19 posts tagged “kentucky”
Jon and I used to live in a small town about an hour south of Lexington, our commute to the city was long and dangerous on butterfly hills and country roads. I took away one thing from those early morning drives... a love for the scenic views. At sunrise the valleys would fill with billowing mist and the countryside woke in a fog which cleared as the sun color became more brilliant. Since we moved I've missed those views and had always planned on waking one morning early to drive to my favorite spot at Pleasant View Farm and photograph the views that I had loved so much. Today was the day.
This is why I love Kentucky so much, the landscape pulls at my heart because it is just so beautiful. It was thirty degrees and my bare fingers were feeling frostbitten but I couldn't put down my camera. I had expected to take shots of the hillside but was completely surprised by a family of horses who befriended me and posed frame by frame for my camera. At first they were skiddish and watched from afar, I talked to them, told them about what I had been there for, they came closer and I was able to pet a few. It was like something out of a dream, I watched the sunrise with my new found friends and marveled at the images I was capturing through my lens.
Watch the Flick Stream.
It's the first weekend of August and that means it is time for the 127 Corridor Sale. Whooho!
What started twenty years ago as a small scheme to pull a few travelers off the interstate onto old U.S. 127, using the irresistible lure of a bargain, has turned into the World's Longest Yard Sale. It stretches hundreds of miles from Kentucky to Alabama, spanning 3 sates with a total of 450 miles. The Highway is lined with antique dealers, car collectors, crafters, cooks, and more than 3,000 vendors, offering just about any collectible anyone could ever imagine.
Guess what lucky lady lives twenty minutes away form this sale... tomorrow plan to see me rummaging and heckling my way south on the 127 corridor, one of my favorite summertime traditions.
The Great American Brass Band Festival holds a special place in my heart. Two years ago, my mother was going through a hard time so I kidnapped her for a road trip, we drove as far as we could, we drove from Florida to Kentucky in a rush of emotion and in a search of something new. We came across a small town, Danville, it was the week of the festival (this week) and people crowded the tree covered lawns of the campus with their families to enjoy the music and ambiance. I can only describe it as a real life Norman Rockwell painting. Everyone has a smile on their face, kids play, dogs run, people talk to each other even though they are perfect strangers. It’s almost unreal how dreamy it all is, shaded under hundred year old oak trees on rolling lawns with picnic baskets and live music. Since that day I'd made a promise to attend each year.
Last year I took my late grandfather, we split a funnel cake and he made jokes and smiled more than I had seen him smile in years. This year it was just Jon and I but as I lay on the lawn and looked up at the perfect blue sky I thought of Pop, and took a moment just for him. The breeze flowed cool and the air carried the music throughout the town, the festival is a free 3 day event and its unbelievable how uncrowded but full of life it is. I also just have to mention how friendly everyone is, people smile as they pass, they acknowledge each other, we'd been a dollar short when ordering a funnel cake, the man just smiled, made a joke and offered us a dollar discount, he even had us taste check first to make sure it was just as we liked it and added a bit of cinnamon for a special touch. Yeah, it’s that kind of town. After an hour of music, people watching and lounging we walked into downtown to stop at our favorite little coffee shop, the Hub. We sipped iced coffee on the street corner and sat at small wrought Iron tables and remembered the days when we lived there (this being our home for our first year of living in Kentucky). Though I truly love living in the city, I miss the community feeling of a small town and the overall friendliness that comes with it.
The festival ended at five and everyone jumped into their car and drove to the airfield for the hot air balloon race. The Great American Hot Air Balloon Race isn’t actually a race which was a surprise to me, given the name. The balloons took flight about ten minutes north and flew over a target within walking distance of us, they were each to drop a small bag of sand onto the “x” and whoever was the closest won. One after another the balloons rose over the hills, and as the sun set behind us they dropped bag after bag each completely missing the target. We all laughed and clapped, oooohhh'd and aahhhh'd and had a wonderful time. The skies were beautiful and just begged to be photographed. Whenever we’d thought the last balloon had landed another would fly over the horizon and this went on for hours. It was nine o’clock by the time the last balloon had landed and we drove home tired but filled with great memories of our evening at the Great American Festivities.
I was a little shutter-happy while at the races and have literally hundreds of photos to go through... so I'll be posting my photo stream in a few days, until then I hope these teasers to it justice : )
I had such a great time taking photos of the Appalachian quilted barns that I've decided to make it a goal to photograph as many as possible... I've put the beginnings of my collection in a Flickr set, take a peak!
I spent Saturday in Bowling Green, Kentucky. There is nothing really special about Bowling Green except for the fact that Its the only city in the world that makes Corvettes and being a "good little wife" I took my drooling husband to the National Corvette Museum. I'd won a couple free tickets a few months back and had been holding onto them for the perfect weekend.
Its a long boring three hour drive to Bowling Green which is on the Tennessee/Kentucky border and it rained the whole day. We passed a few funny sights on the way, the ever unpopular Dinosaur World and a friendly billboard that so prominently states "Hell is REAL!", it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.
We reached the National Corvette Museum and Jon had that little kid smile. Like most novelty museums they charge an arm and a leg to get in and I found myself thanking goodness that we had free tickets. They had a nice selection of newer models but Jon's only interest was the older classic cars made in the fifties and he was heartbroken to see only a few. It was like a normal museum with the regular rules, you can see but cannot touch, we'd both been hoping to get real up close and personal with these classic cars and were fairly disappointed with the whole experience. If you were a classic car lover it was the kind of thing that you had to do, just once to say that you'd been there.
We left the museum and checked out the rest of the town, just to see what it was like.. and it wasn't much of anything. The downtown had a picturesque square with a lush courtyard and fountain but the shops were all closed and you could tell it was a nightlife area and dead to the daylight sun. I still enjoyed my day exploring a new place, but I'm sure the only thing I will be going back there for will be to explore their cave systems, the worlds deepest caves.
Today we made a last minute decision to visit the horse farm that Jon has been doing a remodeling job at. Its far enough away from the city that I haven't been out to see it and he'd been dying to show me the work hes been doing for the past six months. So up and down the butterfly hills we drove with the windows down and basked in the smell of fresh cut grass. The foals and fillies were out playing in pastures and I was so happy that I'd brought my camera along. The grass was unbelievably green from the past weeks worth of rain and the sky was the most beautiful blue, quite possibly the best day all year for photographs.
We arrived at the farm and were greeted by 3 happy dogs. Jon walked me through the house's new addition and my jaw was dragging on the floor. I knew it was a million dollar job but damn.. it was impressive. The stonework and carpentry was astonishing and I'm so proud of his work, the problem is, now that I know he can do that sort of stuff... I want my house done that way too but I'm not paying him millions for it!
We walked the grounds and I met the owner, an unbelievably caring and sweet woman she showed us all around and even let us play in the pasture with the new foals and their mothers. I spent over an hour walking around enjoying the weather and petting and greeting animal after animal... including Sicilian miniature donkeys!
With more on Flickr
