Horses and Bourbon

They say the only two reasons people come to visit Kentucky are the horses and the bourbon. Not being a raving fan of the former, I decided to indulge my alcoholic side for a bit.

It turns out a bed of limestone underneath several states comes closest to the surface in Kentucky, influencing the quality of the water and thereby the quality of the grains grown and fed to the horses. The grains make the horses the fastest and strongest in the world while the water makes the bourbon the best in the world. The name bourbon comes from people referring to "that fine whiskey from Bourbon County, Kentucky," which was eventually just shortened to bourbon.

Don't say I never taught you anything.

I learned all of this today at the historic Labrot and Graham Distillery, so historic the U.S. government decided to name it a national historic landmark. Since 1994 the grounds have housed the Woodford Reserve Distillery, a company hell bent on making the world's greatest whiskey.

I also learned that whiskey, once distilled, is initially clear in color. It then gains its color and much of its flavor from the oak barrels in which it is aged.

Aren't I just smarmy as hell? You spent the day working, probably in an office, and I spent the day learning about premium whiskey from an old guy named Phil.

Life is good, eh?

Lexington, Kentucky

The sign welcoming me into Kentucky advertised the place as the birthplace of Lincoln, almost like a big "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Illinois!"

I pulled into Lexington tired and utterly bewildered. I'd never been to Kentucky before, and suddenly here I was, alone, and with the added pleasure of having no place to stay. I drove around downtown Lexington, which took all of three minutes, drove the wrong way down a one way street, and swung into the nearest parking space when I realized my mistake. Saw this sign next to my car:

Coincidence? I think not.

I was now getting antsy as to how I was going to kill all this time before heading out in the morning. I walked into a Starbucks and asked the girl what there is to do for fun around here.

"Have you tried the Mary Todd Lincoln house?"

Of course she didn't say that. She instead told me there is nothing to do in Lexington. Being a college town, the place all but shuts down during the summer, and aside from your average horse enthusiast, tourists don't make a habit of stopping here.

Realizing I needed food like Paris Hilton needs a punch in the kidneys, I stopped into a local pub and ordered a burger. When I finished it was still only eight o'clock. Suddenly I had an idea.

"Can I get you another drink?" the bartender asked.

"I'll take one bourbon, one scotch and one beer."

I've always wanted to do that.

After walking around town for a bit, I returned to my car, brushed my teeth using a nalgene full of water, and fell alseep in my car under the watchful eye of crazy old Mrs. Lincoln.

Why I love couchsurfing, or: My night in West Virginia

The cross country road trip has been written to death. That's no surprise. While I know this blog is nothing professional and may not have a large readership, I'd like to think I have at least one advantage over my fellow scribes and their pursuit of Americana.

Take Bill Bryson, for example. If you haven't read any of his books yet, stop reading this pitiful blog and go read something he's written. Neither Here Nor There, Notes From a Small Island, In a Sunburned Country... Just do it already.

For the rest of you still reading this, Bill Bryson's first travel book was The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America. Using his hometown in Iowa as a starting point ("I come from Des Moines, Iowa. Somebody had to" - classic), he covered nearly the whole of the continental U.S. in the late 80's. Not yet the powerhouse of travel literature that he is today, his budget only allowed him to stay in every dumpy motel he could find (while driving his mother's Chevy Vega).

Last night I stayed in West Virginia. Instead of feeling sorry for myself in some dumpy motel, I stayed in a private home at a lake community near Salem.

Built in the 1930's as a retreat for rich families in Clarksburg and Morgantown, it exists today off a busy Rt. 50. After too many hours of driving, I turned onto the access road and was hit by a peaceful lake with a hundred or so houses around its two-mile perimeter.



Wendy was my host, the fiance of Gary, the 1995 world freestyle frisbee champion who I hosted last month in Haddonfield. Gary was away in Florida, but Wendy was there, and after getting acquainted, she took me swimming (with two massive water slides and diving board!).

Afterwards we cooked dinner and ate in her gazebo, after which four of her neighbors dropped by to check out "the couchsurfer." They were fascinated with the concept. We talked over wine and ice cream for a few hours before calling it a night (in a bed that was more comfortable than my bed at home). God, I'll probably never stay in a hotel again.

Things I learned while driving through West Virginia:

1. Highways are gloriously uncrowded, but have construction crews working every four miles.


2. Country roads are awesome, but makes it a crazy long time to get anywhere.


3. Looking at the map while doing 70 is not a good idea, especially when the tractor trailer in front of you starts knocking traffic cones into your path.


4. Do not apply the windshield spray with the driver's side window open. It will shower a mixture of windshield spray and mashed up bugs in through the window.


5. West Virginians don't like listening to the German techno version of "Country Roads."

Gettysburg

In the sticky summer heat of 1863, Union and Confederate soldiers collided in the largest battle of the Civil War, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Some 160,000 Americans took part in what would be called the turning point of this war. In November of that same year, President Lincoln would give his famous Gettysburg address, cementing his legend while giving the namesake town yet another claim to fame (and more trinkets to sell 150 years later).

But none of this matters.

Skip forward to the end of World War II when my grandmother Suzanne Harbach and her husband Harrison "Skip" Harbach moved to Gettysburg and settled in for life, thereby condemning their future grandson to hours of history lessons when all he wanted to do was run around pretending to shoot things.

Despite their most valiant efforts, my mother or grandparents never managed to instill much respect for the place in me. Gettysburg was not the place of a famous battle, but rather the place where my mother grew up and where, on visits, there was nothing to play with but her old toys from the fifties. Being a child of the eighties, you can imagine my horror. When the movie "Gettysburg" came out, I thought it was hilarious that someone had made a movie about my mom's hometown. The historical significance didn't kick in until I was much older. Say, yesterday.



Last night Grandma and I went on a sunset tour of the battlefields. Up until only a few years ago, she had spent her retirement as a battlefield tourguide. These saps paid $45 for a two hour tour, while I was getting the thing for free, though I could tell she was working her addled mind into overdrive just trying to remember everything.

"This is a statue of Brig. General John Dunn, who... uh... well maybe you can get out and read the sign. At any rate, have we been to the light of remembrance yet?"

"Yes, Grandma."

For the uninitiated, The battlefields encompass several hundred acres, and dotting the entire landscape are statues erected by regiments from all over the nation to honor their dead.




The tour was amazing, much better now that I'm an adult and can appreciate these things. It's just a shame it takes one so long to truly appreciate family. You spend your youth rolling your eyes and taking them for granted, and then when you're old enough to fully appreciate them, they either die or start to lose their memory.

It was worse at home. She proceeded to show me a picture of her father and his family, which was certainly interesting hearing direct information about my own ancestors, but it was slightly tragic when she turned to a painting of my mother as a young bride in her wedding gown and said, "Now this is a picture of my only daughter, Louise Ann Harbach. She died in December, which was... extremely... upsetting to me." She paused a moment, and then said, "Now let me show you how to turn on the bathroom light."

The bathroom light did not possess a number of toggles and switches that one might expect from such a statement, but, predictably, a plain old light switch.

My first night on the road

A lot of friends and acquaintances asked me where my first stop would be on this trip, assuming I might tell them Ohio or Tennessee or something. In fact, I spent my first night of the trip in Ambler, Pennsylvania, a mere two and a half hours from the coast of Jersey where I started. I had decided early on that I wanted to visit both of my grandmothers, and this was the first one.



My dad's mother lives in a retirement home now. Aside from a recent spat over the administration blocking MySpace on the communal computers due to "adult mature/content" - I didn't think the administration had a right to block anything, she isn't sure what MySpace is and thinks it shouldn't matter - we get along great. On Saturday night we had an early bird dinner and then drove downtown to the old timey theater to watch "Waitress" starring Keri Russell. It was a wonderful, relaxed night, and a great visit with a wonderful woman.

Sunrise in Ocean City, New Jersey

I didn't actually stand there, with the Atlantic at my back, and say something so appropiately vague and vaguely hopeful. Such are the province of rakish adventurers wishing to assure their everyguy status. I am not rakish.

In wishing to complete a coast-to-coast trip, I made the brilliant decision to start my journey at Ocean City, New Jersey, at the brilliant hour of 4:30 in the morning, suckering my brilliant friend Amy to join me. Being almost as daft as I am on occasion, she agreed to accompany me for this first leg of the trip. I really wanted to see the sunrise on the first day of my trip, you see.

My 25 years of memories regarding Ocean City all have a similar trait: crowds of families and their obnoxious children, leathery tan old women, hormonal teenagers patroling the boardwalk at night... But this early in the season, at 4:30am, the boardwalk stood eerily devoid of anyone.

It was a moment more conjured than remembered, with attention to detail forfeited for an overall desire for importance: to fix my eyes over all that is America and demand a mere tenth of the anticipation I'd felt over the last six months to live up to its potential.

Amy and I sat in a lifeguard tower, slowly losing ourselves to exhaustion, while finishing a bowl of fruit salad, dropping forks in the sand, relieving ourselves under the boardwalk, singing "Under The Boardwalk," eating breakfast at a small cafe, then heading back to the car parked a mere hundred yards from the beach.

It didn't happen, this moment of grandeur that belongs to the beginning of all long and epic voyages. It couldn't have. I stood there, with the Atlantic at my back, and all the rest of America in front of me, and said, "well, here goes nothing."

Damn thing gone wild

Paperwork for car insurance/registration/AAA sorted: check

Black Betty checked out at an auto shop: check

License renewed: check

New journal/road atlas/lots of clean underwear: check

Let everyone I've ever met know about this blog: check



Now all that's left is the theme song:



Only one week to go!