Kentucky

This blog is incredibly delayed, but it’s still fun

Danielle and I try to get out of Murfreesboro as often as possible. This fall over our 4 day fall break Danielle was presenting at a conference in Cincinnati. It’s only a five hour drive so we decided to make a road trip out of it. We took the back roads and spent a day looking at the fall leaves. We stopped first at Cumberland State Park and spent a day hiking and seeing the waterfalls. After leaving there we just sort of stopped at all the historic sites advertised on the big brown forest service signs. One of the stops we made a cabin in the Renfro Valley of Kentucky that was built in 1791. It has been turned into a store with one of the biggest collections of “stuff” I’ve ever seen. When we walked in the man who ran the store was sitting in a rocking chair turning elk horns and turtle shells into musical instruments. We went upstairs and found a whole section of the store devoted to confederate flag paraphernalia; hats, shirts, beanies, you name it. He owns a fudge store in a nearby town and gave us directions to get there involving multiple stop lights and left turns but not right turns and don’t veer this way but go ‘round that little bend and apparently every wrong turn takes you to Walmart. If that isn’t enough to scare you off I don’t know what is. Unfortunately neither of us could focus on the 20 minute direction spiel because we were transfixed by the pipe curls that made up his mullet. At this point Danielle says she’s going outside to pet the cat, leaving me alone with him as I try to nudge my purchases closer and closer to the cash register so he’ll ring me up. Finally he starts to ring me up and the electricity goes out. Credit card machine has to reset. Now I get to hear about every time the power goes off in backwoods Kentucky. How there’s no reason, it just goes off. Sometimes electricity really just isn’t all that handy. Pipe curls bobbing the whole time. Somehow we’re back to directions to some place that I’m not sure where and talking about turns that go places I can’t remember. Pipe curls still swinging. Finally out the door rather dazed and definitely more confused than when I went in.

We managed to find the fudge store in Berea, Kentucky. His wife was working at that store. Here’s how the interaction went.

Her: Hi ya’ll

Danielle: Hi. How are you?

Her: Oh, ya know, middlin. Sunny day but a little too cold.

Me: We’re just happy to see the sun after all this time.

Her: Well, I guess you can’t have everything, can you?

Danielle: We just met your husband and he sent us this direction to get some fudge.

Me: We heard you have pumpkin pie fudge.

Her: We do. It’s my husband’s thing. I can’t eat it. I “foundered” on pumpkin pie once and its turned my stomach from it forever. I can’t even make it.

(At this point we are both having visions of bloated cows who foundered lying on their backs with their legs sticking straight up in the air and trying not to picture her like this.)

We go about ordering our fudge and as she cuts it and packages it she carries on a continuous dialogue all in a thick Kentucky accent. First she fills us in on all the news of her family. Apparently her sisters are fighting and her cousin is working on a family tree. It’s taking years and people are not being cooperative. Then,

Her: Did he have that dog inside while you were there?

Danielle: Yes, it was so sweet.

Me: Sweet. How do you know? The thing never even moved the whole time we were there.

Her: I knew it!!! He said he leaves that dog outside all day but I knew he left him inside to sleep. That dog stays up all night barking. Last night I probably got 50 maybe 60 winks and that’s all. I keep telling him to leave him outside so the distractions will keep him awake during the day. That dog’s a little confused. Sleeps all day and awake all night. Did he tell you the story of that dog?

Me: I don’t think so (remember, mesmerized by pipe curls)

Her: Well, that dog is 12 years old. He’d been feelin’ poorly so my husband took him down to Knoxville to the University of Tennessee vet school there and they took out a 12 pound tumor. No wonder he wasn’t feelin’ so good. Dog’s lookin a little skinny these days. Livin’ on borrowed time I think.

Well, you girls have a lovely trip and safe travels. Glad you like the pumpkin fudge. He’ll just be thrilled ‘cause I sure don’t eat the stuff and it’s his special thing. You be safe out there on those roads …

She continued talking as we backed our way out the door thanking her and saying goodbye. We walked to the car in a bit of daze trying to process all the information we had just taken in. It wasn’t until eating flourless chocolate cake in our hotel room that we really started to think about our experience with that odd couple. Truly pleasant, wonderful people who I am grateful I met. But boy did we laugh hard over our chocolate cake.