Letter 7 Kentucky III: Horses, Ohio River, Samboree

Monday, May 3, catching up on some thoughts left out of the last post. We are still looking for a straight level road in Kentucky. Even the state roadways are narrow and winding in many rural areas. We commented to one resident about the roads and he agreed. He said they were laid-out along meandering bison trails. We think he was serious.

In central Kentucky, where we have spent the past few weeks, we have noticed the limestone formations. Even thought the land is rich and fertile, not too far down is limestone. Unlike the white Texas limestone we are accustomed to seeing, Kentucky limestone is harder and normally has a gray cast. Anyway it must be super stuff. Multiple people have told us it’s the reason why racehorses do so well here. The calcium makes its way to the grass and hay, giving the horses strong bones. And if you believe that, there’s one more for you. It was told to us many times. The reason whiskey is sooo good in Kentucky is because the limestone filters the water naturally. So why doesn’t it add calcium? True or not, we thought they were both cute stories.

Fred was worried about being able to pull out of the spot we were in, but with

our four wheel drive we were able to get to dry ground quickly. It was level, except for a rise where the crushed rock and grass met. The grass was floating from the 10” of rain we had over the weekend. Every step brought a squash.

We drove to the north side of Lexington to the Kentucky Horse Farm.

The land was purchased by the state of Kentucky, then the park was developed to show off horses.

All done since the 1970s. They have many events and will the be site of the Alltech F E I World Equestrian Games in September and October of 2010. The first time in the United States!

Their campground was made for tourists with 240 sites plus overflow primitive camping. We’re sure in the summer they are all full. We found our site, unhooked and hurried to the Horse Park, just in time to take the horse trolley ride around the park seeing a memorial to

Secretariat on the way. Who was the greatest thoroughbred ever? Man o War or Secretariat? Fred’s vote goes to Secretariat. Trivia: Man o War lost only one race. Who beat him? We have used the term in sports ever since, when the favorite fails to win.

From the trolley we visited the Hall of Champions with lush paddocks reserved for only those equine residents of the Horse Park who have distinguished themselves as true champions.

As we sat in the grandstands,

DA HOSS was paraded in front of us, while we were told of his accomplishments. He is one of six horses and the only gelding to win two Breeders Cup races in non-consecutive years, 1996,1998 among other things.

FUNNY CIDE won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in 2003 and was the first New York bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby.

The third horse was

CIGAR who was voted Horse of the year and Champion Older horse in ‘95 & ‘96. He tied the record of 16 consecutive wins and was all time money winner at retirement in 1996. He was a little feisty and kept trying to bite the handler. His actions made you think he is a mean horse. Well, maybe just playful.

The Breeds Barn was next with a

parade of horses including (left to right) Morgan, War Horse, Paint and Arabian.

Previously, we purchased the tickets to take the Horse Farm Tour and boarded the bus at 3:15. We were taken to the

Winstar Farm’s breeding barn.

It takes two million a month to keep Winstar in operation. The breeding barn is the full time home of their horses standing at stud, it isn’t the palace of the owner

We viewed and heard all about

Distorted Humor,

Tiznow and

Colonel John, all standing at stud.

They expect the new Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver to be here after the last Triple Crown race.

Our guide Shawn told us how they breed the animals.

The turf is polyester, for protection. They tie the mares lip to a stick, put padded boots on her rear feet and tie one front leg off the ground. All this so she won’t kick. The stallion is brought in and allowed to do his thing. Shawn said Tiznow has to watch two mounts before he is ready to act and he breeds 3 mares a day.

We met

Larry Damerit, the director of breeding for Winstar. He told us of tying the tongue of horses when they race. They pull the tongue out, then loop a cord over and keep it out of the mouth. Otherwise the horse will swallow the tongue when racing.

He also told us to watch for “Weekend Wild Cat” a two year old, then he showed us a

picture of a future Derby winner. It hadn’t been named yet.
Most of the others on our tour had been to the Derby and certainly knew more than we did about horses.

Shawn obviously loves to eat as he recommended we stop at the

Wallace Station on the way to the next stop. He recommended their fried chicken, sweet potato salad, bourbon ice cream and

pastries. We opted for an apricot scone, sweet potato salad to go and ice cream to eat on the bus. Several bought the fried chicken and Shawn even ate several pieces while driving.

Shawn was a wonderful comedian as well as knowing his horses. He kept us laughing the whole way.

We visited the barns in the back of Keeneland, which just happens to gross over 50 million annually off horse sales, and met another Larry in charge of LD breeding.

A young lady from Idaho, on the tour, was in love with the horses and really wanted to be a physical therapist for them. Larry said it was a very good career. She needs to move to Kentucky!

Keeneland even has drive through betting. Shawn told us about the Two Brothers from Dubai and their farm, Shepwell. They are very good to their employees. On top of above average pay, all of their health insurance is paid, $200 a month for gas to get to work, $250 a month toward house payment, the managers have a new SUV every two years, and the brothers don’t want the winnings from the races, just the trophy’s, so the employees split the winnings. We understand turnover is very low.

Our last stop was Hurricane Hall to see some

babies.

The owner of this farm is the largest landowner in the US with 1,500,000 acres. We don’t know where else he owns land.

On the way back to the park we drove by Calumet Farms. All of these farms are meticulously well groomed with miles of fences. The white paint cost more, but the black paint lasts longer so most of the fences are black.

This park and tour are musts if you are in Kentucky, It was a very good experience.

Tuesday, April 4, we drove along the Bluegrass Driving tour on our way north east to Washington and Maysville on the Ohio River. Years ago we read another of Thom’s historical novels called Follow the River. It has stuck with us so much Olivia wanted to follow the Ohio.

In 1755, before white man had explored Kentucky, Mary Ingles, 23 year old mother of two and pregnant, was kidnapped by the Indians at Draper’s Valley, VA, and taken via the New River and Kanawha River, down the Ohio to what is now Cincinnati, a large Indian village. Several years later when she had earned the Indian’s trust she ran away and followed the river 1000 miles back to Virginia. It’s a great book about this true story. Read it sometime! It is amazing how

dense the undergrowth is along the river.

Fred’s ancestors lived about 15 miles from Draper’s Valley in Virginia at about the same time, so it was easy to imagine this could have happened to his ancestor too. Along with George Rogers Clark this has added to our interest in the Ohio River.

Our destination of Maysville is actually two historically significant communities that joined to become one. Washington incorporated in 1786, grew to become a prosperous town by 1810. Maysville, originally called Limestone,

was also established in the 1780’s but didn’t flourish until the Indian threat was eliminated from the riverbank in the early 1800’s. There is a Mary Ingles street and road in this area.

Down the Ohio River floated canoes, rafts and flat bottom boats carrying settlers, pioneer scouts and even foreign nobility to a landing at Limestone, known as the “Northern Gateway to Kentucky.”A landing was cut into the wilderness by bison migrating from Ohio traveling to Blue Licks for salt. John May, who signed the Declaration of Independence and Simon Kenton owned 100 acres of land here. Thomas Williams and Simon Kenton arrived here in 1775, discovering the rich cane lands Kenton had been seeking during four previous trips into the Kentucky wilderness. Maysville is a terraced city with 155 buildings, with French, Irish, Dutch and German influences, listed on the National Historic Register.

A visit to

Historic Washington was a treat with their flagstone sidewalks

and old buildings.

A trip back to Mays Lick gave us some fresh asparagus from the

Asparagus Shed.

Our campground was very near the

flooded Ohio, from all the rain Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania experienced this past weekend. It would be interesting following the river the next few days.

Another thing we accidentally omitted from the last blog is the fact that Dollar General was started in Bardstown. When Olivia learned this she just had to visit their Dollar General Market Place. It was actually a mini grocery store with meat and produce.

Wednesday, May 5, we began our trip along the north side of the Ohio River. We had been told the views were better from that side. We could just imagine Mary Ingles on the opposite shore, trudging through the thick underbrush on the steeper side of the river. We drove through many little villages, surprisingly near the river. It looked like they would really need to have flood insurance. Portsmouth was the largest Ohio city and it was strung out for several miles. When we reached the southern most part of Ohio we crossed the river, noticing again how thick the woods were at the edge of the river.

Then we made a big mistake. We headed to a corps park in West Virginia. Now the park would have been okay, but the road was very narrow with no shoulder and up and down, round and round. Still looking for a straight road, leaving Kentucky for West Virginia wasn’t the answer. It was a lot further and took longer than expected. Upon arrival, we found the park wasn’t to be open until this weekend! A nice corps man told us there was a parking lot where the road was fenced off if we wanted to dry camp, and he didn’t think anyone would bother us. So we proceeded to do just that! And no one bothered us. A few fishermen came and went and we enjoyed the pleasant afternoon and went to bed before dark.

Thursday, May 6 we had to complete the mistake and tried a larger appearing road from the map to go back to the Ohio. This one was a little wider, still no shoulder, and included all the ups & downs, round & rounds. Most of the way it followed a river and since we knew Mary Ingle couldn’t swim, she had to follow each stream until it narrowed enough to cross. She probably had to follow this one for many miles. It was really flowing.

Arriving back at Huntington WVA

we followed the river on the south side on a nicer road. We had many views of the Ohio, then we crossed back into Ohio at Point Pleasant, where the Kanawha River empties into the Ohio River. We parted Mary Ingles route as she followed the Kanawha to the New River and home in Virginia.

Then the worst came! Olivia really looked at the Ohio map and discovered lots and lots of black squiggles! We enjoy some of them, but not miles and miles, and miles of them. Also, there was not any direct highways north from Point Pleasant. We traveled Highways 35, 160, 30, 50, 13, 93, & 146 all heading north. We also discovered a lot of the Ohio State Parks do not have electricity and Fred decided that night we needed electricity. We passed four possibilities (without electricity) before arriving at Dillon Lake State Park. As we neared there we realized we had driven 350 miles on those horrible roads. Tired? You bet!

The map looked better from here on. Still little black roads, but they appear straighter

One nice thing was viewing the quilt barns along the way. Many counties in Kentucky and Ohio have Quilt Barn Tours through their county roads. We have seen many.

Friday May 7, Fred and Blaire’s birthday. Today Blaire became an adult, she is 18, WOW! How time flies.

We had never been to a trailer rally because they are always in a different part of the country or a different time of year. Well, Ohio Good Sams was sponsoring a “Spring Flower” rally not far from where we were so we decided to join them for the weekend. It was at the Coshocton Fair Grounds and all 325 RV’s were parked all over their parking lots and anywhere an RV could be placed. They found us a spot and we registered. While most are from Ohio, we were parked next to two couples from New Hampshire. They were just passing thru like us.

Come to find out the rally had been there all week. We were not aware they had lots of tours and activities for getting acquainted during the week. When we arrived they were waiting for the night and weekend activities. Fred had bad allergies and hadn’t felt well for several days so we rested. The evening activities started with an hour of meeting, welcoming, and introductions. Then a music entertainment. We left when it started. Others told us it was very good, but not our cup of tea.

The weather had turned off hot this day and we had all the windows open until we went to bed. A front moved through about 11 pm, with thunderstorms.

Saturday, May 8 we woke up to cold, mid thirties, and overcast skies. The samboree had about twenty golf carts to ferry people to various activities. We felt sorry for the drivers as there was a cold wind and occasional sprinkles. We went to the grandstand for coffee and donuts and visited with two couples that live on Lake Erie east of Cleveland. Various games were being played and they had vendor and hospitality booths to view. Ohio Good Sams have about 50 clubs scattered over the state and they all had a booth with raffles tickets to sell for an item valued for at least $100. Most of the items were too large for us to carry with us, so we just looked. One was a beautiful flower arrangement made of money. Another was a flower cart. One had $75 one dollar bills attached as flower pedals to a flower place mat. All had flowers of some sort involved since this was their Spring Flower Samboree. They were very creative. The money they raised was later donated to a charity of the Samboree’s choice, “Dogs for the Deaf.”

All day we saw Samboree volunteers working a various jobs. electricians, dump sites, golf carts, lighting, sound people. popcorn, donuts and coffee, hospitality, etc. They had meetings all afternoon. Fred’s comment, “didn’t they have enough meetings before retirement when they were working?”

We attended a First Timer’s meeting and were introduced to all the presidents of the Ohio clubs. We were able to find out from one where to stay to be able to see the NFL hall of fame in Canton and the Ohio Amish area.

We were able to obtain tickets to the

chicken dinner and joined the whole group for grilled chicken, baked potatoes, coleslaw and cake. We met two couples from Louisville, Kentucky and enjoyed talking about what we had seen there.

The evening entertainment was after another meeting and door prize give aways. They had many very nice door prizes. This night we enjoyed the entertainment, the “Rivoli Revue,” a younger couple who are full time RV'ers. They told jokes and sang ditties about RVing. They kept the crowd laughing for two hours with a break in between to catch their breath, sell CD’s and for us to get popcorn.

Sunday May 9 we attended their worship service with about half the attendees. Others were heading out early. There was a volunteer choir and ushers from the attendees. The Chaplin offered the sermon.

We visited with our neighbors and exchanged cards just before they took off.

All of the attendees go to monthly campouts with their clubs and three times a year attend a state Samboree. They also attend neighboring state rally’s. Some go south for the winter and attend rallies in other states as they cross them. Good Sam rallies are definitely filling a need for lots of people. These clubs are their network of friends.

We pulled out about noon and found a nice RV park in the Amish Country.

Read the next letter to find out about the NFL Hall of Fame, Amish country and Ohio in general.

When Man O War lost, it was a real upset. In fact the only horse to beat Man O war was named Upset. So new terminology came into use!

Let us hear comments and news from you at Olivia@bobheck.com and FredHarrington@yahoo.com