Robin: In this episode, we've got Dean Johnson of New Haven, Kentucky, one of the many family members who has owned and operated, the Sherwood Inn. This is a beautiful establishment with a rich history. Anything in news that you want to talk about?

Brian: Yeah, just a couple of product things that I noticed. Because, you know, the season is coming and we're starting to see some announcements and so forth. If you watch Itchy Boots on YouTube, you'll be glad to know that Airo helmets are now making their way to the USA. It's Airoh, A-I-R-O-H helmets. You know, she's from the Netherlands, wears an Airo helmet. It's noticeable. Anyway, it looked like really good premium helmets. It'd be kind of interesting to see what they do here. You'd think, you know, starting a new helmet brand in the U.S. would be way too tough, but it happens all the time. I don't know how they do it.

Robin: The DOT doesn't set a very high bar.

Brian: No, you don't.

Robin: I remember being in some establishment where we saw what was supposed to be a half helmet. It had the DOT sticker on it. And a mutual friend of ours said, this is a motorcycle hat.

Brian: It's a hanky. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, DOT, you could put some duct tape on a beer cooler and get away with it. And the yarmulke there.

Robin: Who's that prophet in California who rides around on a scooter with a microwave for a helmet that the door opens. He says some brilliant shit and then he rides off. He's like a phenom on Instagram.

Brian: You're saying words that are entirely new to me in this order.

Robin: You'd have to look him up. He's just some dude in...

Brian: Microwave guru, huh?

Robin: Yeah, he's got a microwave that it's an old used microwave and the door opens up and he's wearing it as a helmet on his scooter. He'll ride his scooter up and be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then ride off. And it's actually kind of positive. But would I do it? Not so much.

Brian: Microwave, helmet, okay. You've given me new things to Google. Now that's going to be in my history.

Robin: The only thing I'll search for for the next week.

Brian: Good for you, sir. And yeah, I guess there's some rebates are kicking in. We'll get the road rubber rankings on tro.bike. Go to tro.bike. Look under DigiTools. Look for road rubber rankings. And you'll see up to the, well, I wouldn't say up to the minute. But up to the day, week-ish, up to the something tire pricing on sport touring tires of all types. There's kind of a rebate kicking in on Michelins, and I'm hoping we'll see some more soon on other brands. I think Bridgestone's got a rebate going on right now, too. Tires are ridiculous. Anything you can do to help?

Robin: I still keep my favorite. I would love to try the R6s, but that's an astronomical price. Even with the $50 rebate, I'll have to look at that.

Brian: Oh, yeah, they're redonkulous. I've seen this debate pop up a few times where people talk about some states and nobody can quite find the regulation, have a law against earplugs under your motorcycle helmet.

Robin: Good luck with that.

Brian: I think it's almost an urban legend. I think people believe this and I don't think it's real. Obviously, I've never had anybody say anything and I have never heard of anybody having a problem. You know, when they talk to a cop and pull earplugs out or like, oh, you can't do it.

Robin: I mean, get in the back of the car. Get in the back of the car. Immediately pulls the gun.

Brian: Freeze! I know. It's a cone of silence. You can't hear anything. I would like to get feedback from the listeners. If anybody has any actual data on whether this actually is a thing, Ohio band earplugs or something. And I'm like, no, I don't. I've been in Ohio. I've had earplugs on. I live to tell the tale. I didn't get a gun pulled on me. Very good. What do you got, Robin?

Robin: Random song in the minute this episode, Days Are Forgotten by Kasabian.

Brian: Kasaba melon. Kasabian.

Robin: Days Are Forgotten. Other than that, I am coordinating the Trip 7's lodging.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: All but two are booked. One is likely going to be a successful booking. The other one, I am very tempted to walk away. So I think we may need a solution for Indiana. And I am going to consult you on these matters. No discount, but... Point is that, like, the place that we've gone to in the past, how quickly we forget our relationships. In this case, it's, well, we usually only book two nights for the weekends. So do you think you might be able to convince them to stay for two nights? My answer, no. The next response, okay, well, we can definitely take you, but I can't give you the discount for the group rate then. And we would need you to pay for the entire booking up front. I am not responding until I decide whether or not I'm responding at all. I may just go ahead and continue strolling away from that noise. Yeah, that's not going to happen. There is not a single place on our tour that we haven't built a strong relationship with, except for when we arrive in Indiana. That's going to be changing up soon. Every single other establishment, even the most posh, which there is one, I send them the email, they receive the information, and they digest it, and they immediately say, gotcha, it's all set up, you're good, thank you, looking forward to seeing you, and it's just awesome. It's one little challenge to tackle, we'll see how it goes. That's all I got. Listener questions?

Brian: Sure, what do you got?

Robin: All right, here we go. First off, if you'd like us to field your questions, visit email.tro.bike in your web browser, send us a message via the contact form. We got two listener questions, one is more like a listener comment. BH says, Brian hit me up if you want to ride when you're in San Fran phone number have fun and of course This good person does not know that I produced the episode over the course of a week after we recorded. Sorry, buddy, but Brian is no longer available. He's back home. So BH, if you're coming to Indiana, reach out and...

Brian: Very generous. Thank you, sir.

Robin: KB asks, what? Oh, this ought to be good, man, because this will get the ball rolling with our issue. What motorcycle hotel recommendations near Lexington for a stop on the way to North Carolina would you recommend? Here's how I do this i

Brian: Have thoughts too go on

Robin: I will not share my screen so i'm forced to say what i'm doing so i'm going to go to maps.google.com i'm going to click on lexington k-y i am now looking at lexington kentucky this person is going to north carolina so i am zooming in on the curvy roads southeast of lexington mm-hmm

Brian: So hotel recommendations near Lexington, four route through Lexington, heading to North Carolina. I have an idea. You and I are heading to the same place in our brain cavities. What you got? Where were you headed?

Robin: Basically directly south of there where it starts to get greener, hillier, ridgier. I mean, there's comfort inns. I don't remember which brands I would like to avoid other than Motel 6. But there's a Hampton in Nicholasville by Crossing Cinema. It looks like a mini mall area kind of thing there. So you're going to have food access. Basically, all I'm doing is banging out an option that is in between Richland and Lockridge Park. So you get all the hillies and the valleys there and the good stuff to ride in through Buckeye. And choosing anything that is a known commercial option that has positive reviews in mass numbers. So if I click on, for example, this Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, Lexington Fritz Farm, it's $139 a night. little pricey, but they got a fire pit, nice balcony area, probably got a bar on site. The reviews, there's 87 reviews for 4.5 stars. So I would basically zoom into where do I want to be riding, zoom out to where I find hotels, limit them to the review level that I would want to see, and hopefully find one with a high review count, book that profit at the end. That's how I would do it.

Brian: Boom. Yeah.

Robin: The Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, Lexington Fritz Farm. That's my first suggestion.

Brian: Nice.

Robin: And it's on the outskirts of town so you don't have to go too deep in.

Brian: Yeah. I was going to a similar place but my main thing was Lexington. It's a big city. Get past it. Get through it.

Robin: Get around it.

Brian: Wake up. Get around it. Get through it. Get over it. Under it. However you need to go. And I've actually done this. I've stayed in Richmond. So south of Lexington, Richmond, get the hell off the interstate thereafter, enjoy yourself twisting and turning all the way to North Carolina. And I've done exactly that many times. You could also get to Winchester, but the ride over to Winchester is really not a lot of fun. But there's, you know, there's a Hampton, there's a Best Western, you know, all the usuals are there. You've got a Golden Corral if you're, have no shame so the principle is get through the big ugly thing get to the next place it's got anything you can lay your head on and get out there there's also a lot of you know bed and breakfast and stuff like that up in the hills but honestly on a traveling day you're going to roll in late you're going to want something pretty standard spend a night there get the hell out and leave but yeah if you're in richmond you're a lot closer to the hills and the wigglies and all the fun stuff.

Robin: KB, if you are riding solo, don't be afraid of Airbnb. Just do be afraid of any Airbnb that involves instructions that are more complicated than the ride itself. The key is in the mailbox. The mailbox is under the doormat. The doormat is in the backseat of my car. My car is located at a hotel that you'd probably prefer to stay at.

Brian: Yeah. And oh, by the way, we just had a foot of snow and the driveway is made of mud. Wasn't that in Arizona? Anyway.

Robin: I do remember that.

Brian: There was sort of a situation there. Your trip to California.

Robin: Does that cover it pretty good? We got the answers to all the questionings and all the stuff in the place with the detectives?

Brian: Yeah, sure. Close enough.

Robin: Then it's time for 404 Clutch Not Found. overleaver bros with our own in-house philosophical blatherings. Here's your content for this round.

Angelmarie: Downshifting. What's the best way to downshift? Do I just hold it? Boom, boom, boom. Do I hold it? Boom, let it go. Hold it. Boom, let it go. Or rev match. What's the best way to downshift? And you're going to tell me, well, what do you think? I already hear it.

Robin: Downshifting. Don't do the rev match. Don't do the rev match. You're about to tell me. I did a thing today. I didn't like it. You want to hear about it? This will rip off the Band-Aid.

Brian: All right, yeah. Go on.

Angelmarie: Let's hear it.

Robin: So I was barreling around turn 137 or whatever the hell. I came cooking around, and I was like, oh, I'm going too fast. And now my back end is in the air. And it was. This is when the back end started feeling kind of squirrely was, you know, did what's called trail braking into a corner heavy enough that the rear end was lifted off the ground, and I downshifted. The RPM range for where I was, if you're high in the RPM range already and it's time to upshift, downshifting just turns it into a rear brake. And engine braking, while a wonderful thing, definitely something you want to practice doing, is something that should be reserved for the sub-halfway register of your RPM range. If the engine's screaming you don't want to downshift if the engine is bogging or at least sounds mellow then downshifting is fine that's my shortest answer.

Angelmarie: Okay but what method do you recommend for a beginner rider say i'm in four do i hold down boom boom boom boom go back to one or do i hold three let go let the engine slow on its own hold again go all the way to one doing that i'm

Robin: Riding for an extensive amount of time. There's no stopping ahead of me. I'm in third gear and it seems like it wants to be in fourth because I'm high in the RPM range. I'm going to shift into fourth. Now I'm releasing the clutch, giving some gas, running along in fourth gear. Oh, here comes a corner. I need to roll off the throttle and I'm on the brakes. The engine, the RPMs are going down. I need to be in a lower gear. Clutch in, click down, back to it. Just one gear.

Angelmarie: Okay.

Robin: Now I'm coming to a stop.

Angelmarie: Yes.

Brian: That's the difference.

Robin: No, I do not shift into neutral while i'm coming to a stop because there's a jackass behind me i don't know what they don't know i need to have power in the motor i do not shift to neutral because now i have no way out yeah i've got a loud kazoo with a red line that does nothing i know i'm coming to a stop there's no more gas to be had i'm in fourth gear i see that light up ahead it's 100 yards cool clutch in roll off the throttle click click how fast am i going now click how fast am i not and click now i'm in first gear stop okay, I'm pacing my gear shifts to match the speed at which I'm traveling.

Angelmarie: I see. Okay.

Robin: Based on how in tune with the bike I personally am. If I know my bike at this speed, I should be in third. This is different with every bike. But keeping the clutch held all the way in.

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Got it. All right.

Brian: Yeah. If you're coming to a stop, you can click through multiple gears. And what he was talking about, the idea being you may have to escape at any microsecond. And so the advanced part of that is pacing your click, click, click, click, so that you're always ready to let that clutch out and scoot out of the way of whatever mess is happening back there.

Angelmarie: Gotcha.

Brian: And you'll notice implicit in this is, let's say you have like 27 eyes and you've got a couple of them on your rearview mirrors. It's part of motorcycling is that you have to have some 360 awareness. That's the subtle part of it is you kind of pace a little bit as you come to a stop. But yeah, leave it in there. Second part of that is at the stoplight, most of the time I'm going to be in first ready to scoot at any microsecond. If I start hearing brakes behind me and the headlights are getting big, things like that. You know, it depends on your environment. If you've got 12 cars behind you and everybody's just waiting through a long red light, go ahead and put it in neutral and pick your nose or whatever you need to do. Most of the time, I'm going to be...

Robin: Don't mind if I do.

Angelmarie: Right with the glove.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, left hand, palm out, into the helmet.

Robin: What is wrong with you?

Angelmarie: Keep that part in. Keep that part in.

Brian: Yeah, yeah.

Robin: How do I pick my...

Brian: Anyway, do what you need to do. But yeah, most of the time, at most stoplights, I'm going to be in first gear the whole time, just holding it in and then ready to go. Some people say different.

Robin: Mags was on our Hawk GT, and we had just finished a beautiful Chicago ride along Lakeshore Drive. We were at a stop. There was some traffic pulled up to a stop. I'm on the left. She's on my right. And then I heard screeching brakes. Somebody had assumed that we were an open opportunity to change lanes. They wanted their atoms to take up the same space as our atoms, and they didn't realize they were looking at motorcyclists. so lithium barbie that she was in her jeep and probably on i don't have any idea but the point is this person came to a screeching halt into maggie who had stayed in first gear with the clutch in i heard the screeching and i kind of turned in slow motion i was like oh and this jeep slams into the back of my our Hawk GT and knocks Maggie a good 10 feet forward and she loses it and the bike goes down I knew she was alright because as the bike in slow motion mind you as the bike was going down I heard her go what the fuck and I knew she's alright, And she was.

Angelmarie: Okay.

Robin: But the point is that she began the process of evading, which is a practice thing. It's an exercise you could do if you want. Go to a parking lot.

Angelmarie: Yes, need to.

Robin: Come to a careful, quick stop. Check your mirror. Check your shoulder. Change lanes. As quick as you can. Safely, with control. Go slow. You don't need to be like mashing buttons and freaking out and dropping the bike. But stop, mirror, shoulder, right lane, because the person behind you is skidding into your I'm going to change lanes. But I check mirror, shoulder, lane change. do it again to the right mirror shoulder lane change and that's after you stop

Angelmarie: stop check check go stop check check go okay good things to practice.

Robin: Segment one, the Sherwood Inn in New Haven, Kentucky. Now and then you meet folks with a knowledge of local history so deep, you drop a Posedonio duplex anchor to hear every word. Any one of TRO's group tours will ante up such an opportunity sevenfold, and Dean Johnson of New Haven, Kentucky is no exception. Dean's family owns and operates the Sherwood Inn, a distillery in B&B in the area with a history so rich, every story reigns gold. Dean, welcome to the show. Tell us everything.

Dean: Hello there.

Robin: One of the first questions that kind of popped up. Let's start from the very beginning from your terms here. Your family has owned this in since 1875?

Dean: 1875. I'm fifth generation, and my wife and I have taken this over along with my five cousins. And some of those, I'll let my wife introduce herself here real quick. This is Tanya, my wife.

Robin: Hi, y'all. Hi, Tanya. Nice to meet you. We may have I don't know if we met that night That we stayed there last or not But good to meet you again

Dean: Good to meet you

Brian: Good to see you

Dean: She takes care of all the rooms and stuff So I have to make sure I keep her buttered up You might end up with You know a mouse in your bed or something Oh no Oh, not that fast. So I'm fifth generation, and in 1875, my great-great-grandfather bought an old wooden tavern and was selling bourbon and beer and beds and food at some point back then. And he progressed from that little, I think it was like a two, three-room tavern, purchased a new building in 1889. It was a big wooden structure that sat right on the railroad tracks where this existing building is. And then we had a fire in 1913 that took the lives of some folks across the tracks. It was a pretty big deal. It took out a bunch of buildings across the tracks and then jumped the tracks and took out the original Sherwood Inn. And so the current building was built back and has been here ever since. They had a little bit of insurance, not much, scraped together some money and built what at the time was a pretty impressive new facility with electricity. Indoor plumbing, running water, you know, and all that good stuff. Our small little town didn't even have electricity when the building was built. I think they had enough foresight to run electricity and they maybe thought they were going overboard. They put like one or two plug-ins in every room. so yeah it's been here ever since and unfortunately prohibition kicked in about four or five years after they started this endeavor and so that kind of punched them in the gut kind of like when it rains the first day of one of your bike tours you know right oh sure

Robin: Yes we try not to care but down deep we always do

Dean: So that kind of deflated them a bit i'd also learned that right around the time of World War I, the government commandeered their alcohol production for the war effort. I don't know whether they were taking the pure green alcohol and you know exactly what they were using that for but anyway so that affects them as well so we were kind of in a depression before that you know in this local community but the building originally had 14 rooms 14 guest rooms most of the traffic here was by rail at the time folks would come in they'd get off the train they'd stay at the Sherwood Inn and hopefully rent a room we had one bathroom amongst 14 rooms so I don't know I guess You had to get up really early or really late to get a shower. Maybe you just didn't bother back then. But we renovated the building about 35, 40 years ago, my grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather was a World War II POW. And when he got back from Germany and out of POW camp, he healed up and started bartending immediately. And then eventually he took over the building. And it's been in my family the whole time. They renovated it. It was grandmother's dream to start the restaurant and the hotel back up, so we did that, and we've been doing that ever since. The bar has always been open, but the restaurant and hotel has kind of come and gone.

Robin: Now, let's talk about that. The historic bar in Prohibition, some massive oak and mahogany that came from Green Street Saloon, is that for real?

Dean: The bar, yeah. So this building was built in 1913, but the big wooden bar, it's made out of tiger oak, is the best description that I've gotten so far. with a mahogany top. When this building was built in 1913, we got the bar used from another hotel that was about 10, 15 miles north of us in Boston, Kentucky. There was an old place called the Doherty Hotel. So we have pictures of their bar and their hotel in 1902. I don't know when that building was built, but they received the bar used from a place on Green Street in Louisville. That's really as far as I've got it documented, but supposedly from there, it came from Europe. We really don't know how old I was. I have to be on my phone to walk around and show you the pictures of the bar. But anyway, it's the most impressive and the prettiest. The building outside kind of looks like your typical brick downtown, old brick building. But once you walk into the bar, it's pretty impressive. It's got a 30-some foot original beveled glass mirror.

Brian: Nice.

Dean: That, ironically, you know, no bar brawls or broken bottles. It's kind of amazing that it's that old and somebody hasn't thrown something or, you know, broke the glass.

Robin: I would imagine even if they did, it would be properly so. Please, sir, I need to step outside. We are going to have a duel. Right.

Dean: Yeah, you can shoot each other, just not in here.

Robin: We will meet our demise tonight. Shake hands first. May I buy you a drink?

Brian: Yeah.

Robin: And then we'll open fire.

Dean: Yeah, the only gunshots that I'm aware of that have ever happened inside this building was my uncle. And it was a Russian roulette. He thought it would be funny, and he did it once on a dare, and then the second time it went off, but he had it pointing at the ceiling the second time.

Robin: So he was one away.

Dean: Yeah.

Robin: He won one in a row.

Dean: This was his office for years and years and years, and he passed away a couple of years ago. So yeah, his ghost is probably in here somewhere.

Brian: He learned his lesson, apparently. He made it that far.

Dean: Yeah.

Brian: Yeah, and I'll point out on your website is a wonderful picture of the bar and the rooms and so forth. And that's at SherwoodNKY.com because there's other Sherwood Inns here and there and other places, but SherwoodNKY.com.

Robin: A little bit of motorcycle math into this convo just for the sake of the way we met Dean was for our Trip 7's tour, and we're always looking for the curviest possible roads we can find. In the Kentucky scenario, that tends to pull us further and further away from society because the bluegrass moonshine state, you're out there on these curvy mountain ridgeline roads. Eventually, you're going to need a place to stay. For these tours, because it's an opportunity for me to do so, I like to stay in nice, lavish places. And the Sherwood Inn is a beautiful, lavish location.

Dean: Lavish in the historical sense, yeah, I would say.

Robin: It would never go anywhere near rustic.

Dean: We do have more than one bathroom. For those of you that maybe, you know, wants the original rustic, no bathroom effect, we do have two of the rooms that share the original cast iron tub down the hall.

Robin: That's cool.

Brian: Some people are into that, man.

Robin: There's the railroad heritage. The inset's right next to where the Louisville and Nashville Railroad crossed through town. Is that right?

Dean: The L&N Railroad ran through here for many, many years. Up until probably the late 80s, early 90s, coal trains ran through here in the railroad tracks. I have an F-250 pickup truck. And when you turn the corner of the building, the railroad tracks are parallel to one end of our building. And it looks like your mirrors are going to hit the train. They park it right beside the building sometimes. So every time they park it, I've asked them if they could move it over just a little bit, but they won't do that.

Robin: You're right next to the Kentucky Railway Museum.

Dean: In our backyard, yeah. We sold them the property for the Kentucky Railway Museum.

Robin: I remember waking up there and Thomas the Train was out.

Dean: Yes. Well, and you know, that may be the same weekend this year that Thomas the Train is back. A bit of trivia, the original railroad depot was across the tracks where the fire started. It was saved. It didn't burn. But eventually... They tore it down. I mentioned my grandfather. When he left to go to war, he remembered there were a number of soldiers that were aboard the train that day, and he remembered pulling out of his hometown of New Haven and seeing that sign, wondering if he would ever be back. Many, many years later, when they tore down the depot, somehow he or his family ended up with the original sign. And as a kid growing up in my grandmother's garage up in the attic was that sign. And I had no idea. Thank God we didn't use it for a treehouse or tear it up in some way. But about 30 years ago, when the Kentucky Railway Museum moved to New Haven, we sold them the property. They built a replica of the original train museum. And the very sign they have today is the sign that came off the original building that my grandfather had saved.

Brian: See, that's a kind of hyper-local stuff. You know, that's going on all the time. That's amazing.

Dean: Yeah, it's just amazing that as kids, we didn't destroy it.

Robin: At some point, I'm going to pull up the route and describe to people how they can exhaust themselves on the roads local to need to stay at your beautiful establishment. The first is plenty here, National Register and Preservation. So the Sherwood Inn is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. That's when that happened. Here's the question. What did that recognition mean to your family, and did it change how you approached preserving this place?

Dean: Well, it was pretty unique. One of the advantages, typically, you know, as a hotel, this building being built in 1913, there are some places it's not handicap accessible. That enables you to sort of be grandfathered into some of those things. Otherwise, it would be cost-prohibitive, you know, to install an elevator or something like that. But there are very few buildings in town that have survived. We're really pleased to have that designation.

Robin: Yeah, there's like a rumor or hearsay in here about some iron cleats on the front facade for a two-tiered porch that was never built. Is that true?

Dean: Yes. So the original wooden building, it looked more like a saloon, but it wasn't originally a hotel. It was a mercantile store. But when they built this building, they came from the previous wooden building, had the big double-decker balcony, like maybe something you'd see in New Orleans. And I'm sure if you were sitting on the upstairs balcony, you probably got a pretty good blast of steam and soot and smoke from the steam engines when they went by. That's how close it was. That's literally how close it was. So when they built the new building, again, the railroad was starting to decline. 31E, it was being developed as a federal highway. So to hedge their bet, they positioned this building with a front entrance caddy corner to both the railroad and 31E. Two rumors. One is that when they designated 31E here at the Federal Highway, they widened the right-of-way, and we weren't allowed. There wasn't enough room to put the balcony and the double-deck roof on there. The other rumor was they didn't have the money. So I don't know which is true, whether they ran out of money or... Probably ran out of money because there's not a porch on the back. There's supposed to be one on the back of the building, and there's not one either. But the big hooks are up there, and they make it very nice for putting up banners and things of that nature.

Robin: Okay, so then bourbon country and regional culture. You're smack dab in the middle of bourbon country. Nelson County, just down the road from Bardstown, the bourbon capital of the world, according to, well, the internet. It can't ever lie.

Dean: Right.

Robin: How does that bourbon heritage show up in the day-to-day life of the inn?

Dean: We kind of have to bite our tongue a little bit when we hear all these things about bourbon trails, bourbon tasting rooms, and every distillery now has developed their own gift shop, tasting room, and all that. And we kind of like to think that we were the original tasting room because we had four distilleries within a mile. And at the time, this would be my great uncle, had contracts where they were buying liquor directly from the distilleries by the pallet and putting them on train cars and selling them to Chicago and New York and places like that. Again, that only lasted about four years, and then Prohibition put a stop to that. The speakeasies and all of that, I'm sure there There was some of that going on here. So, yeah, it's really a big deal. My brother works at a distillery. Most of the folks around here are some way connected, you know, to the distilleries. Maintenance guys, folks work in the bottling houses. You've got Heaven Hill, Makers Bar, Jim Beam, Log Steel Distillery is the new one with the amphitheater. We're right in the heart of it.

Robin: Yeah, it says right here, 11 distilleries within 16 miles nearby Abbey of?

Dean: Gethsemane. The Abbey of Gethsemane.

Robin: Something about monks making bourbon fudge.

Dean: Yeah.

Robin: Do guests often combine a visit to the Abbey with a stay at the end? You know, too much ice cream.

Dean: Matter of fact, I can't remember the, I should know this, because I used to know the code to the gate was the very year that they were founded. It was like 1846 or something like that. They were from Italy and came over and started the Abbey of Gethsemane. But their number one product that they sold was a cheese that they brought from Italy, commonly referred to as monk's cheese. It had a very distinct odor and taste. either you loved it or you hated it was kind of like the smell of you know rotten socks So they realized they needed to diversify and their fundraising and they they started producing the bourbon fudge and they still make fruit cakes they literally won i think it was the new york times best number one fruit cake in the world but getting back to the the sherwood inn so my grandfather was big buddies with a lot of the monks up there. My dad used to milk cows up there and all that stuff as a kid. And so we would supply them the bourbon and then of course the wine that they used both in the masses and so forth. But yeah, as a kid, I can remember stocking cases and cases of bourbon and wine. And so they inject the fruitcakes with bourbon, And then they also inject the fudge with bourbon. We actually had not the Abbott, but the Celliver, which would be like the equivalent of a CEO here just about four or five months ago.

Robin: Nice.

Dean: They do retreats up there. So if you guys ever, you know, you want to take a couple days off from your touring, you can do a retreat at the Abbey against Simmons.

Robin: After that last one, I could use it. This one's also in my book, Rumor and Hearsay. You've got rooms with odd geometric angles. Which one's got the weirdest shape?

Dean: There's not many rooms that are square. The L&N Railroad crosses 31E at an angle.

Robin: So diagonal building.

Dean: Yeah, and so to make the building fit the property, there's not a square corner. I think there's one square corner on the outside of the building, and then inside, some of that follows through.

Robin: So, yeah, it's— This is the kind of character that lasts, though, man. You want that. You want to tell people from other states, yeah, come to Kentucky. We built it for the rail.

Dean: Yeah.

Robin: So looking ahead, what do you hope the sixth generation of Johnsons inherit? What story do you want the Sherwood Inn to be telling another 50 years from now?

Dean: Well, that's really the reason we're doing it. It's an old, old building, and you could spend a million dollars on this building. So me and my cousins, and I happen to be the oldest grandson, and I've got other cousins that are in on this with me. I'm here every day. I get to enjoy it more than they do. I get to do the work here locally, but They are coughing up money and time and expertise into something they don't get to use as much as I do. But our goal is to really put money back into the building and have something that, you know, my sons, their sons, hopefully there'll be a sixth and seventh generation that can continue. There's bars all over the world. But one of the things that we really focus on here is the ability for a complete stranger to walk into a group of locals and sit down and have just a casual conversation, just a comfortable place to relax, have a beer, have a drink, get something to eat.

Robin: You don't exactly make it difficult. You sat down next to us as we got there, and the talking immediately just happened.

Dean: Yeah, some places when the stranger walks in, he kind of gets shunned, or the locals talk about. But here, it's almost like a magnet. You know, everybody is curious, you know, about, you know, who's these guys? What do you do?

Robin: I've never done this. I'm going to try this. We're going to see how this goes. If you want to check out the Sherwood Inn, start out basically in Harrogate, Tennessee. And if you look at New Haven, you'll notice it's up there to the northwest. You pick the most remote, twisty road you can that goes directly north all the way through Boonville and then all the way up to Manning Road. And that's where you start heading west. You follow the ridge lines. You follow every curvy road you can. You cross over 75. You end up in Lancaster. You get a little bit of a break up into Harrodsburg. Take a Louie and just enjoy deep sweepers. Follow that until you're just north of Loretto. Keep on keeping on through Holy Cross. Just the, say it for me.

Dean: Gethsemane?

Robin: That's what I said. Don't correct me. then through Trappist, and you will arrive in New Haven. You take a left to New Haven, and you will see on your left-hand side, by the rail, off of 31 East, the Sherwood Inn. And you may get a chance to meet Dean here. I have a request now. If you had to pick the one that just happens to be making you smile today or has for the past week, because I know you've got an array of them. They're probably just like dozens upon dozens stacked over top of each other. What's one of your favorite stories you would like to tell about your tenure at the inn up to now, having taken it into hand and done with it what you've done.

Dean: Oh, wow. My tenure.

Brian: These guys showed up on motorcycles and then they ripped the tire off and then they put a new one on. It was weird.

Dean: You know, that was pretty unique. There was a period of time the building was in disarray. I mean, there were leaks in the roof and that big dining room, it had the mural around it. The mural's always been there, but when I was a kid, My brother worked on motorcycles in the dining room. You guys weren't strangers. The back porch there where you guys parked your bikes. My first set of wheels was a Honda 550, probably a 73-something Honda 550. So I would park my bike up there. So that's why I was admiring those high-dollar bikes you guys had. So we're pretty flexible. Folks that are staying to go to the Abbey Gethsemane for a retreat to the guys that want to come in and do bourbon tastings to the guys like yourself that want to just come in, have a quick drink, bite to eat, get a good night's sleep, and zoom off the next day.

Robin: Yeah, man. I'll say it now because I didn't say it when we started, but the name of these segments are called Destination Proclamation. Yours is most certainly one of our favorite stops on that tour, if not for the building for you, sir. Is there anything you'd like to say to your customer demographic out there who might be, for some off-the-wall reason, find themselves perusing your location?

Dean: Anybody can stay at a cheap motel or pay less, or you can go to the expensive exotic hotels. But I don't think you're going to find anywhere that you're going to get the experience that you do from a family-owned. I lived in this building as a kid. We know everybody. It's not just about our heritage here, but the stories that guests have, you know, it's been real cool to have folks walk in and say, hey, you know, me and my wife got married and we stayed in room number six. I had an old guy that could barely even walk. I offered to carry him up the stairs. I was going to take him up to room number six where he had his honeymoon.

Robin: You said he was aged. Yes. Yeah. Man, we had a good time there. I'm looking forward to it again this year.

Dean: Yeah, we've got some roads. One of the roads, I think, was shut down due to a landslide last year when you guys were here. That's been reopened, and it's one of those curvy, hilly kind of routes that you said you like.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Robin: Totally a Kentucky road. Anything else you want to say?

Dean: We're happy to have you guys. We're very diverse. It's kind of laid back, low-key.

Robin: Thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate you being here.

Brian: Yes, thank you. That was fun.

Dean: No problem.

Robin: Now, normally, that would bring us to the armory with GearChick.com. If you want to reach out to Joanne and ask her any questions, the email is help at GearChick.com. But she's not here this round.

Brian: Indisposed?

Robin: She's indisposed this episode. but she will be back soon don't worry about it same with jordan i'm sure that by now you have developed a completely elaborate and ornate itinerary of topics and discussion points you want to make for next episode afterwards the wind down what are we doing next episode

Brian: A set of topics i'm going to bring up and we're going to talk about with joanne when she gets out of wherever she is right now or yeah yeah earth

Robin: Somewhere i think she's on earth

Brian: She's on earth somewhere but anyway when we get her back we've got a whole set of topics for her too on a related note i think it's time to take a look at like new stuff what kind of new technology new bikes new brands i've got some questions about new gear for joanne too obviously dean brought up airbags it's something he had noticed and brought up and it's kind of a new thing let's take a look and review some of the new stuff that is interesting. Whether that's going to inspire any of us to spend any money or not, I don't know. I think it'd be fun to look through what's new this year, you know, and figure out what to look at, what's interesting, what's not interesting, that sort of thing. New is the word.

Robin: The word is new. I look forward to it. What are we doing now?

Brian: Robin, I think we're going to get out of here.