Dad went out for
cigarettes
Lexington, Ky Thursday, July 11th to Saturday, July 13’th.
Dog supreme and rental car.
Since I was going to be so cruelly abandoned by my father I decided, that as I was not going to be picked up until later and I wouldn’t be able to get my rental car until 3PM anyway, that I would sleep a bit longer than usual, but this was spoiled by said father getting up early to prepare for his solo part of the trip.
Supreme Dog Command, Snowflake
When he had dressed and packed his bags and we had said our sad teary-eyed farewell, he left the hotel to drive south to North Carolina while I decided that I couldn’t sleep anymore anyway so I decided to also get ready for my pickup. So after showering and dressing I read the news for a few hours on my iPad to see if the world was still standing. It mostly was.
Around 11AM my friend Skye arrived to pick me up in her somewhat ramshackle and dying old car. It was already around 95 degrees outside and the lack of air-condition in the car made it a less than fun experience so we decided to just go directly to her and her husband Michael’s house, using the less visually interesting but faster freeway beltway that circles inner city Lexington and wait with any sightseeing until I had gotten my own, hopefully better equipped, rental car later in the day.
As said, so done and we arrived only medium well done to Skye’s house where we were warmly if loudly received by their 2 dogs and 3 cats. After having been approved for existence and entrance by the Supremo pet dog commander’s (her name is Snowflake) stern gaze, I was placed in the duty of pet entertainer while Skye put together some furniture she and her husband had recently purchased. Ok… I DID say we were met by all of the animals but in fact it was only 4 of them, since the oldest (and fattest) cat named Winston took the true and tested old advice that when the going gets tough (any guests in the house) the tough hides under the bed. Which he then did so categorically that it took 5 days before I saw him for more than a split second at all.
As the clock was getting close to 3PM we once again mounted the mobile grill, sorry car, and drove to the airport where I could pick up my rental. Lexington calls itself the Blue-grass music and horseracing capital of the United States (even if other places disagrees about at least the second part) and several road names on the way there indicated as much as I saw both a Pinto Lane and a Blue-grass highway as well as a Racing Street. I got my car without too much hassle, a large and well equipped Nissan Altima with a functional air-condition, so we quickly decided that we were going to use that one for the rest of my visit. (Since then Skye has gotten a new and very nice car so if I ever end up in Lexington again I don’t have to be cooked all the way through)
As it was getting around 5pm and with none of us having eaten anything all day we just drove back to Skye’s house and left her car there then went to a food court for some early dinner. We found a Zaxbys, which is a chain of chicken restaurants, mostly existing in the southeastern United States but they have recently starting crawling north towards the Midwest as well. Try their BBQ marinated chicken strips (As I did on this occasion) they are yummy.
After having eaten, we drove back to the house so I could say hi to Michael who had gotten back from work and also ask the dog supreme for permission to play a little with the other 4 animals (Minus brave Sir Winston). When the time approached 8PM I said goodbye and drove back to the hotel with a stop at Walmart on the way for supplies (Potato chips and watermelon) and then to bed.
”Intelligent” design and booze.
Today was our first planned excursion from Lexington. More specifically to the creationist museum just outside Cincinnati, Ohio, but on the Kentucky side or the border, about 100 miles north of Lexington.
We were going to meet with a guy both of us had known online for years but never met in person, and since both he and Skye had been to the museum before, they wanted to show it to me as well as its botanical and small zoological gardens.
Skye and Tim looking strange after the visit to the creationist museum.
The trip there went fine and on the way I got Skye introduced to, and involved in mine and my father’s truck counting game. Well arrived at the museum we bought our tickets and waited for our friend A. to arrive. When he showed up and we had said hello and what else you do when you finally meet someone you have known for years but never met, we went through a part of the botanical garden up to the museum itself.
Creationism, or intelligent design, is not as widespread as it was some years ago, but it still have a large following in the United States, especially in the south and Ken Ham, who build the museum, is a Australian biologist and Christianity apologist now living in the USA and tries to educate people in how the bible is 100 percent true and science as we know it, can be used to prove the book of Genesis. To spread his message, his organization has built the creationist museum as well as the ark experience. Which is a full scale model of Noah’s ark further south in Kentucky. You can buy combination tickets to both, but we elected to skip the ark and hope we wouldn’t be flooded in spite of that.
I am not going to go into details about the museum but leave it at the fact that despite their line of evidence for how we know the dinosaurs survived the great flood. (We have stories about dragons. Dragons are like dinosaurs. The dragon stories are later than the flood. QED.) I did not leave convinced that the earth is 6000 years old and that tyrannosauruses roamed the Wild West 120 years ago. After we had finished at the museum we walked around the general area and looked at the very impressive and beautiful botanical garden and the museum petting zoo which could easily have been an attraction on its own without the museum. If you happen to be in the area and wants some education in religious science or just wants to see a very nice botanical garden don’t spare yourself this visit… although 30 dollars might be a bit steep price if all you want to do is to see some flowers.
When we didn’t have the stamina for more plants, we got back in the car and drove to one of Cincinnati’s inner suburbs where is located the largest employee owned liquor and party supply store in the world. A. is a big beer connoisseur and wanted to show us the place and it certainly is impressive. A larger than average food store filled only with booze of all conceivable kinds and party supplies such as table cloths, funny hats, masks etc. I didn’t need to drink or buy alcohol back home with me but I DID get an excellent flamingo shaped hat for the fun of it. Despite it being mostly bought for a laugh it did however end up doing good service once me and my father was back together again.
The time had gotten close to 4PM now and since we had more than an hour drive back and the animals at home had been alone for quite a few hours Skye and I said farewell to A. and set our course back towards Lexington were we arrived without any real issues apart from a sudden downpour when we were around the area of the ark experience, but it abated very quickly so it was probably just a coincidence. The supreme dog had forgotten that I needed to be vetted before being allowed access to the house so after being assaulted and forced to be supreme pet-care assistant to the supreme dog for about an hour, we went out for dinner at a Golden Corral. This is a buffet restaurant that I have previously had good luck with, considering their wide selection of food, but this time it was very bad. The meat was badly cooked, the vegetables overdone and tasteless, the service poor and the cleaning very bad. After this disappointment (the only bad food day on the entire trip) I drove back to the hotel while looking at the center of Lexington that I had never seen before while the sun set. I decided that after the short Saturday program we had planned, I would do some proper sightseeing.
Shooting guns and alien egg tea
That the US is a country fond of weapons is well known. That the fondness in many cases reaches almost religious heights are perhaps just as known. So naturally Skye’s husband Michael had guns. Since I like shooting guns and wanted to try to fire the famous (or infamous?) AR-15 that are so much in the media these days, my friends had decided that we were going down to their local shooting range for some fun.
Iced Tea with alien eggs.
When I had gotten out of bed and gotten dressed, I drove out to their house. This time I chose to drive through the center of town, something that Skye had warned me about due to the terrible traffic there. However despite it being before 9AM (On a Saturday admittedly, but it worked the same the other days until I left as well) it went easy and fast. I suspect that Skye is overestimating the traffic in Lexington and its surroundings, compared to that of greater Copenhagen, but then she is originally a country girl from Michigan, so for her, it’s probably exceedingly bad around Lexington with its 300.000 inhabitants, but I handled the 7 miles about twice as fast as it would take to drive the same distance through the center of city at home. On the other hand the trip confirmed for me that I wanted to see more of the city later.
Safely arrived at the home of my hosts, I had to go through the usual pet welcome (sans Winston) while Michael took the guns out of his cabinet and packed them up with some ammo, and then we were on our way. The shooting range is at the back of a gun store so if we did not have enough firepower it could be quickly remedied. Skye is not overly fond of guns so she just watched while Michael and I killed several cardboard targets. Following this morning’s escapades I can conclude that shooting guns is still fun, and that if I was ever attacked by a horde of stationary cardboard cutouts while carrying a gun, I will get out alive. Unlike the cutouts.
After the shooting Skye insisted that I was going to try a special ice tea that they made at a place in the local shopping mall. Also at the same time I could see the Macy’s she used to work at. Since we parked at what turned out to be the extreme end of the center and she went in to several stores on the way to “look at things” I suspect her of having ulterior motives apart from my taste buds though. The tea itself was excellent, with tiny syrup balls in the bottom in some digestible plastic. It was a fun and tasty experience but I did worry that it really was some kind of alien eggs that would gestate inside of my stomach and then eat its way out. On the other hand I amk still live (at time of writing 4 months later) but maybe the gestation is just really slow?
After Skye’s attempt to impregnate me we walked around the mall a bit more looking at stores and I got some gifts for people in a store with various knick knacks, after which we set our course back towards the house. We hung out for a few hours chatting and being slaves for the supreme dog and its friends (except guess who?), and then I headed out to look a bit at the city. The center of Lexington is no more or less interesting than a hundred other midsized cities but on both sides of it there are many old and interesting houses and churches. For example President Lincoln’s wife Mary’s childhood home is here in town as well as Ashland; a mansion that was home to Henry Clay, one of the early United States great political figures. He was called the “great compromiser” for his work in the house of representatives and tried three times (without luck) to get elected president.
After a few hours driving around taking pictures, I ended up at the hotel where I rested for about an hour, before driving back and picking up Skye and Michael for dinner at the very same Chick Fil’A where me and my father ate the first night in town. (Where he was trying to prove that he was capable of eating burgers without the use of cutlery.) After that I took another quick run to Walmart and then back to the hotel to relax and sleep before Sunday's packed program.