Road Tips

Mariah's - Bowling Green, KY

During my recent trip to Bowling Green, KY to see a new dealer in the area, I decided to spend the night after driving around the town for awhile.  Bowling Green is the home to Western Kentucky University, a beautiful and very old school that sits on a hill on the southwest side of town.  Northeast of campus is Bowling Green's downtown area, a quaint area with an old time courthouse square known as The District.  It was in The District where I found a place to eat that evening - Mariah's (see map).

Mariah's is located in what is the oldest standing brick structure in Bowling Green.  The original building was built in 1818 by George and Elizabeth Moore as their home.  They had five children, the youngest of which - Mariah - never married and lived in the house all of her life until her death in 1888.  Thus, it became known locally as The Mariah Moore House.  The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the late 70's, Rick Kelley and David Sears bought the Moore house and decided to turn it into an elegant dining establishment.  They stripped the wood down to the original floor, the original brick walls were exposed and the fireplaces were refurbished.  Mariah's 1818 restaurant opened for business in 1979.  

The restaurant expanded in the early 90's, adding more dining, a kitchen area and a bar.  The wood bar in the bar area was built in the 1880's by the Brunswick corporation and refurbished after being bought from an old saloon in the Chicago area.  

In 1995, a devastating fire virtually wiped out Mariah's.  Rick Kelley made a decision in 1996 to rebuild the restaurant.  It turned out that much of the original stone walls were in great shape, so Kelley rebuilt the restaurant using the shell of the original bricks.  Even the antique bar was salvaged and refinished.  Mariah's building has quite the history behind it.   

There's a nice parking lot next to Mariah's (and one across the street) and it was no problem finding a parking spot that night around 7:30.  A rather large party of formal-dressed college-aged girls was milling about the front entrance and the lobby of Mariah's.  I don't quite know why a large group of very pretty Southern girls would be dressed up in formal gowns on a weekday evening, but they were dressed to the hilt. 

Through the large mass of girls who were waiting for their limo-bus to pick them up, I found a hostess to get a seat.  She put me in an old wooden booth in the main dining room and gave me a menu.  The dining area of Mariah's was large, but comfy and homey at the same time.  It was a pretty neat building, to say the least. 

After about a couple minutes, my waiter showed up.  He apologized for being a bit tardy as he was one of the waiters assigned to the large group of girls who had been in the banquet area of Mariah's.  I asked him what was up with all the girls all dressed up and he said, "It was some sort of a cotillion party they have at the university.  The girls all dress up and learn the social graces.  That type of thing." 

I said, "Well, I'm truly in the south."

He laughed and said, "That you are, sir."

After some further small talk, he gave me the nightly specials and then told me he'd give me a few minutes to look over the menu.  I had him bring me a beer while I was perusing the offerings Mariah's had to offer.

A lot of things turned my head when I saw them in the menu.  Mariah's looked like it catered to a wide body of people as they served sandwiches, salads, stir fry, pasta, entrees of fish, beef, and chicken and they also had some stir-fry items on the menu.  I was torn between a number of items, so the waiter left off my beer and told me he'd give me a few minutes.

After a bit, I figured out what I wanted - I got the tri-color penne pasta, topped with shrimp and then covered with a spicy Cajun Alfredo sauce.  The spicy Cajun Alfredo sauce was the deal-breaker for me.  Along with the pasta dish, I also ordered a dinner salad with their homemade Catalina French dressing. 

After a few minutes, the waiter brought my salad out.  I have to say that Catalina French is probably my all-time favorite type of dressing.  The sweet and tangy combination just makes my taste buds dance.  Along with the salad came some home-baked bread served with honey-cinnamon butter.  Oh my God, was that a great combination with the bread.

About 10 minutes after I finished my salad, my entree showed up at the table.  The penne pasta was cooked perfectly, the sauce was rich, but the Cajun spices didn't overpower the taste and the shrimp - about seven or eight total - were wonderful, as well.  It was a great meal.  I was overly impressed with the pasta dish and immediately wondered if I could make something like this at home. 

I finished up my dinner and waited for the waiter to show up.  He came back and asked, "All finished?  How did you like it?"

I said, "It was just excellent."

He said, "You probably wouldn't want to see the dessert menu, would you?"

I said, "No, I don't think so tonight."

He said, "I can't even tempt you into some of our homemade bread pudding?"

That got my attention.  I said, "All right - tell me more."

He described it as a bourbon-soaked bread pudding drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with a dusting of cocoa.  I was nearly salivating by the time he was finished with his description.  I said, "All right, I'll take one of those."

I was already pretty full, and I'm not usually a dessert type of person, but that just sounded great.

And it was great.  The bread pudding was moist and delectable.  The drizzled chocolate syrup and the powdered cocoa didn't detract from the taste of the bread pudding.  God, I was in heaven.  I was also thoroughly stuffed and hurting by the time I finished what I could of the dessert. 

I'm telling you, Mariah's was very, very good.  The whole experience - the restaurant itself, the food, the service - was excellent.  I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to find the place just by driving around and looking at the town.  I'm hoping to make it back to Mariah's at some point in the future because there were other great things on the menu that I'd like to try.  Southern Kentucky is pretty country, Bowling Green is a nice little city and Mariah's is a wonderful restaurant. (Photo courtesy Popeye Express.com)

National Corvette Museum - Bowling Green, KY

A good friend of mine, "Coupe" Underwood, once told me years ago when I began to travel for a living, "Always take a camera with you.  You never know what kind of stuff you're going to run across."  So, I normally take a camera with me.  And I did on my trip to Bowling Green, KY earlier this fall.  But on this trip, I didn't heed my own rule - make sure the battery is charged before you take the camera with you!  I found that out during my visit to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green.

Actually, I wasn't planning on seeing much in Bowling Green.  I had a potential new dealer who was interested in our speaker line, so I went down there for a meeting.  But when I came up Exit 28 to Bowling Green on Interstate 65, I was surprised to see the National Corvette Museum (see map).  The museum is literally across the road from the plant where Chevrolet Corvettes are made.  The museum is a mecca for Corvette owners of all ages.

Now, there's an old joke - What's the difference between a porcupine and Corvette owners?  The pricks are on the outside on a porcupine.  But I've always thought Corvettes are neat.  It goes back to the early 60's when my dad would test drive a new Corvette for a day and he'd take my older brother and me along with him.  He had a friend, Jack Bailey, who ran a Chevy dealership in Newton, IA who'd let him take one out for a drive.  We'd always go around to the small towns in the area, but he'd open it up in between.  This was before the interstate was finished so we REALLY couldn't see how fast one of those could go.  I was, maybe, 4 to 7 or 8 when we used to do it.  My mother would have crapped on the spot if we told her we were hitting 110 on the straight-aways along some back road blacktop. 

I had some time to kill before I went to see my potential dealer.  I parked my car and grabbed my camera from the trunk.  I began to take pictures of the outside of the building.  Suddenly, my battery indicator light began to blink 'red'.  I thought, "Son of a BITCH!!"  For a moment, I thought I'd go back out to the car, get the charger and let it charge up for about 15 minutes in the museum.  But I thought I could get enough pictures out of it before the battery would let go. 

In hindsight, I should have taken in the charger and plugged it in at the front desk and wandered around in the Corvette Store gift shop waiting for it to get a better charge.  It turned out there was a lot to see at the National Corvette Museum. 

The building itself is 68,000 square feet.  They have over 75 Corvettes on display as well as engineering and design displays, motor displays and pictures of everything from cars to the men who designed the cars over the years.  As I was there, they were in the midst of building a 47,000 sq. ft. addition that was scheduled to be done on Labor Day of 2009. 

It cost about eight bucks to get in and the museum is open 360 days a year from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The first part of the museum that you enter is the atrium area where they have a number of Corvettes lined up.  Many of these Corvettes were either on loan or gifted to the non-profit museum.  They had Corvettes on display in the atrium from the 1950's up to this decade.  All were in mint shape and had to worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

The first Corvettes were built in Flint, MI and the body was made out of fiberglass - very revolutionary in it's day - mainly because of a lack of steel 7 years after the end of World War II.  This is a 1953 Corvette.  This was one of the first Corvettes ever produced.  Each car had a story board beside it, telling its history and how it made it to the Corvette Museum.  On the walls in the atrium area were a number of pictures of Corvettes and their owners.  There were also kiosks that showed videos of Corvettes in action over the years. 

From the atrium, you could go into the Chevrolet Theater which was playing a film on the history of the Corvette, or you could go into the Nostalgia part of the museum.  I skipped the film and went through the museum.  There, they had displays of old Corvettes from the 50's in a diorama.  This is a 57 Corvette sitting in what was an old Mobil gas station.  I think the price on the pumps was 29 cents for Ethyl (high octane).  

Here is, I believe, a 1955 Corvette.  A friend of our family, Howard Pelzer, had one exactly like this back in the 70's.  He used to drive it in parades.  One time at my aunt and uncle's house, he had the Corvette parked in the front yard.  His grandkids were playing in the car and, somehow, the emergency brake was disengaged and the car rolled down a short embankment.  It got hung up on a concrete retaining wall and broke the fiberglass along the bottom of the passenger side door.  Now, I would have been kicking those kids asses from here to Mars, but Howard was rather laid back about the incident.  "Aw, that's what insurance is for," Howard said,  But, then again, I think he'd had about 8 drinks in him by that time. 

The next part of the museum was the Performance area where they showed concept and proto-type Corvettes that Chevrolet worked on over the years.  This was a pretty neat area of the museum.  This area also included a number of displays on the men who designed the Corvette over the years, including Harley Earl, widely regarded as the "Father of the Corvette."  I wish I would have been able to get more photos of this area.   

From the Performance area, it was on to the Corvette Museum Skydome.  This housed a number of Corvette performance and race cars, including a number of Indianapolis 500 pace cars that were used during a number of races.  This is the last picture I was able to get before my battery went dead.  I just wandered around after that looking at all they had on display. 

Before I left, I went through the Corvette Store shop.  Actually, the exit from the museum takes you right through the gift shop.  So they try to get you one last time before you leave.  You can visit the gift shop without having to pay admission to the museum.

I think I spent about a half-hour in the National Corvette Museum, not as much time as I'd liked.  But it turns out that I put the dealer on in Bowling Green and I will be going back at least a couple times a year.  With the new part of the museum to open in September, almost doubling its size, I'll probably wait to go back to the museum next fall.  But this time I will make sure that my camera battery is fully charged.  I have a feeling that I'm going to get a lot of good pictures on my return visit.