Trip 12 · Bardstown & Lincoln country
Giants, Trains & the Ghost Tavern
Ghosts & LegendsHistoryScoops👻 campfire-mildLittle kids OKGrade-school sweet spot
Lunch in a tavern that's fed travelers since 1779 (ghost roster longer than the menu), find three colossal wooden trolls hiding in a world-class forest, buy fudge from monks, and climb 56 steps to the marble temple over Lincoln's birthplace.
The route
US 62/150 to Springfield → Bardstown → Clermont → New Haven → Gethsemani → Hodgenville → US 62 home
Stops
Old Talbott Tavern
Serving since 1779 — stagecoach travelers, exiled royalty, and (legend insists) Jesse James, whose alleged bullet holes remain upstairs. The fried chicken is fully corporeal.
Bernheim Forest Giants
Three enormous trolls of reclaimed wood hiding in a world-class arboretum with a treetop canopy walk. Per-car donation on weekends.
Kentucky Railway Museum
Historic coaches you actually ride through the Rolling Fork valley. Special-event days sell out.
Abbey of Gethsemani
Trappist monks, thunderous silence, and a gift shop of monk-made fudge and famously boozy fruitcake. Whisper; buy fudge; leave changed.
Lincoln Birthplace
Climb 56 granite steps — one per year of his life — into a marble memorial built around a symbolic birth cabin. Free, NPS-run, quietly enormous. Lincoln Days downtown: Oct 3–4, 2026 (verified).
File a field report
Found a new dairy bar? Bridge out? Dog mayor re-elected? Email a field report and the best dispatches get published (first names only) on the Field Notes page.