Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Getting an early start to depart from the Bluegrass State, as have an appointment in Nashville around 1:00pm and that’s five hours away …
Hey, Sean! We’re leaving! Is 8:00am too early in the morning for ya?
The Speedway on Versailles Road right before you get to the Bluegrass Parkway (as well as the one at the Richmond Road exit of I-75) has Ale8-1 on tap. How ridiculous is that? It’s also really watered down. How ridiculous is that? It just seems rather odd that the only Speedways to feature Ale8-1 on tap are ones that are on the edge of Lexington; I’ve never seen the drink featured in any Speedway IN town (although, granted, I haven’t been to all of them) …
Absolutely THE BEST photo that I have taken, to date, of the Dinosaur World sign, FROM A MOVING VEHICLE. Now I can stop trying.
Tennessee Welcome Center on I-65 South … CLOSED? Well, that is most certainly NOT a warm welcome. Screw you, Volunteer State!
Hey, kinda forgot about this time called a time zone, and we arrived in Nashville almost 45 minutes earlier than planned. Heh, whoops. Hey, look, it’s Peggy (who I haven’t seen in almost 20 years) and Abbi (who I have never met)!
Peggy took us to I Dream of Weenie, the coolest hot dog place that I have ever visited in Nashville. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean, how many hot dog places do you know that operate out of the back of a van?
(Photo by PLD)
Back on the road, to Starkville, Mississippi, via Jackson, Tennessee, taking US 45. It’s a peaceful drive, not as hectic as an interstate, but pretty long. Hey, it’s Casey Jones!
We make it to Starkville and the Comfort Inn Suites is booked solid. Fortunately, the Hampton Inn has one room left. And then our keys do not work. Apparently there’s some sort of educator conference in town. Whee. Dinner is with Dr. Donna Pierce at Harvey’s, the second time we’ve been there and we had the exact same thing (we’ve been to Starkville twice) because it’s just so damn good …
The following morning, Dr. Pierce introduces us to the Starkville Cafe, in scenic downtown Starkville. For a city that hosts an SEC school, their downtown is rather quaint and stoic, not at all like a Lexington or Baton Rouge. The Starkville Cafe continues to project that image, a roadside diner where the waitresses call you “‘hon” and your coffee cup is always full …
Out of Starkville, down to Jackson, west to Vicksburg and across the Mississippi …
… and into Louisiana. Found a geocache at the Welcome Center. And that was it.
Flickr set (with lots more photos and useless expository text)
The last full day in Kentucky. This is the part of the trip where, inevitably, every time, we are worn out and not really ready to leave (while simultaneously being quite ready to leave) and are rushing around trying to do as much stuff as possible. This is also the point where we are so busy doing stuff that I usually forget that I have a camera (or, in the case of this trip, three cameras). So, fewer photos. And shorter descriptions.
On the way to Frankfort. This is the first sign I saw upon getting off the interstate. Oh, which way to go …?
Lunch with Jill and Mr. Roberts. Hadn’t seen Mr. Roberts in about 20 years (the last time was during one of my random visits to Model Lab in the early 1990s). He was certainly a lot less threatening …
The bustling metropolis of Frankfort! Actually, photographic opportunities were aplenty, but there just wasn’t any time …
Obligatory UK skyline photo! And some new mystery building clogging up the pristine lawn that once existed in front of the Administration Building! WTF?!
FINALLY managed to get a CLEAR photo of the horses at Joseph-Beth’s:
Dawn B. Hadn’t seen her in, oh, I’d say, 20 years, not since the first summer when she came back home after her freshman year at college. The 20 year theme seemed to be the recurring theme of the day, and would continue tomorrow …
Last meal in Lexington: Mi Mexico on Richmond Road. First time there, as we like to try at least one new place in Lexington whenever we visit. It was … okay. I don’t think it will be added to the regular rotation, though …
Stocking up on Ale8-1s for the drive back to Louisiana. Then we’ll have to turn back and immediately return to Kentucky so we can stock up on Ale8-1s for the rest of the year …
NEXT: Gnash and Spockville! Old friends! And, we end the way we began, with PANCAKES …
The original plan for Sunday, June 6, 2010 was to spend the day in Louisville, taking the kids to go see Grandma and Auntie Helen, and I was going to go hang out with Mr. JSH and possibly catch a performance by Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infection. But we did not. JSH had other plans and the folks in Louisville weren’t particularly in the mood, either. And RV&OI didn’t show up in Louisville until the NEXT day (where they ALLEGEDLY played 10 gigs in eight different venues over the span of six hours). And so Sunday became a bit of a bonus day, as there was already a full schedule booked for Monday.
We began the morning with a visit to Spalding’s Bakery, home of The Greatest Donuts in the Universe:
Some hanging out on the porch, eating donuts, drinking coffee, and watching Devyn demonstrate her zombie-hunting skills:
A shopping excursion leads to a visit to the Ghost Mall, formerly known as Lexington Mall (where a geocache is found):
And Lexington Center, formerly the Civic Center:
Where a Pressed Penny Machine is found:
A century ago, this machine made pennies with the University of Kentucky logo on them; those dies no longer exist in this machine. Oh, well. “Collect all 4″? Don’t mind if I do! And I did, much to the befuddlement of the sole guy sitting in the food court attempting to read.
Then it is off to Tolly Ho for a Super Ho with Cheese, please:
One of the things I always loved about the Ho is that they had video games. And with the demise of Kentucky Arcade on Rose Street, it’s probably the only place near the UK campus that has video games (the Student Center game room had a couple but that was many years ago). Of course, who plays arcade games anymore? Especially since they now cost fifty cents to play. FIFTY CENTS? That’s TWO quarters! Insanity!
One time, back in the spring of 1990, I was hanging out with this girl from my organic chemistry class, and she mentioned that she was an expert on Ms. Pac Man, and so I challenged her to a two-player duel at Kentucky Arcade. So we met there, put our quarters in, she went first, and made a slight tactical error and died on the first screen. I went next, and it was twenty minutes later that I gave the joystick back to her. An hour later, I soundly defeated her. Oh, we were still friends after that, but she never challenged me to Ms. Pac Man ever again.
Twenty years later, I challenged Sean to a two-player duel on Ms. Pac Man:
Yeah, okay, it takes a big man to beat up on a little kid. But y’know, aren’t children supposed to be better at these things than adults?
Devyn wanted to play in order to hone her zombie hunting skills:
Working at a shipping place next to a university, I get a lot of students sending off their textbooks to ecampus.com. And when they bring in their packages, I oftentimes say, “Hey, you know, the building where this business is located is right above one of the oldest restaurants next to the University of Kentucky campus, which serves the greatest cheeseburger in the universe, and the business also resides in the same site where, at one time, there was a tanning salon, a fantastic comic book shop, and one of the greatest record stores in the universe!” And the students always look a little befuddled, mumble “That’s nice …” and then run off as fast as they can. I’ll have to amend my statement, because apparently ecampus.com is no longer at this location (note the vacant windows) but they haven’t removed their old sign yet …
Some more geocaching ensues, including taking Sean back to the Ghost Mall to find the one that we located earlier (he had a little trouble in spite of the fact that it was right in front of him) and then a failed attempt to locate the other one at the Ghost Mall, and then it was off for our dinner date that had been arranged earlier in the day via a number of exchanges over Facebook Messages …
The two shortest people in our graduating class, together for the first time. Michelle had figured out from my vague FB postings that I was in Lexington, and mentioned that we ought to get together, and then my Louisville plans fell through and she was available that evening, so there you go. We went back to Ramsey’s near Tate’s Creek Road, because there’s no such thing as too much Ramsey’s (although I would like to test that theory out some day). I had known Michelle ever since first grade, and the conversation that we had this evening was THE MOST THAT WE HAD EVER SPOKEN TO EACH OTHER in the 34 years that I have known her.
One more day to go! Do we save the best for last or does it all just happen to work out that way? Stay tuned …
NEXT: I drive to Frankfort for the first time since … well, ever.
Saturday, June 5 was a very visual day in the Bluegrass State. There were a lot of interesting things to look at. So let us forgo the excessive amount of words and just concentrate on the pretty pictures for awhile, shall we?
Pets on the Porch:
The Cricketeer Antique Show:
Paperweights:
Stuff I liked (because I’m weird and old):
Lunchboxes! Metal lunchboxes! This row of vintage lunchboxes from the 1960s and 1970s reminded me of elementary school recess, which was held after lunch, in which we tossed our lunchboxes all together in a big cluster near one of the posts next to the playground. Had we taken better care of them, we might find them in this display. Some of these were near mint and had never been used; others had some wear but were in generally good shape. I still have my Walt Disney World one that looks almost like the one on the lefthand side of the photo.
Really, this rusty old bottle rack is a collectible and an antique? Well, sure! Bottles and all! This is unbelievably cool.
The Martini Shaker Fire Engine … for those emergency cocktails.
Top Value Stamps! I recall that the A&P grocery in Richmond gave those out in the 1970s and early 1980s. My parents didn’t quite know what to do with that handful of yellow stamps that the cashier handed to them along with their change and receipt at the grocery store, but I soon figured out that you would paste them into the “stamp books” that they gave away at the store, and once you accumulated enough of them, you could trade them in for prizes. It then became my job to be in charge of these stamps. I diligently pasted up several books with nothing but singles (we never got tens or fifties, either because we didn’t spend enough or our store didn’t carry them). And then, for whatever reason, we never did cash them in for prizes (which involved mailing them away, as we had no local redemption center, and my father thought it was all one big scam anyway).
The inside front cover of the Top Value Stamp Book is one of those images that is ingrained into my subconscious, especially the “purse-size” savers book, which I am sure that all the classy ladies had at the time neatly tucked away in their classy purses …
OK, some pastoral Kentucky countryside footage …
Lunch at Lynagh’s. Little girl patiently waiting for her food:
(This would have been an IotW if I hadn’t already presented one with Devyn.)
Little girl’s reaction upon discovering that they came all the way to Lynagh’s and she got a SALAD …
… and everyone else got one of THESE:
I would have had probably the same reaction.
The afternoon was spent geocaching in Jacobson Park. The first one we went for was under “Baton Rouge” behind the dog park, but it did not appear to be there. And then Sean lead everyone on a wild romp through the park and around a residential neighborhood in search of one that his trusty GPS unit insisted was just over the ridge, but it was not to be found either. Finally, we zeroed in on a nice, regular-sized cache chock full of prizes near the entrance to the park. One out of three; not a bad way to introduce a ten year old to the wonders of geocaching (although I’m not quite sure that he comprehended all of our running around and looking under things).
Back to Richmond for dinner with the Stephenses:
We met at China King at the strip mall in Richmond that once housed the largest K-Mart in the state. From the outside, the restaurant looks like your typical fast-food greasy-spoon Chinese takeout joint. The food, however, was some of the best Chinese food I ever had. No kiddin’. Outside the restaurant, on our way to Starbuck’s, Mr. Stephens pointed out a cloud formation in the sky that looked like a dragon:
The first full day in the Bluegrass State. And what the first thing that I do? Why, travel to my hometown, Richmond. And where is the first place that I go? Why, my old elementary/middle/high school, Model Lab (if you had to guess more than once, then you obviously have not been paying much attention to these blogposts). And why would I go back to the old school? Why, to capture important photographs of Model’s Market, the boy’s bathroom in the high school wing, The Bench That Has Its Own Facebook Page, “The Pit” and, uhm, The Broken Handrail in the Stairwell …
(More photos and detailed descriptions from this photo expedition to the old school can be found in the Model Now! 2010 Addendum set as well as in this post.)
Walking around the back side of the elementary wing, I come across Mattox Hall, a looming four-story monstrosity that once struck terror in the hearts of young Model elementary students, as they would attend school in its shadow (literally; the building, which once served as a men’s dormitory, is located on a hill right next to the school). The building does have a bit of a notorious history, as it sat deserted and abandoned for many years while I was in middle and high school, and many tales circulated of how it was a hangout for drug dealers, homeless people and all kinds of snakes. Now, it serves as the home of the EKU Police Department and the Training Resource Center. It is at the TRC that we find Kristi, my former co-worker of 13 years ago when we were at Copy Cat in the M.I. King Library at the University of Kentucky, as I ambush her as part of my “Prizes or Punches in the Face” surprise visitation routine that I undertake every year (she got a prize).
Odd coincidence: Kristi introduces me to one of her co-workers, who graduated from Madison Central in 1990, and so I quipped, “Ah, as a Model Lab graduate, I guess I am predispositioned to not like you.” She had been a member of the band, and so tales were exchanged about Mr. Epperson and Mr. Stephens and that good ol’ Central-Model rivalry. Ergh.
Onward, then, to the Wallace Building on the EKU campus, a building that I spent many hours in my childhood roaming the halls, as my father had an office on the third floor in the Political Science department. That department moved to another building in the late 1980s, and now that floor houses the Mathematics Department, and it is here that we find Cindy: the departmental secretary, younger sister of classmate Tracy G., an MHS graduate (class of 1990), and someone that I haven’t really seen or talked to (in person) since … uhm … 1987? Really? 23 years? Wow, that’s a little bit frightening there … anyway, she opts for the prize as well. Talking with Cindy for 20 minutes and it feels like we are back on The Bench Outside The Band Room, with the crazy world in front of us and pointing at people and things as they walk by.
And then it’s back to the car and a quick drive out of the EKU campus and over to the EKU bypass, so I can take the shot. Yes, THE SHOT. Over ten years ago, I had found a photo in The Archives of my father and I with the EKU bypass in the background, circa 1972. I had long since wanted to attempt to re-create that photo in modern times, trying to find the exact same spot that my mother had stood when she took the original photo. I had attempted this in 2002, but I do not seem to be able to find those photos. So I planned to attempt to take the photo once again, in 2010. Armed with three cameras — the digital, the 35mm, and the iPhone, I stomped onto the bypass, compared the horizon with the original photo (that I had saved to the iPhone) and took no less than 35 shots at this location, in the hopes that at least one of them would both contain the correct angle and be in focus. The result was featured in the Image of the Week for June 14, 2010.
Back to the car (parked in the Video Productions parking lot and I’m sure they were wondering what the hell I was doing) and then a quick drive back up to Lexington to see my comic bookie, Tony, and his almost-one year old daughter, Sadie. How awesome must it be to grow up in a comic bo0k shop? I hope, years from now, she can appreciate her upbringing … on the other hand, as a result of this particular childhood, she will probably grow up to be completely normal.
And then it is off to Ramsey’s off Tate’s Creek Road for Hot Brown and Cherry Almond Crisp, joined by Valerie …
But there’s no time to waste! We got more places to go and stuff to do! Important stuff, such as … visit Good Foods Co-Op on Southland Drive and dispose of the 30+ empty Ale8-1 bottles that we transported over 800 miles just for the purpose of recycling them (since the nearest glass recycling facility that we know about is in Richardson, Texas, and we weren’t headed in that direction).
And now it’s back up South Limestone Street in the general direction of the UK campus and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? (cue John Williams’ “Imperial March”) …
Egads, that UK Medical Center is on its way to eating the entire area around the UK campus! On the left is the intersection of South Limestone with Conn Terrace … behind that was where the legendary Comic Connection stood (at one time, Lexington’s greatest comic book stop), along with the Dutch Mill Restaurant, a barber shop and a liquor store. Gone, all gone. I expect that by this time next year, all of the apartments along this stretch of South Limestone up to Waller Avenue, including a house that I lived in for almost three years, will no longer exist.
Slowing things down for a stop at Starbuck’s, where Devyn and Sean ham it up for the camera …
Decades ago, Karen had made a bet with Gail that Spider-Man earrings would never be made … and we’re not just talking about jewelry with the face of the character on them, we’re talking about full figures of her favorite comic book character … and Karen had proclaimed that if they ever came out with Spider-Man earrings, then she would not only wear them, but if they were pierced earrings, then she would get her ears pierced. Or something to that effect. At any rate, a bet was made. And largely forgotten by the person who made the proclamation. And now, in our modern 21st century, the earrings exist. And Gail gave them to Karen. And now the time has come for Karen to honor her side of the bargain (in the photo to the left, Devyn is very concerned about the state of her ears) …
There’s barely enough time for the blood to dry on Karen’s lobes before we are off to Joe B’s for dinner with Miranda, Sadie and Tony. Nothing like a bunch of nerds getting together over pasta and those big giant breadsticks … oh yes, those BIG GIANT BREADSTICKS that I had completely forgotten about. Hey, it’s been almost 13 years since the last time I went to Joe B’s, and before that, it was probably six years. Always great, but not a regular hangout. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we go back … and maybe one of these days I will actually have one of their pizzas.
Back to the home base for some hanging out on the porch, lecturing Devyn on the proper way for a lady to sit and still look like a badass, and the first Ale8-1 of the visit. Wow, that was a lot of stuff to cram into one day. Things can only slow down after this, right? RIGHT?
NEXT: Harrodsburg! Paperweights! Lunchboxes! BCOR! And a dragon in the sky!
And here we go, with the annual summertime Journey to Kentucky. You’d think we would choose a more exciting vacation destination. But heck no, we gots places to go, people to see, and food to consume … ergh, lots of food. We’ll get to that. But first, there’s the 15 hour car trip from Louisiana to Kentucky, the portion of the vacation that’s always less than half as fun as everything else … so much fun this time that I pretty much chose not to photograph any of it, because I’ve pretty much captured every aspect of the trip at one time or another. So if you need to experience the journey, look back at these exciting travel photos from 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006 … the way we take is the same every time, from Texarkana to Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville to Bowling Green to the Bluegrass Parkway to Lexington.
Oh, very well, here’s a photo of rush hour congestion in Nashville (the outbound lane is ALWAYS backed up whenever we pass through):
And here’s some video when we crossed the border from Tennessee into Kentucky on I-65, stopping off at the Welcome Center:
And here’s the intersection of Maxwell Street and South Broadway in Lexington as we came into town. But that’s it.
And I guess I should mention that the one thing that we did differently this year was that we stopped and geocached on the way up, utilizing the spiffy iPhone app from geocaching.com. And we went two for two, finding regular-sized caches at a rest stop in Arkansas off of Interstate 30 and one at the Kentucky Welcome Center.
A week before this trip, I had mentioned on FB that “There will be pancakes,” in reference to our annual tradition of eating at Perkin’s Restaurant after arriving in Lexington. And every time, I have taken on the Tremendous Twelve. And every time, it was defeated me. I can come up with a number of reasons why I have been defeated by the TT: Because I am lame, because of the level of grease, because my stomach is not quite stretched out as it will be by the end of the week, because the pancakes somehow end up being eaten last, because I am not quite as young as I used to be (I once did finish off a TT sometime in the previous century). Last year, I attempted the TT twice, and ended up being quite ill as a result. This year, I wasn’t even going to try the TT, but I wanted to have something with those fantastic pancakes. They only serve the Magnificent Seven as a special in the morning, so I would either have to get the pancakes by themselves or as part of something else. And I didn’t really want more than three pancakes, because if I attempted to eat more than that, then I would not enjoy them. I opted to get an omelette, which came with hash browns and three pancakes, and therefore I could have all of the components of the TT but just not as much. And so, THERE WERE PANCAKES.
And yes, Chad, there was syrup with the pancakes.
NEXT: Richmond! Model! Bench! Kristi! Cindy! Bypass! Lexington! Sadie! Ramsey’s! Starbucks! Sean! Devyn! Breadstick! And Karen gets her ears pierced!
I didn’t think that it was going to happen, and yet it did. The 2010 Addendum to the Model Now! series of images. 40 photos. Forty photos?! What is there to photograph that I hadn’t already shot? Oh, there are some things (and granted, many of these photos are similar shots of the same thing), but this should be it.
This year’s set contains a number of shots that have been used, or will be used, in entries of the “Then and Now” series of comparison/contrast photos. There’s also a number of photos of The Bench That Has Its Own Facebook Page, the Middle School wing, and the view of the school from the point of view of Mattox Hall.
Here are some of my favorite images, and here is the link to the complete set (as always, click on the images for a larger view):
The Bench. The one that used to be outside the Band Room door but isn’t any more, now resigned to living the rest of its existence between the Nursery and Kindergarten classrooms at the end of the Elementary Wing. While taking the 25 or so photos of this bench from various angles (thankfully, only nine are presented in this set), a school employee came down the hallway to drop some stuff off in the Kindergarten classroom — she didn’t even blink or ask why the hell was I taking all these photographs of the bench. Perhaps there are other fanatics out there that I do not know about …
Years ago, I remember that this railing in the East Stairwell of the High School Wing was broken. Years later, it has never been fixed. I don’t quite understand that … would they have to completely replace the entire railing in order to fix the one section and that is not economically feasible, or do they keep the broken corner around as a memento to simpler times?
“The Pit” … in four years of creating this series, I have never taken a photo of the legendary smoking section between the art room and the gymnasium … I wonder why …
For some reason, I have difficulty taking photos in the Middle School Wing that are in focus.
This shot of the Elementary School Wing was taken from a stairwell in Mattox Hall, the building that is right next to the school, and was once a men’s dormitory (it is now the residence of the University Police and the Training Center). From our seats in these classrooms, we had a clear view of what was going on in some of these dorm rooms (and we were pretty sure that they were leaving intentionally leaving the blinds open). However, we now know what the elementary side must have looked like from their point of view …
This should be the last addendum to the series. I think I’ve got everything I ever needed. Of course, in 2011, I can avoid this quandary by simply NOT GOING BACK TO MODEL when I visit Richmond.
But we all know that’s not going to happen. Look for the 2011 Addendum at about this time next year. Probably.
