.

Saturday Jan, 10

Saturday I headed about an hour north to Blue Spring State Park. I was lucky to get there early; I forget places like this are always packed on weekends. This is a manatee refuge, with about 300 of the beasts there today. These are some huge creatures; there were also thousands of large fish swimming around. I watched them for a bit but I really wanted to try out my kayak. So I spent the next few hours paddling around the river. I couldn’t go by the manatees. When I got out of the water the whole park was packed with screaming kids everywhere. Time to go. On the way back I stopped at the store to pick up everything for making spaghetti. When Zach got home we went out to watch the game at a bar.

Sunday Jan, 11

Pretty hung over in the morning, so I sat around watching football all day. Always a good day when the packers win. I also looked up everything involved with camping in Dry Tortugas National Park off the cost of Key West. Then I had to run to the store for everything I needed for snorkeling and fishing.