Kentucky: Beauty, Wealth, Horses

Today we traveled from Medina, Ohio, to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where we're staying the night. En route we stopped at the Kentucky Horse Park -- great place to see, with rolling Kentucky hills and verdant Kentucky fields and strapping Kentucky horses. Lovely -- we even saw an extravagant, decadent "castle" house -- yes, we're certain it was a private home -- set in acres of perfect lawn, with turrets and stone walls and everything. It wasn't a pretend-castle; it was, actually, a castle, and it made us gasp at the incredible wealth.

But while it's pretty to look at, we're not getting the sense that we're really seeing America. We're realizing that, in our efforts to be cost-effective and expedient in our journey to NOLA, we chose to travel only by the interstate highway system. Fine, but the problem is that we see only the following things:

a) Cracker Barrel
b) McDonald's
c) Bob Evans
d) Various mom and pop gas stations
e) Rarely, a Castle-House or otherwise postcard-perfect scene

In other words, there's very little opportunity to actually see how people are: what bars they like, their homes, hear what they think. The people we meet are wonderfully nice: genuine, kind, friendly. But when they're bringing your food and wishing y'all a nice day, now, there's just no chance to get to know them, even a little.

Next trip, we would eschew (and how many times have you used THAT word, folks?) the interstates in favour of the off-the-beaten track routes. Slower, and more expensive, but I think we'd get more of a real American Road Trip out of our American Road Trip.

P.S.: Kenton adds: "although we're not seeing ALL of America, we are, in fact, seeing at least a part of it." He's right: yeah, there's loads of fast food joints and private booze establishments and more State Troopers than I've ever seen in an episode of C*H*I*P*s, but there are also, consistently, sweet and friendly people. They work in these places -- and yet they smile and are kind and warm to us. Thanks to them.