Red River Gorge Getaway Giveaway

HEY!  I just wanted to take a moment to mention a cool giveaway that I heard about recently.  Cliffview Resort in the Red River Gorge area is giving away a pretty nice 2 night getaway to the area that includes some zip-lining!

Go HERE for more details......  the 2 night lodge stay looks pretty sweet!

Cairn Coffee in Winchester KY

When we walked in to Cairn Coffee House in Winchester the other day we immediately knew we loved the place.  My wife started comparing Cairn to Purdy's in Richmond.  That's very high praise.

This is a very beautiful coffee shop in a great old building.  The shop is clean, spacious and warm.  In fact, we spent a good amount of time reading by their fireplace on a cold day before the seasons changed.

AND, it seems that I keep finding coffee shops that are drive thru, small kiosks, or only have a few seats inside.  This shop is the opposite of that.  Cairn is easily one of the most inviting places to stay and relax.

They have even opened up the store front window areas for seating, which looked cozy too, and it is just a great use of space!

I was looking at their website, and it seems they are a non-profit business ran by Calvary Christian Church.  Check out their site for more info on this, but I really like the spirit of that sort of thing.

They have some very nice items for lunch too!  We had a great strawberry chicken salad and some other items.  They do have an interesting sandwich with beer cheese on it, and they are on the Beer Cheese Trail!

Winchester, KY

I have found myself in Winchester a lot lately.  It is a very photogenic area.  Here are a few pics.

Caproni's Restaurant, Maysville, KY

We ended a very nice, long day in Maysville with dinner at Caproni's Restaurant.  Its right on the river, offering great views of the water, and of trains going by.

Caproni's is not exactly an economical place to stop, but it has some great food.  I had a very nice piece of steak, carrots, salad and bread.

We shared a piece of butterfingers cheesecake that was all that too!

Chandler's Restaurant in Maysville, KY

 We had some really nice and affordable lunches at Chandler's in Maysville as we explored the great little town!

For a beautiful sit down place, Chandler's is very reasonable.  They had some nice half sandwich and soup deals for under $10!

The staff was friendly and helpful and we had a really nice time here!

Maysville KY Dollhouse Museum

Our main goal for visiting Maysville on our recent trip was to visit the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center to see the Kathleen Savage Browning Miniatures Collection.

In fact, there is a lot more to the museum here, but we ended up spending several hours looking at the miniatures collection, and not even making it through the rest of the museum!

We have been to several other museums where impressive replicas of famous houses are (there is the other Kentucky Dollhouse Museum in Danville, and the President's Hall of Fame in Clermont Florida housing a 1/12th scale White House) so we really love this sort of thing.

I took a ton of photos.  In fact, I had a hard time narrowing down which ones to post here, but here are some that I really liked.

EVERYTHING here would be a cool piece in any other museum.  There are a couple of absolutely AMAZING things here to see that are over the top.

There is the replica Spencer House, the ancestral home of Princess Diana.  You see it pretty much at the start of the tour.

The other amazing dollhouse is the Catherine Palace.  Inside is the miniature replica of the Amber Room.  A very enthusiastic volunteer at the museum told us all about this dollhouse, and how it was used in the filming of a "Mysteries at the Museum" episode!

We were told that the 1/12th scale items were all made accurately, and are very literally replicas.

The small instruments work, small books are actually books that can be opened and read.  Gold and diamonds are used in the homes too.


This is a really amazing place and I am sure we will be back!

Pogue Bourbon in Maysville KY

As part of the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, you can also visit the an add on museum on Bourbon, specifically relating to the area, and Pogue Bourbon.

I think the price just to see the great Kentucky Gateway Museum was $10 for adults, and the add on for the Pogue center was an additional $5 per person.

The museum is relatively small, and really just a couple of rooms big.  There are some interesting relics and documents relating to Bourbon here though.  AND we had a great tour guide who told us a lot about Bourbon in the Maysville area, AND it was interesting hearing specifically about Pogue's production in the area, and it's return.

Also, this wasn't like many of the traditional Bourbon tours on the Bourbon trail you may have done.  There are no tubs of Bourbon being made.  You won't walk into a huge storage house of barrels.  Still, if you are interested in Bourbon, this is a cool place to go.

Maysville KY

 Just a few random photos around Maysville.....