Thursday, July 2, 2009
Our son had the day off so he showed us some of the sights around Lexington, Kentucky.
First, he drove us to the Keenland Horse Racing Track. What a beautiful facility. It is huge with very large plush grounds with many buildings and is very nicely landscaped. I felt like I was the poor cousins from out west. We must have seen 100 groundskeepers all working very hard and there won't be any races till next October. We parked in a tree covered paved parking lot and walked to the grandstands which are much nicer than Autzen Stadium. There were many banquet and club rooms with many box seats. I felt like a Kentucky colonel in a white suite. Our son ran into a fellow grad student he knows who was conducting a tour (his summer job) who told us to take the elevator up to the top of the grandstands for a great view. We then went down to the race track and then to a swanky gift shop.I am not a horse racing fan but if I lived in Kentucky it would be a nice thing to visit on race day. It sure beat Grants Pass Downs! (The fair grounds in Grants Pass Oregon where we have a very poor imitation of Keenland)
Then, He took us to the State Capitol of Kentucky, Frankfort, to a bourbon distillery. He took us by some back county roads so we could see the "blue grass country" with the large horse farms. Beautiful country! When we got to Frankfort we went to the Buffalo Trace Distillery for a tour. We leaned how they make fine aged Kentucky Bourbon whiskey and they gave us some free sample drinks at the end of the tour. While we were waiting for the tour to start we shopped the gift shop and my wife excused herself because she said the place smelled like a whiskey distillery :). My wife doesn't drink but went on the tour. They gave her root beer in place of the sample drinks. We then went to down town Frankfort and saw the old Capitol building and we all ate good pizza at a restaurant.
We then drove around the "new" Capitol building and drove back to Lexington. My wife was still suffering from her cold so we dropped her off at the Holiday Inn Express and I took the kids to a movie. We saw "Hangover" a gross comedy about a bachelor party in Las Vegas that goes wrong. All three of us laughed a lot . It was a good Summer movie.... fun going down but not much substance. In any case it's great to be able to take our kids to a movie theater again.
The three of us then picked up some Arbie Sandwiches and went back to our room at the Holiday Inn Express and had some birthday cake with our son. His birthday is not till later in July but we wanted to have a little party while we we were visiting him. He opened his presents, which were all related to Abraham Lincoln, and then we sang him "Happy Birthday" and had some cake after he blew out the candles. We sat around the room talking till about 9 pm when he left. I walked him out to his car. I hated to say good by since I knew I would not see him again till Christmas.He had to be at work early the next morning Our visit was too short.
