Off to the Derby!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

After leaving South Carolina, we headed up to Kentucky. The drive up was a fun road trip with all the trees through the mountain pass. We arrived in Kentucky and got to our new house for the month. The house was a little bit out of Lexington and surrounded by country farms. We were only able to settle down for a couple of days before my parents flew in for the weekend.


With my parents here to stay with us for the weekend, we planned to see a few things. We first started out with the Ashland house. The Ashland was the historic home of Henry Clay. He was one of the early senators of the United States. His home was pretty neat on the inside and was restored very well. Unfortunately we weren't able to take pictures inside the home, but got a few on the outside and in the garden.



After the Ashland house we headed over to a Shaker historical village. This was a preservation of the original shaker village. The village had people all over working and maintaining the different buildings and property. It was fun to see how it was when the shakers were there and what they did. The shaker village wrapped up our the end of our first day together.


Our second day together we drove out to Red River Gorge. This was about an hour east of Lexington and up in the Kentucky mountains. The gorge was beautiful and was packed with trees and gorgeous views. We took several hikes up trails, and one in particular was pretty spectacular with a natural rock arch. The arch was about 40 feet off the ground and probably 200 feet long. It was fun to climb up to it and walk along the top.


Our third day out was Derby day, well not exactly the Derby, it was the day before at the Oaks. We took off early and arrived before any of the races began. The oaks races are only run by female horses and there were thirteen total races for the day with the Oaks race being the largest. It was a blast and a really fun experience. We stayed for twelve of the races and went home pretty tired from all the cheering.


Our last day began with us driving down to Louisville and dropping my parents back off to the airport for them to fly home. After we dropped them off we decided to take a little tour around Louisville to see what else we might have missed. While looking around we came across a giant bat and the Louisville slugger museum. The slugger museum was a lot of fun. They still make the wooden bats right there in the museum/factory. We were able to see them make the bats and try a few out. It was pretty impressive, they made a bad every ten seconds or so. We also got to see many famous bats by players like Babe Ruth. Overall it was a fun mix of history and sightseeing for the weekend.

2 comments:

Grandma Mecham said...

Kentucky is beautiful! Don't know how you kids find all the exciting things to see but I sure am enjoying your adventures! Thanks for sharing!

Grandma Mecham said...

LOVE THE HATS!!!!

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