Day 5

A storm blew through last night just after Kati and I went into the tent. G3 was already asleep. He must have been exhausted to sleep though it. The crack of thunder was insanely loud and the rumbling persistent. The rain beat down on the tent as if trying to flatten it. But I love the sound of rain. It’s incredibly peaceful, as is the thunder, when you get used to it.The lightning continuously lit up the sky, flashing through the tent. After the flood we endured last summer, we feared the tent might leak, and it did. Kati woke up when she felt water dripping on her. It’s a new tent. It’s an expensive tent. It should have held up better. Needless to say, neither Kati nor I slept much. We stayed awake watching the rain drip down. Waiting for the rain to stop. Waiting for morning.

The rain didn’t just drip from the top, it also seeped in through the bottom on the side of the tent. We woke up early to pack up so that we could head into Lexington. Packing up a wet tent is never fun. At least we have one of those carriers on top of the car this year. (Kati borrowed it from a friend.) Now we don’t have to toss a sopping tent into the trunk with the rest of our gear.

In the bathroom, a bug (grasshopper?) was hanging out on the faucet of the sink. I don’t think he was happy that I disturbed his morning meditation.

Kentucky marks 30 states for G3. Since we are the ultimate tourists we decided we were definitely going to have KFC for lunch. How could you be in Kentucky and not eat Kentucky Fried chicken. It would be like going to Italy and not eating pizza—although pizza is a billion times better. To make make the experience even more touristy—because being a tourist makes me really, really happy—we took a slight detour to Corbin.

While we were driving north on I-75 Kati saw a sign that advertised: “The birthplace of KFC.” Well, if we were eating there anyway, we might as well go where it all started, right? The fast food restaurant also doubled as a museum and tribute to Colonel Sanders. It was small but the memorabilia was interning to see. The original cafe no longer exists, but the museum was set up to replicate parts of it. It probably would not be worth a visit if you had no other plans in the area. But it made for a fun place to drop in and to break up the drive to Lexington.

Several months ago, we were watching the documentary The Food That Built America. It’s an interesting series and I highly recommend watching it. One of the episodes was about Colonel Sanders and KFC. In the show, we learned that Sanders experienced many failures, disappointments, and set backs in his life. It wasn’t until he was 62 years-old that KFC became a franchise. At 62, he not only attained success, but fame as well. Hearing that, G3 turned to me and said, “See, you still have time. You have 15 years to publish a book.” Encouraging words from a 12 year-old. Hopefully, it will happen sooner rather than later.

The minute we walked into the museum, G3 reminded me of his comment. Being old and finally realizing your dream is definitely better than never realizing it at all. So he took my picture by Sanders’s bust so that I wouldn’t forget. So that I wouldn’t quit trying.

I wanted to go to Lexington to visit Ashland, Henry Clay’s Estate. He was probably the greatest statesman never to be President. I thought it would be good for G3 to learn about him. It was his political acumen and his ability to compromise (Mitch McConnell could learn a thing or two from him) that held the country together in the early decades of the 1800’s. I don’t agree with much of what he stood for—he was a slave owner, after all, and his lifestyle was made possible on the backs of slaves—but if it wasn’t for him Civil War would have come much sooner.

The tour guide spoke about Clay’s slaves, but she prefaced each story with, “I know this may be uncomfortable to talk about, but it’s important that we do…” Her nerves—her fidgeting and her eyes which looked toward the ground—made it clear that she was bracing for trouble. It shouldn’t be that way. But racism persists. Anyway, she read a first person account written by one of Clay’s slaves who escaped to freedom. His account was damning. He spoke of being lashed simply because he was delayed in returning after visiting his wife. He also wrote about how little he was fed.

When she finished, one of the women on the tour—a southerner based on her accent and older based on her white hair—said she had trouble believing anyone would treat their slaves poorly because they were property and people treat their property well. If they didn’t, their property wouldn’t be productive.” I couldn’t keep quiet, I turned to her and said, “There are numerous accounts of slave owners starving and beating their slaves.” Her husband then added, “I am a historian so I can speak to both sides. Yes, there are those accounts, but their were good Christian men and women who did right by their slaves.” I glared at him—mouth agape. I wanted to say, “There is no such thing as a good slave owner. If you owned slaves you were not a good person.” But that wasn’t the place for a debate. I was there for a tour, not an argument. And did I really think this racist white southern man would listen to a northern lesbian? Absolutely not. The age of Trumpism has taught me that. So I turned to the tour guide and asked, “So, Clay grew hemp. Did he grow any of the good cannabis as well?” The tour guide didn’t think so but she couldn’t say definitely. However, she looked relieved that the argument didn’t escalate. Later on, she did pull me aside and thank me for my comment. She explained that as a tour guide she had to stay neutral, but that she agreed with me completely. This is why the teaching of history had become so contentious. People refuse to recognize how awful many of our “heroes” were. Slavery was bad. Why can’t we agree on that?

As for the hemp, it was Clay’s biggest cash crop. It was sold predominantly to make rope, but it was also used to make cloth. During the Civil War, hemp was used to made tents for the Confederacy. But that was after Clay was already dead. In a speech, he once said that he prayed he would not see the country torn apart by civil war. His prayer was answered, he died in 1852. He spent his career trying to preserve the Union. War would have devastated him. His grandsons fought on both sides.

We had initially nixed the idea of going to Lincoln’s Birthplace, because it wasn’t really his birthplace. Forty years after a memorial had been built to enshrine the log cabin, further research revealed that it wasn’t really Lincoln’s. However, en route to our campsite we saw a sign for Lincoln’s Birthplace. Since it was on the way—sort of—we figured we’d stop. We got to see Lincoln’s Boyhood home (a replica) which is the Log Cabin Lincoln’s family moved into when he was two. Next we got to the Birthplace in time to get G3’s National Park passport book stamped and we saw the memorial, but the memorial was closed so we couldn’t see the cabin that wasn’t his anyway. But we got to see the area where he was born. G3 was happy—I think.