Day Trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky…

We left Cedars of Lebanon State Park and headed north on highway 231 passing into Kentucky just a few miles north of the town of Lebanon, TN. Highway 31E split off and we followed the narrow road until we came to our turnoff to Tailwater COE Campground on Barren River Lake. We backed into our site facing the Barren River just below the dam. With all the rain in this area (all night our first night) lots of water is being released from the dam making for very scenic views from our front window and patio.

We are about 20 minutes away from Bowling Green, Kentucky so our first day we headed out to check out the town. They have a neat courthouse in the center of town and we walked around the square to check out the architecture. Bowling Green is rated as one of the top 25 places to retire in America and is home to Western Kentucky University (the state’s second largest).

After checking out the downtown area we drove over to the University to see what it looked like. It didn't take too long to realize why the mascot for Western Kentucky University is the Hilltopper as the University is perched high atop a hill overlooking most of Bowling Green below. I am sure the students here are in good shape as there is plenty of elevation to gain and give between buildings.

We also drove out to the The Baker Arboretum and Downing Museum to walk the grounds and check out the local vegetation. This was a relatively small arboretum but we still enjoyed our stroll and there was some interesting yard art we encountered as well. I just had to take the opportunity to have a photo op with the open mouthed frog. According to Feng Shui, opened mouth frogs will bring good luck and wealth. We could sure use some wealth since the stock market seems to be nibbling away at our nest egg. Get to work FROG!!!

After our stroll we drove over to the only brewery in town, The White Squirrel, just recently opened.We sat at the bar and chatted with a very friendly bartender. Pints were a bit pricey and they only had three house brewed beers on tap so we ordered a 3 beer flight to sample each of them.  The best of the lot was a nut brown and honestly the pale ale and kolsch were not very good at all. We certainly won’t be back during this stay and unless they find a better brew master I doubt they will be open very long.

In researching Bowling Green I have noticed quite a few other things to do so I am sure we will enjoy our 5 day stay the area…