Lexington and Frankfort

Today we wound up our week staying at the Kentucky Horse Park. So far we've been really lucky and it hasn't been too hot.

Lexington is the location of . . .

Since I'm sure the students and teachers have heard all the jokes, I won't even bother. I do wonder if they would have rethought the name if it had been established after the Count Dracula book instead of over 100 years before.

(Of course, I mean no disrespect to Transylvania University. I understand it's an excellent school and was the first institution of higher learning west of the Allegheny Mountains.)

One day Ron and I took a 4-mile hike in Raven Run Nature Sanctuary on the south side of town. The trail led to this overlook of the 'majestic Kentucky River Palisades.'


Ron discovered this giant 'X' - maybe it marks a hidden treasure. If we only had a shovel.


We have been admiring all the rock fences in the area. They are made of local limestone and are built without mortar. Many of these rock fences were built in the early to mid-19th century by Irish stonemasons. In the 1990's, the Dry Stone Masonry Conservancy was formed to preserve and continue the art of dry stone masonry. Although we saw many of these rock fences around Lexington, none of them had an opening like this one that we found in the woods at Raven Run. How the heck did they build this without mortar? I'm picturing ten guys juggling rocks.


All week I've been on a quest to find some mares with foals in this horse country. Now I guess we could have paid to go on a horse farm tour, but where's the challenge in that?

At the chocolate store we found full-sized fiberglass horses covered in chocolate - pretty unusual, but not good enough.


And we even found a few cows in this horse country.


But it wasn't until today that I spotted some mares and foals. Unfortunately they were camera shy. This was taken from across a mile wide field (well, it seemed that big), but if you look carefully there are four mares with foals. Mission accomplished.


Today a bunch of us went to Frankfort, the state capital. The capitol building is beautifully situated atop a hill at the end of a landscaped divided road.


This building was built 100 years ago to replace the old capitol downtown. It is a lovely building, inside and out, although not quite as beautiful as Pennsylvania's capitol in Harrisburg. This is looking from the second floor of the rotunda into the East Wing. I'm sorry the picture doesn't do it justice and why the heck didn't I aim a little lower?


The tour guide picked Tom to be the acting Speaker of the House and 'act' he did.


But being WINs, we all have to get into the act.


The downtown area looked very prosperous with lovely old buildings and modern shops.


On our way out of town, we stopped at the Frankfort Cemetery to see Daniel Boone's grave. He died at age 85 and was buried in Missouri. Twenty-five years later, he and wife Rebecca were disinterred and reburied in Kentucky. But the story gets even stranger. Legend has it that the wrong remains were exhumed and moved, so both Missouri and Kentucky claim to have Boone's remains.

Regardless, this is a nice monument.