Lexington, Kentucky to Memphis, Tennessee

This morning we went to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. It is so pretty! It's a working horse park, they just let the public come in and have a look around and they do educational talks and shows at different barns. We took a carriage ride around the entire park when we first arrived so we could get the lay of the land. The place is huge. The carriage was pulled by two of the biggest horses I have ever seen in my life..Mick and Pete. After the ride we got to pet them... Then we took a stroll through the barn that houses the carriage horses. Seriously, I have never in my life seen horses as big as these. The picture doesn't even begin to capture the enormity of this horse... I took a picture of this one because I'd never seen a mane cut like this before. It's a Norwegian horse and they cut off their mane's because in Norway the winters are so harsh that the weight of a frozen mane will break the horses neck. Thomas thought it looked like she had mohawk!
Next on our walk we passed them giving the horses a bath...and I thought giving a dog a bath was a chore....I was kinda fascinated by this. I'd never seen a horse get a bath before. When she was done she actually squeegeed him off!

There were horses everywhere and the girls couldn't get enough of petting them. This guy was really nice and patient. He even nudged Mandy in the head to get her attention! Grace wanted to buy him. Scott told her we didn't have a way to get him home. (As if we could afford one!) She told him she'd ride it all the way back to Texas!

It's very laid back and we had a great time strolling through all the different barns and looking at all the different breeds... Mandy had a pony ride...

And Thomas and Grace took a horseback trail ride all around the park...
The kids had a blast and it was very interesting to see how it all works. There is a whole vocabulary there that we didn't even know existed...dressage, steeplechase..

Grace has wanted to take riding lessons for 2 years now and after this we may have to give in! I'd love to learn to ride myself and to be as comfortable around horses as all those teenage girls were who work at the park. But, the fact of the matter is that horses intimidate me. I've never spent enough time around them I guess.

After our time at the horse park, we headed to Mammoth Cave. This is the biggest cave system in North America and from the swarms of people there, a popular tourist attraction. They have 7 or 8 different tours and lots of them have age minimums. Mandy is not a huge fan of caves and neither is her mother, so we let Scott, Thomas and Grace enjoy this activity without us! Mandy kept saying,"I'm too little to go. It's too dark and creepy." Some of the tours you have to crawl on your belly it's so narrow. They did the shortest of the tours which was about an 70 minutes. They all seemed to really enjoy it... After that we pretty much just drove for the rest of the day. The drive from Nashville to Memphis is torture....it's long and there's not just a whole lot to see. So, there was a lot of this....

We are headed for home after breakfast in the morning. I am so ready to sleep in my own bed! I really like Memphis though, and wish we had some time to do the Civil Rights Museum again. It's one of the best museums I've ever been to, and as a history teacher, I'm a pretty harsh judge of museums. This one is worth the trip to Memphis. We did it two years ago with the kids, Thomas was only 6 and Grace was only 5, and they still talk about it.

I'm sure the ride home will be a long one and we'll be pretty late getting in. I might try to blog all our top favorites from the entire trip along the way if we can get internet on Scott's computer. Otherwise I'll do it tomorrow night from HOME!!!!

Blessings,

Leslie