Georgetown, Kentucky

Good morning, my friends. We find ourselves in Georgetown, Kentucky, this morning...so named for our first president, George Washington. Looking up Georgetown, I learned it is the birthplace of Nellie Showalter (1870-1946). And if, like me, you've never heard of her, just know she was an American women's chess champion. Also, it's the home of Steve Zahn, the actor, who lives on a farm in the same county.

It has been pouring rain here for much of the morning with lightning and thunder so loud it sounds like gunfire. The thunder and lightning have quieted since I started writing, but we're expecting rain for much of the day today and at least part of the day tomorrow. Happily, the forecast is for good weather the day of our horse ranch tour.

And before we get too far along, I should remind you that we're back in the Eastern time zone for the last time this trip. I'll leave it up to you if you want to reset your watch.

Okay, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, so let's just back up to the yesterday morning. Before we left, I was able to finish stitching the 3rd covered bridge for Grandpa's Bridges.

That background fabric has a bit of a bluish tinge to it that doesn't photograph well. Sorry it looks so shadowy. Finishing this block was my goal for May's

so I'll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month.

Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far:

Next, I'll be starting on the 10th of 12 blocks for the "Kittens" quilt...this one:

It was an easy drive from Bowling Green to Georgetown. We're just a little north of Lexington, Kentucky, here. Also, a little east of Kentucky's state capital of Frankfort. Kentucky is a surprisingly beautiful state. I don't know why that should surprise me, but it's easy to understand why it's called the "Bluegrass State." Everything is lush and green. Driving along, we're surrounded by dense forest on both sides of the road. It looks like this:

Except when it looks like this. There are places where the roadway was cut through many feet of Kentucky limestone.

It was a good day for barns and other rustic structures.

We passed through the town of Versailles, Kentucky, just before reaching Lexington. Lexington is known as "the horse capital of the world." Indeed, we came here to tour a horse farm. Approaching Versailles, we saw this beautifully painted water tank. I tried to capture it as we drove by, but I was thwarted by a Wal-Mart truck that got in the way just as I snapped my picture. (Wal-Mart!!! Shakes fist.) Anyway, I found this image online. 

The art was completed by artist Eric Henn. It displays a painted scene of thoroughbred race horses with the caption, "Welcome to the Horse Capital of the World." The water tower is especially visible to eastbound traffic. 

And don't go pronouncing "Versailles" with a snotty French accent. No. Here in Kentucky, it's pronounced ver-SAYLZ. Also, it happens to be the home of William Shatner, of Star Trek fame. Also, Edward Platt. He was the actor who played the "Chief" in "Get Smart." (Please tell me you're old enough to remember "Get Smart.")

A little farther along, we saw this:

This is The Kentucky Castle hotel. It is an honest-to-goodness turreted castle. It can be seen driving by on US Hwy 60. It was built by Rex Martin Sr., who began building it in 1969 after he was inspired by a trip to Europe.

It wasn't long before we reached our final destination. When we arrived at the RV park, we pulled up next to these gorgeous iris.

And we have a very nice spot here. This is the view from our window. You can see the clouds rolling in, but we didn't get any rain until this morning.

As I watched, a great blue heron flew across the pond and landed on the other side.

Closer to our site there were a couple of ducks...

and a kildeer.

And this might be a perfect spot for Smitty to get out except for...

Wait...do you see what Sadie sees? Drat! Woofies! The people in the site beside ours have two stupid woofies. We know they are stupid because they are woofies, and all woofies are stupid. They can't help themselves. We can only hope they won't stay the whole time we're here.

We have four days in Georgetown. As I mentioned, we're here for the horse farm. That will be for Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll do whatever strikes us. It may mean just lazing around for a few days. There are some things of interest in Lexington, and so we'll see how we feel as the days dawn. With rain coming down in buckets, I foresee a day spent lazing around the RV and slow-stitching.