1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (52 page)

There’s no better time to visit than during the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest, now part of a weeklong celebration called Wings Over the Prairie Festival. It kicks off with the crowning of the Queen Mallard, usually a blonde, blue-eyed descendant of the German immigrants who founded Stuttgart in 1878 and arguably the only beauty pageant winner ever to officiate, for at least some of her reign, in head-to-toe camouflage. And while folks love the Duck Gumbo Cook-off, the social Sportsman’s Party, and the opportunity to buy rare duck calls in the Collectibles Tent, it’s the afternoon Duck Calling Contest that really gets the juices flowing. Competing in the contest are 68 callers from over 30 states and Canada who have won state or regional contests. Inspired by a stage decorated like a duck blind, they strut their stuff with hail calls (calling the ducks to them), feeding calls (the sounds ducks make when they’re eating), mating calls (otherwise known as the lonesome duck), and comeback calls (to lure startled ducks to return). So exaggerated in style that a real duck would do a double-take, competition-style calls are designed to demonstrate both range (volume and pitch) and control (no squawking, which can easily happen with acrylic duck calls).

Over 60,000 people attend the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest each year to hear calls played by virtuosos.

Whether you hunt in the timber or open water, whether your calling style is loud and aggressive or soft and quiet, or whether your budget allows for $25 or $155, Rich-N-Tone Duck Calls has the perfect purchase for you. There you might run into Pat Peacock, who presides as director of the Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie, where you can learn the story of 150 years of settlement, agriculture, and waterfowling. The rare woman in a male-dominated sport, “Miss Pat” learned the art of duck calling from her father, Chick Major (maker of the Dixie Mallard duck call), and won back-to-back World Championships and was once crowned Queen Mallard to boot.

The only place where duck is not the name of the game is the Sportsman’s Drive-in, a café that no longer offers drive-in service but welcomes hunters with the best, juiciest burgers in town. Caveat: The double cheeseburger special has at least a pound of meat, so don’t expect to have room for pie.

W
HERE
: 55 miles east of Little Rock.
Visitor info:
Tel 870-673-1602;
www.stuttgartarkansas.com
.
W
HEN
: Thanksgiving weekend; Wings Over the Prairie Festival starts Sat before Thanksgiving.
R
ICH
-N-T
ONE
D
UCK
C
ALLS
: Tel 870-673-4274;
www.rntcalls.com
.
Cost:
calls from $25.
When:
closed Sat–Sun.
M
USEUM OF THE
A
RKANSAS
G
RAND
P
RAIRIE
: Tel 870-673-7001.
When:
closed Sun–Mon.
SPORTSMAN’S DRIVE-IN
: Tel 870-673-7462.
Cost:
double cheeseburger $6.
When:
closed Sun.

Abolitionists and Artisans

Kentucky

In central Kentucky, where the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains meet rolling bluegrass horse farms, lies bucolic Berea, an idyllic Appalachian arts and crafts center. Hundreds of potters, painters, furniture makers
, weavers, and other artisans whose works are coveted throughout the country for their high quality are among this quiet town’s population of 10,000. Perfect for strolling, Berea’s quaint town square includes more than 50 artists’ galleries, studios, and crafts shops selling everything from hand-stitched quilts and cornhusk flowers to folk-art paintings, wood-carvings, and handblown glass.

Across the street, Berea College is a tree-shaded, 140-acre campus that originated when wealthy landowner Cassius M. Clay (yes, boxer Muhammad Ali is a namesake) gave this land to the Rev. John Fee in 1853. Along with abolitionist missionaries, Fee formed a village, church, and school dedicated to educating people of all races.

From its origins as a one-room schoolhouse in 1855, Berea College later became the South’s first interracial and coeducational institution of higher education. Today private, nondenominational, and consistently rated among America’s leading liberal arts colleges, Berea admits only low-income students with high academic abilities and provides them full scholarships. Since 1893, the Berea College Student Crafts program has been teaching traditional handicrafts, which are sold through the Log House Craft Gallery (and online) to support the tuition-free college.

Students are required to offset their room and board by working part-time for the college. Those who don’t opt for the craft program can choose to work at the handsome Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant (named for pioneer Daniel Boone), a gracious 1909 landmark that offers comfortable rooms, the hearty Kentucky classics spoonbread and chess pie, and updated dishes like filet mignon with blue cheese grits.

Outside of town with easy interstate access, the 20,000-square-foot Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea sells Kentucky-made crafts including jewelry, pottery, baskets, dulcimers, and furniture. To take a self-guided back-roads driving tour to artists’ studios, pick up the Kentucky Artisan Heritage Trails brochure. Standouts are Churchill Weavers, begun in 1922 and renowned for richly textured handwoven textiles, and Tater Knob Pottery and Farm, where hand-thrown hunks of clay are spun into coffee mugs and casserole dishes, bowls, and birdbaths.

W
HERE
: 35 miles south of Lexington.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-598-5263 or 859-986-2540;
www.berea.com
.
L
OG
H
OUSE
C
RAFT
G
ALLERY
: Tel 859-985-3220;
www.berea.edu/studentcrafts
.
B
OONE
T
AVERN
H
OTEL AND
R
ESTAURANT
: Tel 800-366-9358 or 859-985-3700;
www.boonetavernhotel.com
.
Cost:
from $92; dinner $30.
K
ENTUCKY
A
RTISAN
C
ENTER
: Tel 859-985-5448;
www.kentuckyartisancenter.ky.gov
.
K
ENTUCKY
A
RTISAN
H
ERITAGE
T
RAILS
:
www.kaht.net
.
C
HURCHILL
W
EAVERS
: Tel 859-986-3127;
www.churchillweavers.com
.
T
ATER
K
NOB
P
OTTERY
: Tel 859-986-2167;
www.taterknob.com
.
B
EST TIMES
: May and Oct for the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen Fairs; July for the Berea Craft Festival.

America’s Great Homegrown Spirit

Kentucky

Rich, amber-colored bourbon, a kind of whiskey distilled almost exclusively in Kentucky distilleries, is the intoxicating product of native corn and local limestone-rich springs. About 95 percent of the world’s
bourbon comes from Kentucky, each brand claiming its own unique taste, defined mostly by the charred white-oak barrels where it is aged a minimum of two years. A whiskey renaissance that began in the 1980s has garnered bourbon newfound attention and respect, with exclusive small-batch premium bourbons helping to elevate the drink’s image; usually stronger than the normal 90 proof, they’re generally aged six to eight years.

Bardstown is the de facto capital of Bourbon Country, with its cluster of seven distilleries open for guided tours. Heaven Hill Distilleries’ modern Bourbon Heritage Center features educational exhibits, an introductory film, gift shop, and barrel-shaped tasting room for designated non-drivers. Jim Beam is just 12 miles west and Maker’s Mark, a national historic landmark and the nation’s oldest working distillery (1805), is 17 miles south. World-famous Wild Turkey and Four Roses are 40 miles east of Bardstown near Lawrenceburg, and in nearby Woodford County is Labrot & Graham, dating back to 1812; its elixir has been praised by everyone from Mark Twain to Walt Whitman.

A Maker’s Mark employee draws a sample from a whiskey barrel.

Bourbon buffs should not miss the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival, a five-day event with live music, dancing, historic tours, tastings, great food (including many bourbon-flavored specialties), and lots of Kentucky hospitality. Also worthy is the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey, whose rare artifacts (antique bottles, a moonshine still, and even Abe Lincoln’s liquor license) trace American whiskey production from pre-Colonial to post-Prohibition years.

Founded in 1780, Bardstown offers a number of nonalcoholic diversions. My Old Kentucky Home State Park includes a golf course and the imposing Federal Hill, the 1812 plantation (open for tours) that inspired American songwriter Stephen Foster’s folk tune “My Old Kentucky Home.” My Old Kentucky Dinner Train offers guests gourmet food in elegant 1940s-era railcars while traveling through Kentucky’s beautiful countryside. Across the street from Federal Hill, the family-owned Kurtz Restaurant has dished out comfort food since 1937. Specialties are skillet-fried chicken, Kentucky country ham, and biscuit-and-bourbon bread pudding. Drop in for a drink at the atmospheric Old Talbott Tavern (1779), the oldest western stagecoach stop in America. Spend the night in nearby Springfield, at the 1851 Maple Hill Manor, an antebellum B&B offering seven guest rooms. Goats, alpa cas, and llamas roam in the farm’s fields, and abundant breakfasts feature fresh fruit from the orchards.

W
HERE
: Bardstown is 40 miles southeast of Louisville.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-638-4877 or 502-348-4877;
www.visitbardstown.com
.
H
EAVEN
H
ILL
: Tel 502-337-1000;
www.bourbonheritagecenter.com
.
K
ENTUCKY
B
OURBON
F
ESTIVAL
: Tel 800-638-4877 or 502-348-2999;
www.kybourbonfestival.com
.
When:
3rd week in Sept.
O
SCAR
G
ETZ
M
USEUM
: Tel 502-348-2999.
MY O
LD
K
ENTUCKY
H
OME
: Tel 800-323-7803 or 502-348-3502.
M
Y
O
LD
K
ENTUCKY
D
INNER
T
RAIN
: Tel 866-801-3463 or 502-348-7300;
www.kydinnertrain.com
.
Cost:
dinner $65.
K
URTZ
R
ESTAURANT
: Tel 502-348-8964;
www.bardstownparkview.com
.
Cost:
dinner $20.
T
HE
O
LD
T
ALBOTT
T
AVERN
: Tel 502-348-3494;
www.talbotts.com
.
Cost:
dinner $14.
M
APLE
H
ILL
M
ANOR
: Springfield. Tel 800-886-7546 or 859-336-3075;
www.maplehillmanor.com
.
Cost:
from $109.
B
EST TIMES
: Sept–Oct, especially during the Bourbon Festival.

A Byway to Butcher Hollow and Beyond