from Kentucky to Tennessee

Unfortunately my blogging enthusiasm seems to have run out rather quickly, as it has now been three days since I've written.

Two days ago we were in Lexington, KY, which has been both of our favorite stop so far. In fairness to West Virginia, Lexington also gave us our first really gorgeous spring weather. But even without the sun, Lexington is really appealing. It has these soft rolling hills laced with (usually white) picket fences that enclose huge horse corrals. Five or six horses would be together in a massive enclosure.

I'm not into horse racing, but driving around the farms and the racetracks is really pleasant. No racing when we were there, but we did watch the horses out for their morning training at Keeneland Race Track the next morning.

The other thing Kentucky is apparently known for (both Mike and I agreed that we didn't associate Kentucky with a single thing before this trip) is Bourbon. We did one tour the first day (Woodland Reserve) and one the second (Maker's Mark). I had never toured a hard-alcohol maker, and I definitely learned something. The strangest thing to me is that they do the fermenting in these giant vats (at Maker's Mark it was 12 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep) and they just leave them there, out in the open where the tours walk by. In fact, the Maker's Mark tour guide encouraged us to dip our fingers in and taste it. And then it ends up in bottles!

That first night we had a good southern dinner and then chose a bar out of the cheesy tourism magazine. It was this old-school bar that happened to be in an old school. As our wonderful bartender told us, it isn't for people like us, it's for "horse-y people". Horsey people are sort of like country club people.

Anyway, the short story is that our bartender wanted us to get to know Bourbon, so he served us 9 glasses, only 2 of which we ordered/paid for. The results can be envisioned. Then he drove us back to our motel and we had to get a cab back to our car the next morning. We had some fun conversations with him and some horsey people.

For a total shift of pace, we spent yesterday afternoon and evening with Michael's cousin Katie. Katie is 23 and about to be deployed to a military base in Afghanistan. She works as some kind of medical logistics person for the army. This is her first deployment. Her two best friends from college were also visiting, having a bit of a last weekend together. Her boyfriend, whose house we stayed in, is already in Afghanistan.

We listened to them laugh about boys and college and gave them advice from our older and wiser experience. Every once in a while Katie would mention something about Afghanistan, but everyone pretty much treated it as relatively normal. She is unlikely to be in any danger since she will be well within the base at all times (she has an injury and therefore can't wear the heavy armour required to leave), but she said many people have trouble sleeping at first because of the helicopters and the mortar shells. Honestly, after days of driving, it was more surreal to be sitting in a suburban living room listening to girls giggle about their sex lives than to picture her leaving on Tuesday. Maybe the war is so surreal that I can't even really imagine it at all.

With love from outside the Clarksville military base,

Sarah