Spur of the moment
Happy Monday to all. More rain here in central Kentucky today and for the next few days. It's April, you know....
In my last brief post I noted that my golf buddies and I elected to postpone our golf trip last Friday through Sunday, as the area to which we were traveling was predicted to have poor weather. Much like what we're having in Lexington, actually. It turned out that the weather wasn't all that bad at our projected destination, but we had already agreed to cancel before that became apparent.
So I had the day off from work on Friday, and decided to keep that time off in place. But what to do? I discussed it with my wife on Thursday and we decided to make one of our periodic trips to the Cincinnati area and agreed we should leave Friday morning and return Saturday afternoon. Found a hotel where I could use loyalty points (better still, I had a certificate for a free one-night stay banked in my account that I had forgotten about, so the night's stay didn't even cost us any points) and mapped out a basic set of things we wanted to do.
We began our day Friday with a nice breakfast at the Keeneland Race Course Track Kitchen. It's a must if you're coming to the Lexington area---a horse racing devotee introduced me to this great place, and I encourage you to visit Keeneland's website to find out more.
So we were on our way, and stopped at a favorite shopping spot, the Kenwood Towne Centre. They have a Tesla dealership, but while that intrigues me, I'm reluctant to walk into that and ask a boatload of questions about a $60,000 electric car that I'm not about to purchase. We walked past three that are in the mall parking garage, presumably for test drives.
A preferred spot in the mall is the Apple Store, which is roughly three times the size of the same enterprise here in Lexington. To our astonishment, the Apple Watch was on extensive display, and in talking to an associate about it we learned that they did not have a full schedule of try-on-experience appointments that morning. So I quickly signed my wife up for the full tour, and she had the chance to play with one, try it on, and learn more about the various features. She was nearly ready to buy one then and there, but restraint took over and now we're thinking about it!
Our afternoon culminated in a late-day visit to a local restaurant, the world-renowned Montgomery Inn, which is actually in the suburb of Montgomery, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati itself. We splurged and had their famous barbecued ribs, Saratoga chips and other goodies, which were all quite tasty.
We ended our day out with a tour of the Cincinnati area IKEA showroom, then went up the street to our hotel to collapse.
Saturday morning we got a little extra sleep and made our way to the Findlay Market, an ancient indoor-outdoor shopping area just north of downtown Cincinnati. We had never been, and we were floored with the number of shops that are permanently located there, selling everything from organic poultry to high-quality meats and seafood, cheeses and baked goods. There are seasonal vendors, too, and we stopped at one such stall to buy a cookie and a lemon bar (and now we know where their store is, too!) and later sampled a pizza baked in a PORTABLE brick oven!
It was very interesting to experience this. We didn't give into the temptation to buy some of the meat and other perishable products, as we were simply too far from home for that to be safe. But what struck me was that the adjoining parking lots were filled with mostly nice cars, yet this market exists in the midst of one of the poorer areas of the Cincinnati inner city. Strange contradiction.
So that's our little travelogue. We found the experience to be energizing and satisfying, as we did a few things that weren't part of our usual itinerary. You know what they say about the road less traveled!
In my last brief post I noted that my golf buddies and I elected to postpone our golf trip last Friday through Sunday, as the area to which we were traveling was predicted to have poor weather. Much like what we're having in Lexington, actually. It turned out that the weather wasn't all that bad at our projected destination, but we had already agreed to cancel before that became apparent.
So I had the day off from work on Friday, and decided to keep that time off in place. But what to do? I discussed it with my wife on Thursday and we decided to make one of our periodic trips to the Cincinnati area and agreed we should leave Friday morning and return Saturday afternoon. Found a hotel where I could use loyalty points (better still, I had a certificate for a free one-night stay banked in my account that I had forgotten about, so the night's stay didn't even cost us any points) and mapped out a basic set of things we wanted to do.
We began our day Friday with a nice breakfast at the Keeneland Race Course Track Kitchen. It's a must if you're coming to the Lexington area---a horse racing devotee introduced me to this great place, and I encourage you to visit Keeneland's website to find out more.
So we were on our way, and stopped at a favorite shopping spot, the Kenwood Towne Centre. They have a Tesla dealership, but while that intrigues me, I'm reluctant to walk into that and ask a boatload of questions about a $60,000 electric car that I'm not about to purchase. We walked past three that are in the mall parking garage, presumably for test drives.
A preferred spot in the mall is the Apple Store, which is roughly three times the size of the same enterprise here in Lexington. To our astonishment, the Apple Watch was on extensive display, and in talking to an associate about it we learned that they did not have a full schedule of try-on-experience appointments that morning. So I quickly signed my wife up for the full tour, and she had the chance to play with one, try it on, and learn more about the various features. She was nearly ready to buy one then and there, but restraint took over and now we're thinking about it!
Our afternoon culminated in a late-day visit to a local restaurant, the world-renowned Montgomery Inn, which is actually in the suburb of Montgomery, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati itself. We splurged and had their famous barbecued ribs, Saratoga chips and other goodies, which were all quite tasty.
We ended our day out with a tour of the Cincinnati area IKEA showroom, then went up the street to our hotel to collapse.
Saturday morning we got a little extra sleep and made our way to the Findlay Market, an ancient indoor-outdoor shopping area just north of downtown Cincinnati. We had never been, and we were floored with the number of shops that are permanently located there, selling everything from organic poultry to high-quality meats and seafood, cheeses and baked goods. There are seasonal vendors, too, and we stopped at one such stall to buy a cookie and a lemon bar (and now we know where their store is, too!) and later sampled a pizza baked in a PORTABLE brick oven!
It was very interesting to experience this. We didn't give into the temptation to buy some of the meat and other perishable products, as we were simply too far from home for that to be safe. But what struck me was that the adjoining parking lots were filled with mostly nice cars, yet this market exists in the midst of one of the poorer areas of the Cincinnati inner city. Strange contradiction.
So that's our little travelogue. We found the experience to be energizing and satisfying, as we did a few things that weren't part of our usual itinerary. You know what they say about the road less traveled!
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