Kentucky Travels and Travails
I Am Beginning to Appreciate Bourbon, but I Loathe Flying in a Bird Cage with Sooners
My wife and I just got back from a trip to Kentucky, visiting our son and his wife. I have always been a beer and wine guy, mostly, and haven’t cared for whiskey much, but Bourbon (a specific type of whiskey strongly connected with Kentucky) is growing on me, especially the 6 year wheated bourbon I tasted at Wilderness Trail (a distillery in Danville that is on the “Bourbon Trail”).
Bourbon would actually more precisely be called Oak Liqueur, as it gets 100% of its beautiful amber coloration and 90% of its distinct flavor from the charred oak barrels it’s aged in prior to bottling.We also visited Mammoth Caves, which is located a couple of hours southwest of Danville. It was both great and disappointing — great because we met up with old friends and got to know their young daughters; disappointing because the best tours were sold out (I had no idea that it would have been prudent to book our cave tours months in advance), and so we had to take the “booby” (consolation) prize, which was a “self-guided” tour in what was basically a big cavity in the ground (nothing spectacular about it). It was still interesting, though, especially because one of the rangers, I guess you’d call him, was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I didn’t get any post-worthy pictures of/in the cave, which at 462 or some-even miles is the longest cave in the world (not the largest, though, a superlative that belongs to a relatively recently discovered extensive labyrinth located in Vietnam).
Another goal also went unfulfilled: I hoped to ride horseback to a bluegrass concert and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken while quaffing a glass of Kentucky bourbon; didn’t happen, for some reason.
As far as the getting-there-and-back part of the trip goes, however, it was borderline horrendous, as flying commercially usually is. It seems that every time we fly we’re crammed like sardines into our seats like Freshmen being hazed into their lockers, and at least one of our connecting flights is “iffy” as to whether we will make it or not due to the previous flight being delayed/late (usually due to passengers having to leave or being forced to leave). I feel like a non-free-range chicken when traveling as a passenger on a commercial airliner. It’s downright insulting the way passengers are treated like a, well, chicken in a cage, especially those stashed in steerage (“coach”).
It wasn’t as bad this trip as our last one but still, when the stewardesses asked those aboard the plane who didn’t have a connection that they needed to make to wait for those on a tight schedule to deplane first, many ignored the repeated request and dawdled, blocking our way. The last time it happened (a year or two ago), it seemed nobody listened or cared at all, which led to some harsh words being exchanged. This time, those in coach did respect our situation (and I thanked them for it), but all those in first class seemed to feel entitled to disregard the petition to try a little kindness. These people are not evil (AFAIK), just thoughtless (which is irritating enough). Those who selfishly elbowed their way out the doors (figuratively speaking) made me think of the Sooners of Oklahoma, who had a "me first" attitude to an extreme degree.
I won't go into it, but we've had other experiences with airlines which were profoundly infuriating and exasperating (which once led to our son, when he was young, missing a flight and my parents having to drive for hours — at night, at that, on a mountain road — to stay with him overnight during his layover). Why doesn’t America have “bullet” trains? if we did, we could make it to Kentucky from California in a matter of just a few hours without the hassles and irritations that flying presents. If it were feasible (the extra time it would take is the main and only real disadvantage), I would much prefer to take Amtrak (or some other train) than fly the unfriendly skies.
I must admit that I do, though, enjoy looking out the airplane window at the scenery and rural areas and communities and terrain patterns and such, just as I love peering out train windows, watching the scenery stand still as we clatteringly rush by.
Here are some images I took from my aerial prison on the way from Lexington, Kentucky to Denver, Colorado:
This next photo makes me think of the old sayings, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” and “If you go with the flow, you’re going downhill.” Can you guess why?
It’s because of the River meandering around, bending this way and then back around — if it took a straight shot towards its ultimate destination, it would save a lot of “effort”; of course, rivers flow in the direction of least resistance and don’t really have a geographic goal in mind. That’s fine for a river, but for people, it can be different: plotting out a course ahead of time and clearing a path can, in the long run, save a lot of aimless wandering.
Here are a couple of images that I simply enjoy aesthetically (they don’t tell a story or illustrate a point). The first one is the view of a semi-rural area while banking, followed by the Denver Aerodrome on landing approach:
Kentucky is a nice place, but so different from home in culture, history, accent, foodways, and so on. Even where it’s situated geographically differs greatly: California is bordered by an ocean (The Pacific), a country (Mexico), and only three other States (Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona), whereas The Bluegrass State borders no oceans or countries, but is bounded by seven — count ‘em, seven! — other States, namely (listed from my favorite to least favorite of the bunch): Missouri (Mark Twain), West Virginia (John Brown), Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Only Missouri and Tennessee share their borders with more States (eight).
One area where Kentucky is far superior to California is in the price of petrol. Czech this out:
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