Kentucky for vegetarians

What do you get when you combine Cracker Barrel, auto bingo and a states and capitols show down? ROAD TRIP!

Mark and I took a long weekend with Taylor and his mom to spend some time with his grandparents down in Owensboro, Kentucky. We played a lot of cards with Mamaw (his paternal grandmother) and heard lots of stories from Granddad Jim (his maternal grandfather). Oh yes and we ate and ate and ate. The best part is southerners don’t really know how to respond to the phrase, “I’m a vegetarian” with anything other than a confused look. Mark refused to order me a cheeseburger without meat at the local greasy spoon drive thru—he was not only embarrassed but also concerned they would wrap the beef patty up as a separate package in their disbelief that someone wouldn’t want it. I settled for a fried on the griddle, yes I said fried, tuna sandwich with “Dipper gems” known to the rest of the free world as tater tots. The running starts on Tuesday.

One afternoon we visited the Owensboro Science and History museum which featured some cool hands on activities like building a bridge, operating a crane, manufacturing cars on the assembly line (soon to be replace with learning Chinese-ha!). Plus you had the chance to sit in real race cars from all the pro drivers who were born and raised in town or broadcast the local news as the station’s meteorologist.

In all it was a great trip and even included a quick visit to celebrate one of his nephew’s birthdays in North Baltimore, Ohio on our return trip. It was here I got to play my first non Guitar Hero Wii game: bowling. Turns out I’m amazing at that…and so is everyone else who can swing their arm up and down. I see why it’s so popular with video game nerds now. They can pretend they are good at sports.