Kentucky- The Bluegrass State

Except for brief interludes that required me to live in other states (or countries) for job and school purposes, I have lived my entire life in Kentucky. A lot of people that I knew when I was younger didn’t like living there and their biggest ambition was to get out of the state. Me? I always liked it. There are some parts that I like better than others, and I’ve lived in a few places that I wouldn’t really want to live in again, but on the whole it’s a very nice state. Yes, we do wear shoes. We have the Internet. We are not all inbred (although I am related to my dad twice-once through marriage) and we’re not all rednecks. Although I have nothing against rednecks personally. I know a few myself and they’re some of my favorite people.

Kentucky is extremely diverse when it comes to geography. We have the Appalachian Mountains in the east. This is where you’ll find the coal mines (Portal 31 lets you take a tour through it and it’s awesome), the Daniel Boone National Forest, the Cumberland Gap, the Red River Gorge (where I am from originally), and the Country Music Highway. In the central part of the state we have the Kentucky River and the palisades. It’s a little hilly, but this is mostly where you’ll see the horses, rolling farms, and bigger towns. Well, bigger as opposed to the east. There are many historical homes, museums, family activities, and plenty of things to keep you occupied. Frankfort (our capital) is in central Kentucky, as are Lexington, Richmond, Corbin, Berea, Danville, and Somerset. In the west, there are virtually no hills at all and it’s mostly flat. We do have the Land Between the Lakes, a park, and Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky.

**US-23 The Country Music Highway**

We’ve had many a country music singer come from Eastern Kentucky. Actually, we’ve had several come from Central and Western Kentucky, too. But the Eastern part of the state had so many that they named a highway after the artists. Having grown up there, and it’s a fairly small area, I remember people talking about Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley like they were family. Heck, they probably WERE. The East is very proud of their musical heritage.

The Highway pays tribute to:

Billy Ray Cyrus
The Judds
Ricky Skaggs
Hylo Brown
Loretta Lynn
Crystal Gayle
Dwight Yoakam
Patty Loveless

Other famous Kentuckians:
Johnny Depp
Annie Potts
Keith Whitley
Diane Sawyer
Red Foley
Brian Littrell
Kevin Richardson
Rebecca Lynn Howard
Grandpa Jones
Montgomery Gentry
Exile
John Michael Montgomery
Muhammad Ali
Rosemary Clooney
Irene Dunne
Bill Monroe
Patricia Neal
Hunter S. Thompson

Quick Tips:

There are some beautiful spots in Kentucky. Here is a short list:

Cave Run Lake- fishing, boating, and beautiful scenery in Eastern Kentucky

Berea- "Appalachian Folk Capital of Kentucky"

Mammoth Cave- caves, caves, caves-our only National Park

Cumberland Gap- Stunning scenery

Lexington- a great downtown scene, good local music, and eclectic restaurants. Oh, and the gateway to the Bluegrass

Renfro Valley- Home of the Renfro Valley barn dance. Famous country music singers perform here but you can also catch some great local talent as well.

Court Days in Mount Sterling- like one huge flea market that goes on for four days. Massive.

Best Way To Get Around:

Kentucky has a very poor transportation system. You need a car. There are major airports in Lexington, Louisville, and Paducah.

We stayed here because of its close proximity to the Paramount Arts center. Although it is the most expensive hotel in Ashland and has a great location downtown, there wasn’t much to set it apart from most hotels of its class. There was a wedding going on the weekend that we were there so it was very busy. The wedding party took over the restaurant and the entire second floor and were quite noisy at night but that’s not what kept us awake. What kept us awake was at two in the morning the cleaning crew came in to clean the roof of the building. I’m not joking. It sounded like we were sleeping under the ocean. For about three hours we heard water swooshing back and forth. Finally, after our third call to the front desk, the offered to move us to a quieter room. Even they were confused as to why the cleaning people came at that time.

During our second visit, the room was clean but appeared as though nobody had stayed in it for a long time because it was very dusty.

All in all, we continue to stay in this hotel because it is roomy and we are able to walk down to the theatre. In the winter it would be nice because it would be close to the Christmas lights in the park. It’s probably a step above most hotels in the area, but it’s still not quite on par with other hotels of its class.

The Schoolhouse Inn is one of my favorite places to stay in Kentucky. I have stayed here twice and both times were memorable. This is an example of a great way to recycle some of the old school buildings in the area. Although tourism is still undefined in the region, the Inn is off to a great start. The classrooms have all been converted into large hotel rooms full of comfortable beds and furniture and tastefully decorated. Some of the rooms have the traditional hardwood floors and resemble log cabins while other rooms have plush carpeting, large sitting areas, and more space in general. Despite the fact that it was once a school, the building is quiet and noise level is kept to a minimum by the good insulation.

There is a restaurant on site. While I haven’t had any meal there other than breakfast, their breakfast is very good. It’s the usual Appalachian fare-eggs, grits, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy, etc. Very hearty and I have never left hungry. The grounds surrounding the Inn are beautiful and you’re close enough to walk to the Coal Mining Museum. The old mine that is open for tours is just a short drive down the road. If you’re taking a trip through the mountains and plan on visiting Kingdom Come State Park then by all means stay here-you won’t regret it.

Although technically in Winchester, this restaurant is right over the county line on the other side of the river from Richmond and we tend to forget that it is not ours. It’s been around for a long time. I used to think that I was a jinx to it because every time I ate there something bad would happen to it the next day-it got flooded, caught on fire…Anyway, it has a nice location on the Kentucky River (hence the name) and you can get good views of it from the terrace and certain windows.

Halls is famous for their beer cheese although I think Bananas on the River down the road has better. The shrimp has always been good and they have great baked potatoes. (I judge restaurants on the quality and size of baked potatoes. Is that weird?) We've also tried the snowcrab legs and they were tasty as well.

On the weekends they sometimes have live bands in their bar. Mostly country, but occasioanlly an oldies band. Nothing TOO heavy. It's nice to sit in there and listen to the music and have a drink.

They have places for dining al fresco if you’re into that (we are) and they have a room where you can listen to bands on the weekend. In the basement there’s a good size room that you can reserve for meetings, birthdays, reunions, or whatever you need it for. In the summertime on the weekends it can get packed and you can actually have a long wait so it pays to call ahead. I was down there the other night and I think the wait was over an hour.

Did it lose something when it moved locations? Well, that’s debatable. But this Frosty Freeze is still one of the best. True, you can actually go inside now and order and it has 1950's cool retro decor (as opposed to the walk-up window it used to have) but the food is still pretty good. I think it’s the chili dogs. Or the peanut butter milkshakes. Actually, I haven’t ever tried anything else there. I’ve been eating there for 25 years and never had anything but chili dogs.

Unfortunately, Mt. Sterling is being taken over by chain restaurants so this is one of the few opportunities you’ll get for eating at a local place. I highly recommend it. It's also a great place to take the kids and everything is made there on the spot, not frozen someplace else and shipped in.

Until a year ago, the Falls have been officially closed during my entire lifespan. However, that never stopped us from going. Of course, you had to know where to pull over off the side of the road, you had to climb over the barrier and trek through weeds and overgrown bush for a bit, and then you had to walk across a rusty bridge missing most of the planks-but hey, we made it! Now it’s open once again to the public and a lot has changed. I was afraid that it wouldn’t be as nice and secluded, but at least that part still remains. They’ve cleared away the vegetation that had grown over the pavement, put one of the shelters back together, and redid the parking lot so that you can actually, well, park. And the bridge has been repaired.

The Falls itself is most spectacular in winter when it freezes all the way down. Just one big long sheet of ice. It’s neat to walk under the falls too, because there’s almost like a large cave behind them. A really good place to walk around and take pictures and have a picnic for the day. I’ve never ran into any other tourists there, even now that it has reopened.

Caution: Beware of snakes in the summer. There are lots of cliffs and rocks and it's fairly damp and cool below the falls. Also, in the winter watch your step because the rocks can be really slippery.

Directions: On HWY 460 in Morgan County between Ezel and Frenchburg. There's a sign there now marking the spot.

Valley View is a small village in Madison County along KY 169 and Tates Creek just south of the Kentucky River. The name probably came from the view from the top of the hill on the Fayette county side of the river. The town was started in 1891 and for a long time it was a center of lumber production, using logs brought down the river from eastern Kentucky. The community grew around John Craig's (now the name of the boat that acts as the ferry) ferry, which began operating in 1785. It is now the oldesst buisiness in Kentucky and the only operating ferry for miles.. The post office operated from 1891 until 1957. At its heydey, it had more than 1,000 residents, which is kind of hard to believe when you look at it today.

The Valley View Ferry is the oldest operating business in Kentucky. It's been connecting Madison and Jessamine Counties since 1785. Today, you can ride the ferry for free. It's open from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm M-F. If there's high water it sometimes can't run so keep that in mind, too. Today it's one of the only operating ferries in existence in Kentucky so it's a real treasure.

Sky Bridge is a part of the Red River Gorge, the area I grew up in in Wolfe County. It's not as visited as Natural Bridge, and you can't take a sky lift up to it, but the views are just as amazing. There are several hiking trails, including the loop that runs for a mile and goes around and under the bridge. Sky Bridge has two openings, the first is 9' long by 6' high, the second larger opening is 73' by 23' high. The hike to Sky Bridge is short and easy. If you go the loop trail which takes you below the arch, you have to climb a 77 step stair case.The main part of the bridge is handicapped accessible.

Directions: From Mountain Parkway take the S-15 exit & head west on S-15. After 0.17 miles make a right & continue north on S-15 for 0.8 miles. Make a right on Sky Bridge Rd. & stay on this road until you reach the parking lot.

http://www.redrivergorge.com/

If you're into driving around and looking for old houses to walk around and explore then you'll definitely like Mt. Sterling and the surrounding area. There are many, many old homes to look at. Downtown itself is full of them and there are even a couple of abandoned mansions right off of Main Street that will give you a start. That's before you even get to the countryside.

Now, I'm not endorsing Breaking and Entering by any means. If I was, my stalker (who seems to read my pages and reviews religiously) would call me into the local police as soon as this is posted since she's always trying to find something to get me into trouble for. BUT, you can still take pictures and walk around and admire the architecture.

Note: If you do manage to get inside anywhere let me know and send me the photos. I love a good story.

Added note: Once my friend and I were walking around an old plantation house that we thought was empty. Turned out the owner was home. He was getting ready to do some major renovation and was so excited that we were interested he gave us the grand tour.

I was brought home from the hospital here and later lived here briefly again when I was 10. We only lived there a short time the second time because our house was haunted, thus shortening the amount of time we spent in the house. Everyone who knows me knows about the "haunted house in Mt.Sterling" and I like to take visitors on drives past it even today. It is still standing, although it's empty. Take a look at my houses experiences...

**Some Things To Take Note Of**


October Court Days- basically a really, really big flea market. If you can't find it here, then you're not going to find it anywhere. I do a lot of my Christmas shopping at this time. But then, I like markets anyway. It's also wise to visit without a full stomach. Lots of places to eat.

Berrymans- my favorite Frosty Freeze. It's arguable that they lost their edge when they moved into the old Dairy Queen building, but their chili dogs are still pretty good.

Old houses- there are some really neat old houses in the downtown area. I lived in my first haunted house in Mt.Sterling. We lived there exactly three months and then promptly moved out. Never really finished unpacking. Really traumatic experience. But the house was pretty! :-)

Quaint downtown- although like most downtown areas in the south, it is drying up due to urban sprawl, but they have managed to keep the buildings looking pretty good. It's nice to get out and walk around in.

Ruth Hunt Candy Company- and you can take a tour, too!

Note: Please don’t take this as a stab to Mount Sterling. I love Mount Sterling and I loved living there. As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite places in Kentucky. The following story has no bearing on the town. It’s just about my experiences in one specific house.

Years and years before the atrocities of my experiences in New Hampshire, I lived in another house that was frequented by otherworldly visitors. On the plus side, we only lived there for three months. On the downside, I was just a kid and there was lack of communication in my house regarding what was going on. If I had been more open and talked about what I was seeing, or if Mom and my cousin Jack had talked about it to each other, then we probably wouldn’t have stayed as long as we did. To this day, this is the scariest place I have ever been to and even after a quick visit over the summer of 2006 I still had nightmares a week afterwards.

We were very excited to be moving into the Mount Sterling house. You can’t tell it from the pictures, but the place was huge and had thirteen rooms, including a big-ass basement. It had been part of the underground railroad and had all sorts of little nooks and crannies and hidden doorways and stairwells. Initially, it was only going to be me and Mom living there but a couple of weeks after we moved in, my thrirtysomething cousin Jack moved in with us as well. The house was so big that we could all be home and never know the other people were there so it worked out well.

Things started happening almost immediately. The first thing we noticed was the blood. As a kid I was a little bit afraid of the dark and other things so I mostly slept with my mom. Almost from the day we moved in, we noticed that whenever we woke up in the mornings, tiny flicks of blood spotted our sheets. At first, it wasn’t that noticeable. Maybe ten or twenty. But as the nights wore on, they became more prominent. We would go to bed with clean sheets, but when we woke up in the morning, our top sheet would be covered with blood spots. We checked ourselves over, thinking that maybe we were coughing up blood in our sleep or scratching ourselves until we bled, but there were no marks on us. This went on for a couple of weeks until finally it got too cold to sleep in that upstairs room so we moved to one of the downstairs bedrooms.

Then there was the lady. I didn’t know about the lady until after we moved out. I’m glad I didn’t know.

One afternoon I was out riding my bike and Mom was upstairs cleaning one of the bedrooms. We had a winding staircase leading from the front door to the upstairs and as Mom cleaned she got the feeling that someone was watching her. She walked to the doorframe and peered down through the stairwell, locking eyes with a slight, older woman, with gray hair. Thinking that a neighbor might have wandered in, Mom smiled and asked her if she could help her. The lady didn’t answer. So Mom asked again. The lady disappeared.

About the same time, my little friend Teri came to spend the week with me. In the middle of the night, I came down with a horrid fever, 105 degrees, and was sick out of my mind for about a week. I have no recollection of that entire time and felt horrible. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with me and nothing helped. They were about to put me in the hospital when one afternoon Mom went out to buy me some Gatorade. I was going in and out of sleep and Terri was alone with me. All of a sudden, I was awakened by Terri’s scream. She was standing by the side of my bed, pointing. When I asked her what was wrong she told me that a gray-headed woman (whom she eventually pointed out in a picture of my deceased grandmother) had been sitting beside me on the bed, touching my head with her hand. From that moment, my fever broke and I was fine as if nothing had happened.

For reasons that I am still not aware of, we didn’t sleep too long in the downstairs bedroom either and eventually moved to the family room where we let out the fold-out couch and slept. Jack took over the back bedroom. I still played upstairs because my bedroom was up there, but I took a fright one evening when I was playing alone. I got the feeling that someone was watching me and when I turned around, my child-size rocking chair in the corner of my room was quickly rocking back and forth. I took a step toward it and it abruptly stopped. As I stood there and watched it, it slowly began rocking again, faster and faster until it tipped over and I went flying down the stairs. I went up a few other times, but from the minute I walked in the room a cold draft would hit me and it would feel as if my entire body was submerged under water until I couldn’t catch my breath. Eventually, I stopped going up there at all and forgot all about my toys.

Once Jack moved in things got really weird. The activity in the house increased dramatically. Mom and I were still sleeping in the downstairs’ bedroom when my uncle Junior and his girlfriend came to visit us. Junior is a really rough truck driver with multiple tattoos (some his girlfriend gave him at home) and his girlfriend herself looked like she could kick some serious booty. They were supposed to spend a couple of weeks with us and we put them upstairs. After a few nights they quickly packed their stuff and left. It was years before they would tell us why and even to this day we don’t have the whole story. They heard or saw something and it scared the living daylights out of them.

Meanwhile, in the downstairs bedroom I wasn’t faring so well. At ten years old I had never had a problem with wetting the bed but suddenly I started doing it every night. I didn’t even wake up as I was doing it. In the past, I might have a dream that I was in water or something and wake up just as I was about to pee, but I had never wet the bed like that before. This went on for weeks. Every single night. Mom was not amused. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Eventually, a doctor told us that it was psychological. That my mind wasn’t letting me wake up. I think it’s because I was too afraid to go to the bathroom alone at night so I just wouldn’t let myself wake up.

Then we moved into the family room.

This being an old house, ever room had a door to it. We could be in the family room and completely shut ourselves off from the hallway. At night, we closed those doors in order to keep the heat in. One night, those doors blocked us from something.

It was late in the evening and Mom and I were in the family room, reading. We had all of the doors shut. It was very quiet and we didn’t have the TV on or anything. I can remember hearing the front door open and sounds coming from the front of the house. I was pretty jumpy by then and didn’t think much of it, but as it went on I finally looked up at Mom and asked if she had heard anything. She had. “It’s probably just Jackie playing a trick on us,” she said. We waited for a few minutes and as we listened, footsteps came down the hall and stopped outside the door to the family room. We waited, only to hear them turn around and start up the stairs. We heard the steps slowly going up the stairs, and then heard them overhead, walking around my bedroom. At this point, Mom jumped up and said, “Put your shoes on!” We ran out the family room, into the dark hallway, and out the front door. All the while, we could hear the sounds of the person (or sometimes it sounded like people) walking around above us.

Once outside, we parked ourselves across the street on the sidewalk and watched the house until Jack got home. Now, there were only two rooms upstairs, one on either side of the stairwell. A large window separated the rooms. If anyone had crossed from one room to the other we would have seen them through the window. If anyone had come down the stairs, we would have seen them since the staircase was located directly in front of the front door. When Jack got home the three of us, armed with a broom, went back in the house to investigate. We walked all around the house. Nothing was there. Nobody slept very well that night.

After that, things went from bad to worse. Voices in the night, whispers, laughter, footsteps that walked toward the bed and got a few feet away before stopping…Knocking on the walls and doors. Singing. I heard singing coming from upstairs once and I can still hear it. Sometimes I get it confused with the rocking chair incident and it all merges together for me, even though they didn’t happen at the same time. Mom was a schoolteacher and we started staying really late at school so that we wouldn’t have to be at home as long.

Eventually, we decided to move. For the weeks leading up to the move, the three of us slept in the same room. Mom and I moved mattresses into Jack’s room and we slept in there. He had been hearing and seeing things as well and was afraid to sleep alone. The last thing I remember was that one night my stomach was upset and I had diarrhea. I had to keep getting up and going to the bathroom and I was so afraid that every time I went I cried. I would sit there on the toilet and listen as someone or something would walk up to the bathroom door and tap lightly, before whispering something I couldn’t understand and dart away. At one point I even started praying to my grandmother to watch out for me. Okay, I was ten.

We moved out and I hadn’t been back to the house until the summer of 2006 when I took my friends there. They’re really into old houses and ghost stories and they wanted to see it. It’s been abandoned for fifteen years or something and it’s really falling in, but you can still walk around inside if you’re careful. Mom took one step inside the front door and then went back to the car and shut the door. I stayed a little longer, but when I tried to go upstairs I couldn’t get nay further in my old bedroom than the door. Jim and Ashley toughed it out and explored but when Jim came back out the first thing he said was, “There’s something bad in Becky’s old room.” Yeah, I know.

Something had to have happened in that house. Those were not friendly spirits. It was not a good feeling to be there. And I often felt that it wasn’t even the same spirits that haunted it. I know that for a while the house was separated into apartments so maybe that had something to do with it. I don’t know. But I still get creepy vibes whenever we drive past it.

Call them what you will- Frosty Freeze, Dairy Bar, Dairy Shack, Freezer Fresh, etc. To me they're all Frosty Freezes. What exactly are they? Well, they're locally owned little businesses that generally don't have indoor seating, whose main function seems to be to sell ice cream. Soft served ice cream. Only I have yet to find one that ONLY sells ice cream. Usually french fries, burgers, onion rings, pizza bread, and tenderloin can also be found. Real ice cream is used for the shakes and such and although everything can be greasy and is incredibly bad for you overall, it is darn good. Unfortunately, Frosty Freezes seem to be dying out due to towns getting bigger and Dairy Queens moving in. Still, a few do exist and I wanted to use this page to pay homage to them.

Berryman's in Mt. Sterling. Now purists would say that Berryman's is technically no longer a Frosty Freeze since they moved out of their old drive-up building and now inhabit the space of a former Dairy Queen. However, it IS an institution in Mt. Sterling. Sure, the chili dogs aren't what they used to be and the last time I got a peanut butter milkshake it seemed to be mostly vanilla, but at least they're trying.

Clay City used to have one, but it recently closed. I used to go to it everyday because I went to school across the street. I loved their grilled cheese sandwiches, milkshakes, and french fries. Still do, in fact. Once when my friend Heather and I were walking back to the school I almost got hit by a truck. I was ten. So I wrote this little song about it...

"Rebecca got run over by a semi
Walking back from the frosty freeze
She was always a little skinny
But now she looks just like her ice cream."

But Ezel's is still my favorite. Ever. I grew up going to this Frosty Freeze. The best things to have are the french fries, pizza bread, and peanut butter milkshakes. To this day I haven't found better peanut butter milkshakes than here. When I was a kid they used to rent videos AND VCRs. Since we didn't have a VCR we took advantage of this deal they would occasionally have where you could rent a VCR and 8 video tapes for $20 or something. It was a big deal and all the neighbors would come over.

You don't tend to think of Buddhism when you think of Eastern Kentucky, but it is alive and well. In Estill County. Go figure. Furnace Mountain is a Buddhist Temple located in Estill County, close to Irvine. It’s about a thirty-minute drive from Richmond. It is in a beautiful location near the Red River Gorge-where I grew up. It is modeled after a traditional Korean Temple. The teacher is Zen Master Dae Gak, who has been practicing Buddhism for over thirty years. Furnace Mountain us an offshoot of the Buddhist Temple in Lexington, which outgrew itself. They chose the location in Estill County due to the beautiful scenery and the proximity to the mountains. Aside from daily mediations and rituals, they also offer retreats every month. If you would like to visit, they welcome guests. It wouldn’t hurt to e-mail them in advance, however, to make sure you’re not going in at a time when something else is going on.

You have to email them for directions since they kind of have problems with people wanting to just wander around. For reasons that are not appropriate.

On a side note, my mother had a student not too long ago from Irvine. When she mentioned Furnace Mountain he said, “Aren’t those the people that worship rocks?” Well, they’re trying to educate people in the community but I guess it’s a slow process.

http://www.furnacemountain.org/fm.html