Country roads take me to Kentucky

Although I’m longing for a trip to the beach, my husband and I went to Kentucky for spring break.

For one thing, there would be too many college kids taking up space on the beach, and our younger son lives in Kentucky, so it was a good time to make that long drive.

My husband doesn’t mind driving, which is good, because I like to ride and enjoy the sights. Or read. Or sleep.

I’d never been to Kentucky until last summer, when we went to visit our son for the first time since he’d moved there to work after graduation almost a year ago.

It’s a beautiful state with its horse farms and white picket fences, historic homes and buildings. Downtown Lexington has beautiful, funny and even bizarre murals painted on buildings around every corner.

We didn’t have anything planned, but we managed to find plenty to do. We ate out every night, then got ice cream at a different place every night, took a tour of Ashland and the Henry Clay plantation, and toured one of the bourbon distilleries. It was beautiful and interesting, even if you (like me) don’t like bourbon. But if you do like bourbon, Kentucky is the place for you. You can get bourbon ice cream, bourbon marshmallows, bourbon candy and anything else you can think of with that kind of whiskey in it.

On the way home, we had been on the interstate, but my husband missed an exit. He told me we were about to take “the scenic route.”

I perked up and stopped reading my magazine because there was lots to see after he turned onto a twolane highway at the next exit.

We drove by Hardmoney Baptist Church — I’m sure there’s a good story behind the name, or maybe it’s named for a person or place? We saw several homes with picturesque white picket fences and yards full of daffodils. I saw a person’s yard that had a concrete deer, and I saw a buzzard eating the remains of a real deer on the side of the road. We passed cows in the fields and rows of rusty mailboxes. I saw an abandoned white clapboard home that would have made a great photograph. It made me wonder about the people who used to live there.

As we came over a hill, my husband and I both said, “Wow!” It was a huge Baptist church, like you would see in many large cities.

My husband said, “This must be where the whole county goes to church.”

Nearby, I saw a small cemetery about two steps from a home. We

passed a log house and a CB (citizens band) radio shop — you don’t see one of those every day.

I saw a huge Confederate flag flying in the breeze, surrounded with American flags, and although I barely had time to focus on it, I saw a Civil War park with monuments.

I tried to look up the park, but I couldn’t find it online. If we hadn’t been in a hurry to get back to Arkansas, it would have been fun to stop — also at the flea market we passed that I somehow missed. Next time, maybe.

Although I like to make good time, I’ll choose twolane roads over the interstate if I can. It’s all about the journey.

I still have a hankering for the beach. Maybe next time, I can talk my husband into going the back way.