Just remembered

We tailgated and went to the first Kansas State University Football game yesterday!

That last post took me 4 hours as a result of being pretty beat from the last few days of college parties and by the end of it my memory was fading quite spectacularly, so much so that I completely blanked out yesterday :D

Anyway so yeah we went Tailgating which basically involves everyone parking in the stadium carpark, setting up bbq's and just drinking the day away - good way to spend the day!

Heres some pictures from the game, we slaughtered North Texas 45-6 btw.













I am actually in a lot of pictures incase your wondering, there just not on my camera. I'll try and get some from Iain's laptop at some point.

Go K-State!

Manhattan, Kansas and the Road Trip that was.

Again I’ve let this fall behind purely because we’ve been so busy the last week. I’ll try and recap most of it.

The first few nights in Manhattan were a blur, infact to be fair virtually every night we've spent here has a kind of hazy feel to it. Me and Stu were the only ones brave enough to try and "Edward 40 Hands" which basically involves getting 2 40oz bottles of beer taped to your hands and you cant go to the bathroom until your finished both. Fun Times...

Stu, Kerri, Me, Adam

Complete!

So from the last post you’ll have gathered we were in Lynchburg Tennessee earlier in the week. We’d been staying with Adam in Manhattan up until Sunday and seeing as everyone was going back to Uni the next day we figured we’d get out of their way for a bit and do some exploring. Our original plan was to head to St. Louis and spend a few days there but after looking at our atlas I noticed that we were pretty close to Nashville… and Lynchburg. After checking the distances we figured we could make a 5day round trip to Nashville and get back to Manhattan for the parties on Friday and the football game on Saturday.

We set off towards Kansas City via Topeka on Sunday night and just stopped in at an Econo Lodge which is the American equivalent of a Travel Lodge style place. A room with 2 queen sized beds has only been costing us $60-75 a night between the 3 of us so it’s really been helping us keep under budget. The next morning we had lunch in Kansas City and decided to get back on the road to put some big miles on the clock. We drove straight through St. Louis that night and onto Nashville itself, covering around 650 miles.

We spent the next day just wandering around Nashville and getting lunch although we didn’t really know where we were going so it just seemed like another small city! From there we headed down to Lynchburg to check out the Jack Daniels Distillery stopping briefly in Graceland to check out the home of the King.

When in Graceland we wandered around the grounds of the house without actually going in. We weren’t that big fans and the $30 each they were asking for entry could be put to better use. I think I speak for the 3 of us here though when I say that there was something quite sad about the place. There was an air of desperation around the place, people making a living selling pencils and dishes with is picture on. I know he had some hangers on when he was alive but I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d think if he could see the place now. We made a sharp exit and headed down to Lynchburg.

The drive down was much more interesting than the seemingly endless interstates we’d grown used to. We were driving through small country towns and villages that would look right at home in an old Western Movie. After maybe an hour or so we arrived at the main visitors building where I had the penultimate picture of the trip so far.

Once in we signed up for the Tour and checked out the displays in the main building. After watching a quick film about the place and how Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniels came to buy the place we moved onto see how the stuff is actually made. While me and the guys thought it was a Bourbon its actually classed as a “Tennessee Whisky” although the all knowing supreme being a.k.a Captain Negative a.k.a. Microphone heid a.k.a Iain Dallas did have an argument with the guy about it ;) All negativity beside it was a great little tour. They still have the original little office that they operated from, the same office that housed the safe that killed Jack!

Basically he went in to work early one morning and the safe was giving him some jip. After struggling with it for a while he gave up and in frustration kicked it so hard that he broke one of his big toes! Being a true mans man he didn’t bother telling anyone and eventually got sick from the infection. His foot ended up gangrenous and the doctors had to cut it off however it had spread quickly and they had to cut his entire leg off. This however wasn’t enough to catch it and so on the 10^th of October 1911 he died.

What can we learn from this? Never go to work early.

Here’s some pictures:

They had their own fire engines!

The oldest Barrel House


The iron free creek where the water comes from.

The Infamous Safe

The Sour Mash! It smelled amazing.

They make their own barrels to age the whiskey in and actually sell the barells once they've been used to some Scottish Whisky makers apparently.

You can actually buy a keg of Jack for around $10,000

Bruce - Our guide

Jeff Arnett - Current Master Distiller

After finishing up and completing the second Pilgrimage of this road trip it was time to move on and head to Memphis.

We had some lunch there and hung out on Beale street which is the main bar district. We found out that there was going to be a big bike rally that night so we decided to stay for the night. Within a few hours the entire street was packed with bikes so we took the opportunity to take some pictures:

We stopped at St. Louis on the last leg of our return journey to Kansas and managed to get up the St. Louis Arch! It’s a monument to the days when St. Louis was considered the gateway to the west, pretty big monument!

Since getting back on Friday afternoon we’ve pretty much been out at the bars and parties. It’s a hard life eh?

Jacks House'

Finally.....

On a 5 day roadtrip at the moment and managed to get to the Jack Daniels Distillery! I had a picture taken with the master distiller also :D Tight for time just now so I'll update it later..

Guns 'n' Poses

We left Kansas a few days ago to go to Nebraska to meet Adam and Jolien again and a lot has happened since then! The drive was pretty straight forward although we did get pulled by the boys in blue about 20 minutes into our first journey with the car! Basically in America if the police, ambulance, fire brigade etc are sitting in the hard shoulder of the motorway you have to pull into the furthest away lane or if that’s not possible slow to 40 MPH so as not to accidentally it and kill whoever’s there. Fair enough I suppose although its not something either of us were even remotely aware off. The cop was nice enough though, the accent did its usual magic and we were let off with a warning. So on we went, driving the seemingly endless roads through endless fields up into Nebraska.

The farm

Oh yeah, Stu broke the car

Once we managed to find Du Bois town centre (All 1 street and 5 buildings of it) we went into the bar for some food to wait for Adam to come meet us and show us where the farm was. Jolien

** at this point I must apologise for any previous use of Jolene/Joleine/Joliene as I’ve just been corrected. It is actually Jolien.**

Ok, so Jolien came to meet us and led us back to the lake where we met Adam, his dad and some other folk. They were trying to pump water out of the lake to dry it out, they had a reason but I’m not entirely sure. After they were done they come over to chat for a bit then Adam got his riffle out and nods to follow so we do. He loads it up and fired a few deafening rounds into the lake then handed it to Stu who, like the rest of us, just looked at him like “huh?”. After a few pointers Stu took a few shots and then handed it to me.

I’ve fired air rifles and the like before but this was my first time firing an actual gun and let me tell you it was fantastic. It’s a bit scary how much power they have but fun none the less! This rifle had pretty much no recoil so it was easy enough to shoot but Adam has some .44cal magnum six shooters that have quite a kick so we might try that at some point. After that we headed back to the farm to relax a bit. Had a few beers and chatted away as more people came. The guys were going to head back down to the lake but I fancied a bit more horse riding so me and Jolien took two horses out across the fields down to where the lake is to meet the guys. On the way down we were cantering which doesn’t look to fast but feels pretty fast! We got to the lake to find no one there so decided to head through some more fields to the guest house we’re staying at. After having to unlock a big gate to get to the house we discovered there was no one at the house either! The horses were complaining a bit about having to work so we took them back to the farm. Turns out the guys had never left and when we came over the horizon from checking out the lake Stu had a sniper rifle (al be it unloaded) pointed at us the whole time and was watching us through the scope! What an afternoon! That however was only the start of it….

We headed back down to the lake in time to see someone wrestling with a big carpe. After he landed it with the help of Adam and Iain in another boat with a net, me and Adam took a boat out and tried to catch some stuff. After 10 minutes with nothing more than driftwood it was time to drag the net. Now as I’d said earlier just quite why their doing it I don’t know but their trying to catch all the fish to put them in another lake (which is half drained already) so they can drain the lake. In order to do this they have a big net that has to be dragged from one side to the other to collect as many fish as possibly then haul it up the muddy bank to get the fish and to drag the net they need men in the water… yup. After a bit of persuading I decided to chip in and so made my way in. I was waist deep in mud and chest deep in water while trying to keep the end stick with one end of the net upright, hard work! After a few drags we’d caught maybe 150-200 fish and I’d been hit by a few of them jumping over the net :O. It stunk like god knows what but it was actually quite good fun. After that Adam and me headed back to the Farm to grab a drink and some food and some home made wine. While I was in the lake Iain, Stu and Jolien were at the bar having dinner and a few beers … :P They’d left Iain there to come and pick us up though so after finishing off some of the home made wine and getting some dry clothes we headed to the bar where Iain was merrily chatting away to Randy and Brian, two local farmers. After some pool and a few beers we headed home to get some sleep.

The next day we got up quite late and headed to the nearest town of Humbolt for some pizza. Hung out a bit at the house and then with Jolien’s help saddled up some of Adams horses to take out into the fields. I got Jasper again who had been pretty good the day before. We headed by the corn fields over into the local Boy Scout camp again taking a few detours on the way. Within minutes the peer pressure resulted in us all galloping at crazy speeds J. After maybe 2-3 hours out and about we headed back to the farm tired and dirty. Stu’s knees were hurting a bit so he was trying to keep the horse from running however as soon as we started his would just follow! Iain and I galloped ahead so Stu wouldn’t have a more uncomfortable ride than he’d been having while Jolien stayed back with him.

The 4 horsemen (and woman) of the Apocolypse! (Im the 4th incase your wondering :P)

After giving the horses a quick clean and putting them back in the field we had some of Adam’s Dads home made wine then headed to the Bar in Du Bois. Some beer and Pool followed then we got some pictures taken of us to put in the bar. We sat and talked to Porter at the bar till about 1am about lots of random stuff then it was time to close up shop and get some sleep.

When I got home I had a little nosey around my room that used to belong to a Mr Tom Frey. He had some pictures on his chest of drawers from when he was in the navy. He also had some pictures from high school that were signed by his classmates in 64’ and reading them was like going back in time! They all mentioned how fast the last 4 years of high school had went and how much fun they’d had together. Every now and then I was afforded a tiny glimpse into a private joke or a good night out these guys had almost 40 years ago which was an odd sensation. It made me think about this reading this blog in 20-30 years time and how much things will have changed by then.

Anyway we’d talked about leaving around 9 the next morning to get down to Manhattan, Kansas but that was unlikely since the other two hadn’t surfaced before mid day for the last 2 days. Best laid plans eh? Adam had to go to the Optician near Nebraska City the next morning so I decided to go with him and Jolien for a look around while the guys had some sleep.

We left for the city around half 8 and drove for about an hour. Adam dropped us off at some big super market while he went to get his eyes checked. He took a while to get seen so we were wandering about for a while but it was better than sleeping. After he was done we went to some big department store where everything was dirt cheap so Jolien bought a kool bag. On the way home we stopped and “Hunters Headquarters” which as the name suggests is a little shop that sells a load of guns and ammo :D. Bought a box of ammo for the .44 magnum and had a look around at the awesome array of machinery. We stopped at a roadside BBQ van for lunch and I had a conversation about all things whiskey with the guy that owned the van, good times.

We got back to the farm around 2-3 pm and the guys were champing at the bit to head to Manhattan however as soon as we showed them the ammo they were willing to stay for another hour or so! We went round to Adam’s house and he brought all his guns out for us to choose from :D.

We decided to take pretty much all of them down to a little firing range Adam set up years ago. I can’t describe how much fun it was so I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves. I’ve loads of videos too which are available at request when I get home :D.

First shot with the 12 gauge and I hit it spot on :)

After shooting the afternoon and $60 of bullets away Iain and Stu set off for Manhattan while I stayed back to take the horses out for a final run with Jolien. We took the two fastest over by the scout camp and up to “inspiration point” as recommended by Adam’s uncle where we had an amazing view of the surrounding area and farm. By this point I was pretty comfortable galloping the entire way which was a fantastic feeling. Horse riding is another thing that I’d love to take up back home as a result of doing here… the list continues to grow!

We finally got going around 7:30 and met up with the guys in a bar in Manhattan where we spent the night going to a few different bars, drinking local beer and Irish Car Bombs.

So now we’re in Manhattan. Me and Iain have pretty much just sat online this morning. There’s some big parties going on tonight apparently so we’ll likely go and check a few of those out.

We’re going to stay here for a few days and hopefully catch a football game at some point before we set off on our road trip to Vancouver and the west coast!

Later