Day 15 Lexington to Home

 Time to go home. We were on the road by 5:30 am. Sylvia was very happy. It was a 540 mile drive and it rained the first 4 hours. We went through Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. This trip we we drove through 17 states and accumulated over 5,700 miles. The weather was terrific, the only significant rain was today. 

A great trip! Time for a drink.

Day 14 Lexington, Kentucky

 I got up this morning and feasted on the perfect breakfast food, leftover pepperoni pizza. Since there was no rush to do anything this bright and sunny morning, I went out for an early morning walk and saw that just around the corner they were setting up for the Saturday morning farmers market. It was a pretty big deal as there were at least 50 stands being filled with produce, baked goods, and some really good looking edibles. Sylvia was up in the room, so I called her to get ready and come down and check it out. Everything there looked really good and I bought tomatoes and two little pound cakes. It was not the cheapest farmers market I was ever at, but in these times who knows what a good price is anymore.

Farmers Market (It goes on down the sides streets too)

Once Sylvia got there we walked around and stopped at the Visitor's Center and checked out the history of Lexington and how it became America's most famous horse breeding center. Zim's Cafe (www.zimscafe.com) was in the same building and we looked in to see what was going on, and it looked pretty good. We went in intending to have a Mimosa, but one look at the Brunch menu and we got hungry. We immediately decided to do brunch. Sylvia had the Breakfast Platter, and I had the Bluegrass Benedict. Both were well executed and very tasty. Good enough to keep lively discussions under control.

We didn't do much the rest of the day except walk around. We stopped at Agave & Rye for a not very good, but expensive Margarita. And later, we weren't very hungry, but thought we should eat, decided on Oscar Diggs, mostly because I liked the name. It turns out Oscar Diggs was going out of business in 3 more days. There was hardly anybody there but a bartender from Virginia Beach and a cook from Maryland, We had a really nice conversation with them and talked about their plans. They seemed happy they were getting on with life. The food wasn't great and they were out of most things, but we split a burger that wasn't too bad. 

That was it for the day, we went back to the hotel and semi packed. We're heading home tomorrow and I'd like to get an early start. Although, I'm the only one who'd like that. 

Day 13 Columbia to Lexington, Kentucky

It was a rather easy 7 hour 450 mile drive through St. Louis and Louisville to Lexington, Kentucky. For a Friday the traffic wasn't bad at all. The last 15 miles were through horse country and their immaculate farms. Neither of us had been to Lexington and we were quite surprised to see how nice of a town it was. We got a room at the Hilton Lexington Hotel on the 13th floor, looked out the window, and immediately decided to stay another night. 

View from room. Rupp Arena on left

    

 We quickly unpacked and went for a short walk around town and saw a bar called Pies & Pints, and I said "Great an English Pub, let's give it a try". Well, it was a beer and pizza joint. Since we were there we ordered a drink and chatted with Rachel the bartender, who gave us a little insight to the downtown which was greatly appreciated. We continued our walk and by then it was almost 5 o'clock and we hadn't eaten much of anything when we spotted an interesting little place called Harvey's Bar, so we stopped in hoping to get a little something to eat. It was a great little place that only had a charcuterie plate available which we ordered.

Harvey's Charcuterie Plate

    

 We nibbled at it while we talked to Alex the bartender, who's a fascinating 25 year old Nepalese guy who came to the USA by himself when he was 18 and made his way around the country. He has picked Lexington as the place he wants to stay, although he wants to go see everything, everywhere. We left Harvey's, walked back to the room, and that was about it for the evening. Except for my craving for a slice of pizza. I went back out and luckily found Goodfellas Pizzeria around the corner and popped in. Goodfellas is about the size of one's bedroom, and had slices of beautiful looking N.Y. pizza. I got a couple and took them back to the room. A perfect ending to the evening. I don't know what's up for tomorrow? Just checking out Lexington. It's got a lot of history.