sky of blue, sea of green

Well, the eating has plummeted for me here, in Lexington Kentucky. Hotel conference food is the same in all parts of the country so perhaps I shouldn't blame Lexington Kentucky, but, instead, the Marriot. So let me rephrase that: it is remarkable how unhealthy Marriot hotel conference food is. Breakfast at least had bits of melon adorning the platefuls of sweet cinnamon rolls. Lunch is a white bread salami sandwich, with macaroni salad, potato chips and cookies. And because you're sedentary all day, of course, your hunger disproportionately soars. As if you swam the English Channel. You deserve it! Entitled to eat by virtue of sitting in a conference chair without interruption. Bring it on! Any snacks between sessions? Yes? Pretzels you say? Let's see how many I can eat while pounding out a page of notes on my computer!

Between 11:30 and 1, there is a pause for me. The material is beyond the scope of what I could possibly find useful, and it's followed by a general break.

So, horse time, no?

A few phone calls reveal the bleak truth: no public tours are offered until the afternoon -- that's no good for me. The sessions are packed with important stuff then. And here's the other obstacle: the farms are far for a person who has to rely on her feet or on cabs. The lovely tourist office staff does some calculations for me and comes up with a shocking total were I to cab my way to horses.

So I call back Enterprise and have a "what if" conversation with them: if you can let me have a car for $35 tomorrow, and you have cars available today, what if we pretend that tomorrow is today? And since you're not too far, why not pick me up at the hotel? And then drop me off at the airport on Saturday? True, it's lousy to negotiate when, in fact, you want something that they have and they know it, but for some reason the manager relents and so I find myself at noon, zipping around in a little Chevy, pausing here and there to take in the beauty of the green blue grass countryside.






I can't quite get beyond the big gates that lead to the farms -- you need an afternoon (and an appointment) for that. But at least I get a feel for life here, among the thoroughbreds.






I have to say, it feels odd to be in a place that focuses so much attention on only one animal. It's as if we could not stop pushing the cow back in Wisconsin. Cow everything. Famous cow hoof prints on plaques for conference presenters. Paintings of cows in every hotel room, cows in the hallway, cows in the elevators. Cow shaped cookies, cow monuments, cow mailboxes. Cows, everywhere cows. Like that, only substitute a spotted Bessy with a thoroughbred filly.






But it's all oddly beautiful, too. True, these horses are not what you'd find at the animal pound. Royalty travels to Lexington to walk among these majestic animals in their beautiful stalls. The gates to the horse farms are works of art. And acre upon acre of land, devoted to paddock.  Remarkable.

Even as it is all rather inaccessible. Gates, fences -- to keep horses in and a curious public out (though most places welcome prearranged visits). It's not as if you can hike through the Kentucky horse farms. This land is not my land.

But it is gorgeous stuff to drive through. For an hour or so, I stop and get out of the car often enough to frustrate most anyone driving behind me.






And then I'm back at the conference and the day stumbles along and I can't resist the potato chips and the free chocolates lying around at all the tables of financial services sales reps who always show up at these kinds of workshops (they don't so much bother with academic conferences; no one buys anything at academic conferences).


In the evening, now that I have the car, I decide to keep the theme of the the horses in place. Rather than go downtown for dinner, I head out deeper into the countryside. There's a place called the Windy Corner Market that claims a great commitment to Kentucky foods.







In the early evening, you put in your order at the counter and with great speed and alacrity your food is delivered to your table. What food? Well, Kentucky food, I guess. I order their Kentucky Po'boy (we are not that far from the Gulf states), which is stuffed with pulled pork, fried pickles, bourbon barrel cheese, red onion and a "special sauce." I know, I know: where have all my beloved summer vegetables disappeared to? I do get a side of lettuce and another side of corn and beans, but that hardly counts!






The place is crowded and the food is really good, even if I haven't eaten pork in maybe ten years and I feel today has been one huge nutritional calamity.







And here is my other troubling reality:  I want to walk into this land around me, but that's not an easy here among the blue grass hills of eastern Kentucky. So that an after dinner trek (I MUST move, I MUST!) has to be along a road. I pick a fairly narrow, quiet lane, but I cannot escape the occasional roar of the truck. Or the BMW convertible. Really.






...Because there is a lot of wealth in the horses here. This is no small time operation.

Horses on signposts, horses on license plates, horses horses...






And again, the flip side is that it's a beautiful countryside, this land of the blue grasses, neatly trimmed for the bay toned slender mares and stallions grazing there.

In a lesser paddock (you can tell), I watch a horse off to the side. Let me call her Loner -- she is in fact without a companion. I have this habit here of humming Kentucky Babe everywhere I walk and she hears me.





She moves tentatively. I know better than to reach out to these hot-blooded animals. Every horse farm that permits tour visits warns not to go near the animals. But Loner looks like she's a passed over horse. Somehow left to her own devices. Maybe her days were glorious once. Maybe her history is less noble.

She has a sharp gaze though and as she comes to the fence, her eyes follow my every move.






She allows herself to be nuzzled, then she changes her mind, then she comes back for more.






This continues for a while and as I stand and wait, humming all the while, I think -- someone really does love these horses. For the money they bring, yes, sure, but also for their splendidness.






I walk away as Loner watches still, not bothered by my coming or going.






I get in my little white Chevy and head back to the conference hotel where I pop open a Kentucky Ale and sit down to write.