I have made three trips to Kentucky and I enjoyed all three. I would say that Kentucky is one of those underrated vacation destinations. Who takes a vacation to Kentucky? Turns out that there are interesting things to do in this great Commonwealth. Kentucky is one of four states, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia being the other three, that identifies itself as a “commonwealth”, an English common law term describing a political entity founded for the common good. Maine and Kentucky also have a common history in that both states, although not considered states at the time, were federal districts organized under the Judiciary Act of 1789 when the existing union was divided into 13 judicial districts. Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution and their judicial districts were not added until 1790, but the Commonweath of Massachusetts had two judicial districts, the northern one being the District of Maine, and the Commonwealth of Virginia likewise had two judicial districts, the western one being the District of Kentucky. I am just a font of amazing trivia.
The first trip to Kentucky was with my parents the summer after I graduated from law school in 1976. I came home to Pittsburgh with my little West Highland White Terrier named Kipper and she and I set out with my parents on a camping trip in a borrowed camper. It was one of those old fashioned campers that sat in the bed of a pickup truck. Kipper and I slept in the bed that was tucked up on the shelf that jutted over the cab. My fondest memory of that camping trip was visiting the horse farms around Lexington. I can still picture my mother leaning on the immaculate white board fences watching the horses grazing in the bluegrass fields. She and I were great horse lovers, my father not so much. But as I have mentioned in earlier pages, I had horses during my teen years and enjoyed riding and showing them around the area where I grew up. It made for a good trip for me and my parents — one of the few vacations I ever took with them as an adult. My daughter has traveled extensively with my husband and me since she graduated from college in 2002, but my parents did not travel in their retirement years very much and when they did they mostly drove to Florida in the winter or to Maine in the Fall because my mother enjoyed the foliage so much. Neither of those destinations resulted in me joining them on a true vacation.
My second trip to Kentucky was many years later after I retired and Harold and I had journeyed to Nebraska to see the sandhill cranes. While driving back to Maine we passed through Kentucky and visited Lincoln’s birthplace and returned to the horse farms around Lexington. We also managed to visit a very interesting restaurant recommended to us by Harold’s law partner, George. We drove through horse country winding roads and arrived at a spot by a stream surrounded by gorgeous sycamore trees. We sat on a deck amid the spring sunshine and had good Kentucky fried chicken, a more than pleasant memory.
My third trip to Kentucky was during the COVID years in 2021. This time I traveled alone. I took an extended roadtrip that year intent on completing my 50-state goal and my route necessarily took me back through Kentucky. Once more I visited horse country, but my primary focus on this trip was Bardstown and the so-called Bourbon Trail. I had listened to an audio Great Course, The History of Bourbon, presented by Ken Albala, a university professor, and I felt I at least knew a little about the subject even though I am not a bourbon drinker. Since my interest was in the history and culture of bourbon, not necessarily the taste, I studied the various distilleries around Bardstown and decided to visit Woodfords, a distillery known for its grounds and gardens in addition to its whiskey. Woodfords is located in Versailles, Kentucky (pronounced ver- salleys), another Maine connection because we have a town called Calais (pronounced Cal- less). Neither Maine nor Kentucky bow to French pronunciations. I was not disappointed. It is a beautiful spot, and I purchased a bottle of bourbon for my husband’s former law partner, George, to remind him of his law school days spent drinking the stuff in Kentucky.
I would like to travel to Kentucky again someday as there is one additional spot I would like to visit, the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. On my third trip to Kentucky I drove right by the exit ramp for this spot which is pretty centrally located vis a vis the Bourbon Trail. George had told me about this place and if I had realized its proximity I would have stopped. Now I am hoping to make another trip to Kentucky and spend a couple of nights at the lodging on the premises and soak in the beautiful Kentucky countryside. In the 19th and early 20th century it was the third largest Shaker community in the country. https://shakervillageky.org/ My own history with the Shakers dates back to the early 1970’s when I visited the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. They say that community still exists as the only surviving Shaker community in the country. I have not been back since the 1970’s and I wonder how authentic it is now. https://www.maineshakers.com/ If you are looking for “Blue Highway” things to do and want to get off the beaten path and experience something different, there are always places like Shaker VIllages to visit and places like Kentucky and Maine to explore.
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