Return to Burkesville

We’ve been visiting Burkesville KY since 2019. The weekend event is named River Festivus and it’s been improving each year we visit. We may have never attended this festival and race had it not been for the points competition in 2019 that had us traveling all around Kentucky and Ohio. The Mighty Cumberland River Run was part of that points series. We did eight races that year and by the time we got to Burkesville, we’d made lots of friends.

Burkesville is where Mary and I first tasted fried bologna. Not the scorched, thin Oscar Mayer stuff but slabs cut an inch thick that were smoked before frying. That and BBQ chicken was the post race meal. It’s been tough to find a better race meal since.

So that’s why we drive seven hours to south-central Kentucky. The food, the festival, friends, and the race.

We left pretty early Friday morning – 6:00 AM early. That would give ourselves enough time for coffee stops and traffic.

Our first scheduled stop was at Lucky Moon Pies in Mahomet IL

*Desert for breakfast. No these were for snacking later*

Unfortunately, we just found out the Lucky Moon Pies Bakery closed the first of the year. That’s too bad. Emily and Fred always had the best bakery items.

About an hour later, we decided we needed coffee so we stopped at the Mad Goat in Danville IL.

We made it a couple of hours before we needed a caffeine boost. We found Java Station 31 in Henryville IN.

*So named because it’s located on Highway 31*

The next morning, as is our tradition, we got our breakfast at The Bait Shop in Burkesville. There are not many places that I know of that you can get an omelet and hash browns along with all the minnows you’ll need. It really is a good place to eat!

*They’ve expanded the seating area and now have a deck/patio as well.*

*It’s always tough to get race pictures of ourselves. This is the heat before ours*.

Winner-winner chicken dinner. And that’s exactly what we had for our post race meal. 1/2 chicken, beans and potato salad from Hamilton’s BBQ in Burkesville

The festival has a number of activities. A car show, and musical review, dry-land boat races (that’s hard to explain), crosscut saw competition and catfish wrangling.

*There’s one terrified catfish in the water and the contestants have five minutes to catch it.*

*Cornering the fish is the strategy. It’s a lot harder than it looks.*

*Success! The fastest times are then matched up until there is one winner. We were assured the catfish were to go back in the river when the contest was done.*

This was really difficult as well. It’s one thing to use a regular saw but here you can’t push too hard or the saw bows. It takes practice. The winners were local ringers-Amish boys that made quick work of the log.

The music started at 6:00 PM. We had great seating but then the rains came. The map showed it would be a short squall so we got out our umbrellas and waited it out.

*Sure enough, 30 minutes later the rain was done and the show went on*

*This picture doesn’t quite do the view justice. Once the storm cleared, the moon slowly began breaking through the clouds*

*The headliner was The Marshall Tucker Band.*

As is typical with bands from the 60’s and 70’s (and now even the 80’s) there’s only one or two original members of the band left. But it was fun to hear all the old songs.

For those of you that have Spotify, here is a short playlist from the band. You might recognize the first three or so.

The next morning, we wanted to get breakfast at the Bait Shop but they aren’t open on Sundays. So we went across the road to Marcie’s Country Kitchen.

The food was tasty and the service was friendly. That plate on the right is biscuits and chocolate gravy. You can get your biscuits with sausage or chocolate gravy. The sauce tasted like pudding. Who knew you could have dessert at breakfast.

*Marcie’s contribution to my search for bathroom humor.*

We said our good-byes to family and headed back towards home.

*An hour or so into our drive and it was time for coffee. The Happy Cow in Columbia KY was our next stop. The shop was busy but we were served very quickly and the coffee tasted good.*

We did stop at Bests Friends Coffee and Bagels in Brownsburg IN. We’ve stopped there many times before. Their coffee tasted good and the bagels are large and tasty.