You can’t go to Lexington and not see horses and eat Barbecue, and today we did just that!

We started today at the Old Friends at Dream Chase Farms. Old Friends is a retirement farm for thoroughbred race horses. They have a location here and in upstate New York.Some of the horses here are Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes winners, and some are just runners from other race. These horses aren’t ever ridden. They are just loved on and fed carrots, which is pretty much horse heaven!

Leo’s favorite was Silver Charm. He was a Kentucky Derby and Preakness Winner in 1997. Now at 24 years old (about 90 in horse years) she didn’t have any teeth but loved thinly sliced carrots

Michael loved Nicanor, who was the brother of Barbaro the winner of Kentucky Derby (remember the picture of boys in front of statue at Churchill Downs?). He loved people and came running when he saw us (or maybe it was the carrots 😀) but they did say when they had to shut down during Covid, he would stare at the fence like he was wondering where the people were.

The very first horse on the farm was Little Silver Charm, a miniature pony. The owner of the Old Friends Farm saw him when he was on his way to a slaughterhouse, and offered the man driving the truck $40. That was almost 30 years and a lot of carrots ago ♥️

My favorite was Sun King, because he was hilarious and full of attitude 🤣

They even had a quarantine area for new horses. All horses have to be quarantined for 3 weeks when they first arrive at Old Friends… so of course, I couldn’t resist 🤣🤣

These two horses were buddies and always stayed together. One of the them was one of 6 horses who played Seabiscuit in his movie. And the other had a trick… all horses are tattooed on their gum, like a brand. If you asked him to “show us your tattoo” here’s what you got 🤣🤣.Now of course, he expected a carrot after each trick and we kindly obliged 🥕🥕

We also fell in love with Patch, who lost his left eye due to an infection. He loved carrots and scratches ♥️

It was really a fun tour and we loved getting up close with these horses.

We left Old Friends and decided to meander through Lexington. Honestly after the Ark and Creation Museum, no one could really handle any more information or knowledge, so we made our own driving tour. We saw UK, and Transylvania University (didn’t know that was a place?)we went by Thoroughbred Park… pretty awesome statue

And then we decided to again stay off the Interstate and just take some country roads to our next stop. Kentucky is gorgeous with rolling green countryside and miles and miles of fence line! (Boys noted that these fences wouldn’t be strong enough to keep in a pig 🐖)

We decided to have lunch in the little town of Winchester and try a barbecue joint that Trip Advisor said “wasn’t for people who liked fancy but was for people who liked good barbecue.” Yep, that pretty much describes us. In & Out Barbecue was owned by Mr. Ken Allen who said God wanted him to serve barbecue and be a prophet of God. He said he did 2 things: loved Jesus and cooked barbecue. When he said he cooked barbecue, he wasn’t kidding… he literally cooked the barbecue on the street! If this smell didn’t get you into his restaurant, then your nose is busted!

He served homemade fries… by homemade, he means: you order the fries; he takes a potato from the bag; puts it through his slicer; puts it in the fryer; and 6 minutes later, you have fries!

Oh my word! The ribs, and the fries were out of this world! We were also introduced to a new drink: Ale8. So here’s how that happened… A man came in for a to-go order and said he “take an Ale8 since it’s made here.” We asked him and Mr. Ken about this, and turns out the company was started right there in town. The current CEO is the great-great-great nephew of the founder and creator. The formula is top secret and each batch is still mixed by the CEO so the formula stays secret. Here’s the kicker, the man who got the to-go order bought one for each of us! Winchester hospitality 😀 It’s like ginger ale and Mountain Dew had a baby – and it is delicious! Now we just have to figure out how to get it in North Carolina.

Before we left, we got to put a pin in Mr. Ken’s map so he would remember us. I know we will remember him 🥰

Bellies very very full, we headed to our last stop of the trip, The Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky. Kentucky’s State Parks have resorts inside the Parks and it is so nice. They aren’t fancy but they are clean. They are also connected to the trails that run everywhere around here.

After laying around for a bit, we decided to try to work off our lunch with Mr. Ken and work up an appetite for dinner by hiking to the natural bridge. The boys loved the swinging bridge (reminded me of the middle school blog♥️), and loved trying to make it swing and scare Mike The hike up was really beautifulas we neared the top, the views were better and betterDespite a little thunder, we thought “we’ve made it this far, let’s go on up.” This trail is not for the faint of heartBut oh the view ♥️The problem with climbing up when you hear thunder is climbing down when the rain starts… we tried to wait it out in shelter 8And then decided it had probably stopped, so we tried again And that’s when, in the words of Mike Brown, it started “raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock!” 🤣🤣🤣that’s hail ⬆️… so we spent some quality time in shelter nine Mike kept us all entertained with the story of the Kentucky HellCat (Kentucky’s version of BigFoot) I told them they could tell their children the story of “you remember that time we got in a hailstorm and had to stay in a shelter on the side of a trail?” It would fit nicely when they tell the story of “you remember that Christmas we had a pig our sunroom?” 🤣

We made it down a little wetter than we started but laughing the whole wayAfter some warm showers, we enjoyed relaxing with no where to go other than dinner in the lodge – I think they’re happy to have some downtime One more day with a couple of fun surprises to go…