My Old Kentucky Home

This past Sunday David and I went to the Kentucky State Fair for the first time! We bought tickets with a couple of friends to go to the Maroon 5 and Train concert and then a couple weeks ago we realized that the concert was at the fair so we decided, what the heck, while we are in Louisville we might as well see what the fair is all about as well.

It was… interesting. And fun. And entertaining. Oh, and completely exhausting. Apparently walking around in the sun all day, eating lots of fried food and staying up until 3 in the morning is not as easy as it used to be with this preggo body of mine. On Monday I felt like I might die, and yesterday wasn’t that much better. However, today I feel pretty recovered and thus I have the energy to write again :)

I was born and raised in Kentucky. This is a completely true statement. However, I always feel like I should add an asterisk after it, like I need to qualify this fact. Because I was born in Louisville, KY while my parents were finishing up college and then before I have any memory we moved to Northern Kentucky (the infamous NKY which I speak of). Northern Kentucky is much more a huge suburb of Cincinnati than it is a part of the good ole Bluegrass state. Where I grew up there were lots of movie theaters and malls, there were public schools with 800+ people in them, and the word “wash” did not have a silent “r” in it. 

You see, even though I have lived my entire life in Kentucky up until a few years ago I had never drank and Ale 8, seen a horse farm, watched the Kentucky derby, or seen a tobacco plant. Even at this point I have yet to try Kentucky bourbon, be told that I have an accent, or understand where this term “bluegrass” comes from. I used to be thankful that I was somewhat removed from the “real Kentucky”. The state with the horrible stereotypes and education system. However, moving to Lexington has definitely made me open my heart a little bit to things like southern hospitality, supporting local farms and camping. I have really come to appreciate my state a lot and enjoy all of the beauty and fun things that it brings along.

So here are a few pictures for you to see for yourself what the fair was like!

It was such a beautiful day! I was thankful I couldn’t ride anything because I am a sucker for amusement park rides but I have always heard that the ones at the fair are particularly not safe.

And there was of course the fair fare (David kept using this phrase and I kept getting confused and then we talked about how much better of a pun it is when you write it out rather than just say it. So that was for him I guess.) He got a HUGE smoked turkey leg for lunch while I played it safe with my all-time-favorite-food, a corn dog. It was awesome. We also had a shaken lemonade, a caramel apple and a funnel cake throughout the day. The craziest food we saw: A burger whose bun was two Krispie Kream doughnuts….

There were lots of competitions. One of which was a wedding cake decorating competition.

And of course an ugly lamp competition…

What fair would be complete without a huge showing of farm animals?? Definitely not the Kentucky Fair!

Ah… all in all we had a fantastic time! We enjoyed a great dog show (I am a sucker for pups in general, but especially ones that can catch frisbees while doing back flips!), took a walk through the display of Kentucky Counties, petted some baby ducks and soaked up the hot, August sun.

Photo opp in front of the fountain!

Oh yea, and there was one other little thing that we did… WE SAW MAROON 5 AND TRAIN IN CONCERT!!!

This was the Hall the the concert was held in. It was so, so awesome. Train and Maroon 5 are two of our most favorite bands so when David and I found out they were in concert together in our humble home state we decided that we had to get tickets. We squeezed the budget and made the tickets count for each other birthday presents and it was totally worth it. Train was so entertaining and Maroon 5 was like 10 times better than they are on their CDs which is saying a lot.

What a great experience! I am so glad that we went to the Kentucky State Fair. As it has been with most things Kentuckian, I find that once I open my mind a little bit and start experiencing all the state has to offer I fall more and more in love with it.

Goodnight ya’ll :)