Hi, I am Jim, I love Kentucky, and traveling in and around Kentucky! I also love the entire country, and all of the beautiful and strange places here and there! This blog covers the overlooked, forgotten, and underrated places, people, and moments in history in America, with a focus on Kentucky!
It will cover great tourists stops, books about people and history, and include photos and postcard scans.
Mackinac Bridge
Mackinac Bridge, taken from the ferry on the way to Mackinac Island.
We went to Brushy Mountain Prison a few years ago, and I have been looking for an excuse to get back there for some time. Well, my pal Mark wanted to go, so off we went.
Brushy was a functioning prison from 1896-2009!
Now, its a tourist attraction, and you can go in, look around, do a self guided tour, etc. I think they always try to have former staff or inmates around.
They have a video about the prison too.
They have a GREAT restaurant on site, the Warden's Table... AND they make their own adult beverages!
Check out my video... this is a very cool place to check out less than a couple of hours away from the Great Smoky Mountains.
We have been going to Gatlinburg and the Pigeon Forge area for years now, and believe it or not, we JUST started going to the dinner theater shows!
We have talked about it before, but we always kinda talk ourselves out of it....
So, we saw Pirates a few months ago and loved it! Seeing "Peter" performed at Biblical Times Dinner Theater would be my second experience with a show in the GSM area.
We drove in to town a little late and saw that a performance would be starting soon. We stopped in hopping to get tickets. We were told that tickets were available, but not with a dinner. Good to know that you can get a non dinner ticket, but we were hungry, so we passed on a non meal performance, but we came back the next night.
Tickets were $50, which is cheaper than some of the other shows in town. We got to our seats around 6 for the start of the show. A nice, small salad was waiting for us at our seat tray.
The first 45 minutes of the show involved about a 45 minute gospel music performance by the same actors who would be in the play. They sang (very well!) to a prerecorded music track.
I'm personally not a huge fan of this sort of thing- as I kinda felt like I was at church, but it was entertaining.
Food service occurred only during this first part of the show. The food was above average and the 2 people that they had taking care of the theater were quick and efficient.
After an intermission, the play/musical started. I would say that was another 90 minutes or so (putting the whole thing at well over the advertised 2 hours, which was fine with us).
There is a small cast of half a dozen or so, and they interact some with prerecorded other actors. There is also a very cool projection onto a screen system they use for set changes. This is different, and kind of adds another element making this a unique experience.
After the performance, the actors came out to say hello and pose for photos.
This was not the over the top performance like you might see at one of the other venues, but we still enjoyed it a lot. These guys are scrappy, and doing a lot with a very small team. In fact, the fellow who sold us out ticket later popped up in the performance.
This is different and unique and I really like what they are doing.
I put up another video on youtube recently of my old school, Berea College, and I peppered in some old postcards and photos to do a bit of a "Then and Now" comparison.
I mostly left Boone Tavern out because I thought it deserved a video all to itself.
As I mention in the video, I worked here some while attending Berea College in the 90s. I would meet my future wife while working here... and she spent all four of her Berea years working at the Tavern.
We still go down often, and we try to get a room there for a weekend every year or two, just because.
So, check out this video of my recent trip to Boone Tavern, along with some older images of the hotel/restaurant that has been there for well over a century!
I have talked a lot on this blog about my love of Berea College in Berea Kentucky. I have made many posts about it. And, I spent a good chunk of the 90s there...
Well, we were back on campus recently and I made another video. I added in some images of old photos and old postcards to do a bit of a "Then and Now" kind of thing.
I will be putting up a similar one that is Just Boone Tavern.
I do feel like the campus changes, but it changes very slowly.
I always think that, if someone hadn't been on campus for several decades and then they just showed up, it would still be an easy campus to recognize.
I found myself back at the Mary Todd Lincoln House in Lexington the other day. They have changed the way they are doing things a bit. It is now being done as a self guided tour, and, they were allowing the use of video!
I have been here numerous times, but I was very excited to stop by and make a video!
I picked up the Images of America book "Harrogate and the Cumberland Gap" by Natalie Sweet on our recent visit to the area. By the way, this area is REALLY growing on me!
This is just a nice, quick read (mostly historic photos with description) about the area, and how it was established.
I was totally unaware that there was a massive resort there once!
I love the college there too, LMU is a cool place with a Col. Sanders connection!
