KY

Valaterra

I spent the weekend on Retreat at a lovely farm in Northern Kentucky. I know that’s not exactly a change of scenery, hanging out on a farm, but the Valaterra property is truly a luxury retreat.

Valaterra bills itself as “A Living Sanctuary for Alternative, Complementary and Integrative Health.” And whatever that means, that’s what we did this weekend.

There was a program of yoga and meditation and a series of tasks meant to guide you into a higher state. I’ll leave the details a little sketchy because it seems rude to elaborate on such a tranquil and intimate setting. Suffice it to say that souls were searched.

Of course when you get a bunch of interesting women together not only is the conversation lively but the food is as well. We ate our way through the weekend. Truly a blissful state!

Dog Creek – Nolin Lake
Cub Run, Kentucky
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Play Music Here : Pontoon – By Little Big Town

Back this hitch up into the water
Untie all the cables and rope
Step onto the astro turf
Get yourself a coozie
Let’s go

Who said anything about skiin’?
Floatin’ is all I wanna do
You can climb the ladder
Just don’t rock the boat while I barbeque

On the pontoon
Makin’ waves and catchin’ rays up on the roof
Jumpin’ out the back, don’t act like you don’t want to
Party in slow motion
Out here in the open
Mmmmmmm…motorboatin’

Reach your hand down into the cooler
Don’t drink it if the mountains aren’t blue
Try to keep it steady as you recline on your black inner tube

Pontoon
Makin’ waves and catchin’ rays up on the roof
Jumpin’ out the back, don’t act like you don’t want to
Party in slow motion
Out here in the open
Mmmmmm…motorboatin’

5 mile an hour with aluminum side
Wood panelin’ with a water slide
Can’t beat the heat, so let’s take a ride

On the pontoon
Makin’ waves and catchin’ rays up on the roof
Jumpin’ out the back, don’t act like you don’t want to
Party in slow motion
I’m out here in the open
Mmmmmmm…motorboatin’

DERBY DAY – On the first Saturday in May the Kentucky Derby race is run at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Seventy miles away in Lexington, at an equally celebrated race track, Keeneland hosts The World’s Largest Derby Party. And we gladly joined their festivities for the day.

Built in 1936, Keeneland is on the National Register of Historic Places and still maintains its old-time charm with tree lined avenues and rock wall fences. The movie Seabiscuit was filmed here because it’s so authentic to the period. Keeneland has a long tradition of racing, and is also the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction house.

This gorgeous property is situated on several hundred acres along Versailles Road (pronounced “Ver-Sails” in the local accent) and is surrounded by all the swanky horse breeding farms that make Lexington famous. Even the Queen of England keeps her horses here!

We arrived at Keeneland early in the morning to secure a good parking spot for the motorhome and settle in for a long day of tailgating. A line of RVs were already encamped in the designated area and the party was waiting to start. In the lull before the race day crowds descended, the dog and I took a walk around the mostly empty grounds.

Around noon the party wagons started rolling in and parking areas quickly filled to overflow capacity. Our friend, Rhonda, joined us early in the afternoon and we trotted over to the grandstand, grabbed some seats and scrutinized the racing form. Tim did a good job of picking a horse in one of the pre-derby races based solely on its name, Camelot Kitten, and he walked away with a big wad of cash. Now that’s handicapping!

The skies opened up right before the Derby Race so we hightailed it back, tote tickets in hand, and watched the race on our own JumboTron screen in the coach. None of us had the Derby winners, but a call-in bet by my Dad netted $30.

Since the parking is free and we are settled in nice and cozy, we’ll just camp here at Keeneland overnight and head back home tomorrow. Add in Tim’s big win and this was a swell Derby Day!

Irvine, Kentucky
Estill County
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Tucked away in the Appalachian foothills, the lively little town of Irvine is “Where the Bluegrass Kisses the Mountains.” Here, above the rolling Kentucky River, an annual spring ritual is celebrated – the arrival of Morel Mushroom season.  

We joined the Mountain Mushroom Festival this weekend, along with thousands of other visitors, and spent a perfect blue-sky day wandering around Irvine. The downtown district with its turn-of-the-century iron façade buildings was bustling with tourists. We arrived just as the traffic backed up for the Big Parade, and managed to find a parking spot right at the start of town.

Morel mushrooms grow wild in these mountains, and local hunters (“shroomers”) stood around under a large tent to sell bags of fresh picked morels. A one-pound bag will set you back $70. Despite the hefty price I had to buy some and will be cooking them up tomorrow. Know any good recipes?

Several side streets were blocked off for a giant street fair with vendor booths, entertainment stages, and greasy fair food. You could pet a llama, buy mushroom souvenirs, watch a cooking contest, listen to bluegrass music, clap along to cloggers, and thread a puppy on a leash through a throng of tourists. Coco got petted by dozens of curious passersby.

Irvine is the seat of Estill County, which is the only place in the world to find red and black agates.This oddity was celebrated with a huge Rock & Gem Show located in the gym of the elementary school (circa 1902). Took me all day to realize the wall mural at the edge of town was a picture of an agate rock.

We had planned to bring the RV here and do some camping at a nearby state park. I’m glad we decided to drive the car instead because there wasn’t a spot big enough in the whole county to park the motorhome! 

We were looking for an easy getaway this weekend and didn’t have to look too far. Fort Knox is a quick trot from our farm. In fact, we are on the helicopter flight path to the base and squads of Blackhawks regularly fly over the house. You can hear them coming for miles – nothing stealth about those big bruisers.

In addition to the famous Gold Vault, Fort Knox was also the base for Artillery Divisions for decades. Think tanks. And tank target practice. KABOOM! Their shots would rattle our windows from miles away. The base also hosts a large museum commemorating General George Patton. (Why here? Think tanks!)

It’s been a long time since either of us visited Fort Knox. Things sure have changed in 30 years. Back then you could drive up to the vault, take some pictures and wander around. No more. They’ve got this place locked up tighter than Fort Knox!

At the main entrance on Bullion Boulevard, armed personnel stand guard at a security checkpoint. We threaded our 8-1/2′ wide motorhome through a 9′ wide barricade only to be told that we needed to register at the Visitors Center first. We were escorted to a turn-around and reported to the proper authorities to present identification. Then we maneuvered back to squeeze through the checkpoint again.

Fort Knox is a vast and sprawling base with main avenues winding through clusters of training buildings and living quarters – some new, some old, some historic dating back to WWI. We followed the signs toward the museum and I noted that many of the side streets had low bridges – well below our RV’s towering height of 12′ 2″. 

The Gold Vault, while clearly visible from the highway, cannot be approached at all. In fact, there are no roads leading up to it and it doesn’t even appear on the base map. It’s encircled by a series of fences and you can only catch a glimpse of it from a distance. We were told very sternly that photographs of the Vault are forbidden. Even the gift shop postcard is a drawing rather than a photo. Kinda disappointing. Not that I expected to see our nation’s wealth stacked up in gold bullion, but I would have liked to get a little closer to the fancy marble building.

The Patton museum was arranged as a chronicle of the General’s life. Did you know he was an Olympic champion? Bronze medal for the Pentathlon in 1912.

There were many artifacts of his military career, including tanks, his mobile field office, and the armored car in which he had his fatal accident. He died a few days later, giving orders not to prosecute the two drivers involved because “it wasn’t their fault” and he didn’t want their careers ruined. That’s a true leader.

In addition to the Patton museum the base also has other buildings open to the public. But after consulting the map it looked like most were located down those side streets with the low bridges, so we opted out of further exploration. Fort Knox may be the gold standard of army bases, but it’s not the best place to cruise around in an oversized RV.

Kentucky Horse Park
Lexington, KY

Every so often we need a little change of scenery… just a wee get-away to knock the cobwebs off. So taking advantage of a short warm spell in the weather, we trotted out to Lexington to spend a couple of nights at the Kentucky Horse Park.

The campground is nearly empty and winter ticket prices for the park are deeply discounted. We like playing tourist in the off-season – we had the museums practically to ourselves. And the large campus of horse barns and show ring stadiums were easy to explore without crowds clogging up the scenery.

This was (the puppy) Coco’s first camping trip and she was a bit confused at the small living quarters. The trick has been to tucker her out with long and frequent walks so she won’t spend the evening running up and down the aisle in the motorhome. The long walks also served to tire us out, too!

Tomorrow we’ll take a leisurely cruise home and re-winterize the RV for the frigid temperatures that are coming next week. Then it will be a waiting game for another mild spell before we can trot out again and shake off some more winter webs.

Kentucky Railway Museum
New Haven, KY
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On this bright fall day I took a late morning walk around the Kentucky Railway Museum. Here the remains of by-gone days are hulking in the side yard, each waiting patiently to be restored.

There are club cars and freight cars, steam and diesel engines, and massive iron tools – all in various stages of rust and deterioration. Hints of their former glory are shown in splashes of color and chrome between the rust. I’m not a train aficionado, but I do appreciate the beauty of these old-timers, representatives of Industrial Age engineering at its finest.  

Roaming around a silent train yard can seem a bit melancholy – one would expect a cacophony of noise and hustle-bustle at a depot. But in today’s sojourn down the tracks only the soft click of my camera was heard. 

A glorious early autumn day, warm and brilliant, found us hiking the woodland trails around Mammoth Cave National Park. It was an impromptu trip – decided on a whim to throw a few provisions in the motorhome and head out while the sun was shining and skies were bright. 

We bungee’d our day-hike packs tight to the motorcycle and took a short ride from the campground to the park. The summer crowds were gone, the forest was empty save for woodpeckers and blue jays, and we ambled at a relaxed pace down the trail, pausing often to peek under mossy limestone boulders for fox and fairy folk. Instead we found a tiny black snake wearing a gold necklace at the busy entrance to the cave. He was gently guided by a long stick to a more suitable location.  

I chose this small and cozy campground, Singing Hills, for its proximity to the national park. This is a popular overnight stop for folks traveling the north-south corridor. And here, all equally tucked into graveled pads under the stars, is the best evidence of how camping is the great common denominator. Rich, poor, young, old, means and by no means – we are all here. 

There’s a French couple living in their minivan who studied maps all afternoon.Two families are crammed into skimpy nylon tents next to the fishing pond, their gear spilling out of open trunks and strewn about the grass. Adjacent is the tiniest A-Liner trailer – small enough to be towed by an electric car. A couple of old school pop-out campers are parked under the pin oaks. There’s a freshly rehabbed 1965 Scottie nearby, and an archaic van camper that seems permanently docked, no doubt decades since it last rolled on the road. 

In the back row are the gleaming Class A buses and towering Fifth Wheel trailers, each with half a dozen slide-outs, matching tow vehicles, and his and her bathrooms. These are the full-timers; snowbirds who are migrating south for the winter. And in the middle, betwixt and between, are folks like us just out for a pleasure cruise. 

It’s wonderful to see the full spectrum of wherewithal represented in a single campground. And how everyone is having the same shared experience of a splendid autumn day.

It’s the simple things that are so much fun. Like a hot summer weekend spent camping with a whole bunch of family. 

We revisited the Mammoth Cave area last weekend, staying again at Jellystone Campground. Our RV was parked in a site right across from a sweet little (air conditioned) cabin where our multiple families could camp out in relative comfort.  

It was Water Wars weekend – for a whole afternoon the entire campground engaged in water battles. Armament included squirt guns and water cannons, garden hoses and water balloons, and plain old buckets. Two groups of campers waged war with homemade catapults that lobbed water balloons an impressive distance, with shouts of “Incoming!” heard around the park. Bands of roving snipers roamed around in electric golf carts ambushing bystanders with squirt guns. Even the local fire department got involved, spraying their hose on anyone who seemed game for a soak. 

We posted a white flag of surrender at our campsite which worked well to spare us from the worst of the drenching! 

The next day we toured a couple of local caves – dark and deliciously cool. Followed by visits to the peculiar rock shops and antique emporiums in the area. A great way to treat visiting family to some good clean fun.