Kentucky's rolling hills

Elizabethtown, KY – It’s only been a few days, but we are already feeling the embrace of the south in many small ways.  First of all it was the fare at our breakfast buffet this morning—hot biscuits with sausage gravy, and packets of instant grits where you’d normally find oatmeal (although there was oatmeal as well).

Then it was the gentle twang in the receptionist’s words when I called to make our hotel reservation this morning – punctuated with “honey” – and the huge letters painted on the water tower in Florence, next to the Interstate 75 as we drove along: “Florence, y’all!”  And tonight, at the Cracker Barrel restaurant where we went for supper, we enjoyed catfish served with more hot biscuits, and encouraged our server, TJ, to keep chatting so we could enjoy his charming southern accent.

Probably the nicest development has been the warm weather.  We actually saw the sun for a good part of the drive today, and aside from a few icicles on some rock faces we passed, there was no sign of anything frozen!  Our winter jackets were really too much for the short walk to the restaurant this evening.  I left my scarf and hat behind.

Our route took us through Cincinnati – Ohio’s third largest city – and across the Ohio River on the same road we’d traveled coming back from New Orleans last spring.  From that point, though, we turned off the I-75 and headed southwest into Kentucky and toward Louisville.  This city is named after King Louis XVI of France, and is most known for being the site of the Kentucky Derby.

We took the I-75 into Louisville and followed the GPS instructions to connect with I-65, but in all the profusion of concrete arteries through the city centre, we ended up hearing a plaintive “re-calculating” from the device when we thought we’d followed the instructions correctly.  So, after a bit of a detour through some secondary roads and a few stressful words between pilot and co-pilot, we found ourselves back on track.  We are so spoiled to have a machine that can pinpoint our position from a satellite hovering over the planet and (eventually, anyway) get us to our chosen destination!

Elizabethtown is just south of Louisville, just off Interstate 65, and the town is named after the wife of its founder, Colonel Andrew Hynes, who established a homestead here in 1793.  Kentucky is a very pretty state, with rolling hills, streams and farms, and that famous blue grass that is so nourishing for the horses that are raised here. We are enjoying the sight of green fields, and I imagine Kentucky must be a lovely place to visit in the summer months.