April 2023: A National Parks and Bourbon Road Trip: Day 10, the end

Day 10: Sunday April 30, 2023

After a great night’s sleep, we got up at a reasonable hour, got ready, and headed for breakfast. Breakfast was…fine. I was glad to not be paying full price for it, but definitely missed the days of only having to tip for breakfast at the Hilton Gardens

After breakfast, we went back to the room, packed up, and headed out. Check out was quick and the lady at the desk offered up the info that the breakfast credits had already been applied. Good! We packed up the car and hit the road.

By the time we hit I-80 (not that far outside of State College), it was raining, and we were in rain of various intensities until we were north of Hartford. It was a long day. We stopped just before I-81 for gas, hit a Jersey Mike’s for a late lunch off 84 in NY at the exit for Poughkeepsie, and then stopped again for gas just after crossing the river into NH. We finished the 479 mile drive from State College with enough time to get the car unloaded at home before the downpours reached NH. It was a long day. But thankfully all went smoothly.


Final thoughts:

We are not city people.

Despite not being city people, I liked how so much that is worth seeing in Louisville was on one street. It’s a fairly compact area, which made touring easy.

West Virginia and Kentucky are both beautiful states.

New River Gorge and Mammoth Cave National Parks are both very worth visiting. Make those cave tour reservations earlier than I did.

Bourbon Tour reservations need to be made early. Each distillery has their own timeframe when they open up reservations. Know them

Although you learn the same stuff on each tour, it’s worth it to take a tour at each distillery. Much better than just showing up to shop and find the hidden bar.

Driving southwest of the northeast corridor is so much more enjoyable than driving in the northeast corridor.

I liked this trip a lot more than I expected to!

I’m pretty proud of myself for successfully sampling as many bourbons as I did.

Next year’s travel will include another trip with a lot of driving, but not nearly the driving I did on this trip, and I’m grateful for that! But I really did enjoy this trip, and I’m also kinda proud of myself for the amount of driving I did (all of the 2476 miles) given what the week before the trip had looked like for me.

The more of this country that I see, the more I want to see!