Out and About in KY - April and May 2024

Howdy, everyone!  Things have been progressing like crazy at the new house, and I promise to put together a blog entry with tons of pictures here soon (well, soon-ish - we're still pretty busy).  In the meantime, however, how about a filler post on what we've been getting up to around town when we're not unpacking boxes and making wallpaper decisions?  I'll take that as a yes, so here we go!

Happy to be in the new house!

As of 2022, our new home of Richmond had around 36,000 residents; most of these are full-time, but Richmond also houses around 10,000 students attending Eastern Kentucky University, or EKU.  The city has a small historic downtown with a nearby area devoted to the University campus as well as a bypass road running around the perimeter of both. Our house is on the outside of the bypass ring, past the local Nissan dealership; according to the folks in the city recycling office, our address is in Richmond, but we're not technically within city limits (city limits apparently end at the small creek we cross with about a mile to go to our new home).  The bypass is clearly the newer part of town, and it's dotted with big box stores and chain restaurants, as well as a few local gems mixed in, too.

Per our normal, within a few days in the house, we found our way to our local brewery, Dreaming Creek.  It's the only brewing game in town, and thankfully, it is outstanding!  We each grabbed a flight, and we were super impressed by their Kentucky Common beer, as well as several of their other options.  Adding to the fun is that the brewery is housed in the old county welfare office; we had a great time looking at the 1960s era municipal architecture and remembering how our elementary schools had windows just like the ones there.

As you might imagine, the flight in the front with all the dark pours is mine,

while Chris' is the yellower flight in the back.

Dreaming Creek has food trucks almost every day - this was the menu at Kyle's Kitchen when we visited.

The burger was okay, but the buffalo chicken fries were incredible.

Post-brewery time, we walked into downtown Richmond proper and found ourselves dessert at Insomnia Cookies; their whole deal is that they'll deliver freshly baked cookies to you until 3am, and while we weren't out nearly that late, we still enjoyed them (and the leftovers the next day, too - they even had a good variety of vegan options, which was great to see).  I would imagine they do a pretty brisk business with the college kids for a variety of reasons... ;)

You know when you're craving something particular to eat, and you have that item, but it's not great - how it doesn't really take care of that craving?  Later that week, we were still jones'ing for a good burger, so we headed to Jackson's Restaurant, another local institution.  Chris had the burger, while I enjoyed their Philly cheesesteak, and we had plenty of leftovers to take home for later.  Although our options were good, Jackson's is mainly known for their meat and three options, and we're planning to return again soon, probably on one of the days where they serve fried chicken.

Looks like that happens on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays!

The next week, we planned our big night in town to be Tuesday; while we didn't head to Jackson's again, instead we hit up Irvine-McDowell Park in the main part of town to attend the weekly Tasty Tuesdays celebration.  Every week during the summer, the city of Richmond brings out food trucks, live music, beer and wine vendors, and it's a great event.  We ended up there a bit later than we planned (we didn't know exactly where to park), so the lines were long for our chosen food truck, Comete Alguito, but it was well worth the wait.  The truck sells Colombian street food, and it was excellent - we really enjoyed our arepas, even if they were out of plantains by the time we ordered (extreme sad face - next time!).  While waiting in line, we chilled in the shade, enjoying the light breeze, singer and guitarist combo, and drinks from Dreaming Creek.  We'll be back to Tasty Tuesdays in the future for sure, most likely on the last Tuesday of each month when they also have city-wide book club meetings.

The food truck scene is big here, and several vendors are super proactive in telling you

where they'll be each week, including in the parking lots of businesses like Lowe's.

This picture isn't related to anything else, but I saw it on my drive around the bypass one day.

I really like the one price for unleaded, one for diesel, and one for Slurpees.

Last week, we picked Masala Fine Indian Cuisine as our local spot to try, and it was also fantastic.  The servers were kind and attentive, and the food was delicious (we ordered the chicken tikka, lamb vindaloo, and veggie samosas, with two sides of garlic naan).  Once again, we had plenty of leftovers to take home, which we ate for lunch on Saturday (in between trips to Lowe's to set up our veggie garden and install a garbage disposal).

In living here for almost a month now, what we've found so far is that Richmond has a good number of restaurants, both independently-owned and chain options (I didn't discuss those, but we've also eaten at the local Sonny's BBQ and Outback - both were exactly as you'd expect they'd be).  There's a wide variety of cuisines, and there are options at many different price points.  What we're missing so far, though, is a slightly nicer set of options akin to our favorite spots in Phoenix (like the Gladly, Belly, and so on).  Thankfully, Lexington is only a 30 minute drive away, and it has TONS of these types of places.

Granddam is one of these, and we've had the good fortune to visit here twice now; the first time was way back in January, when we decided to relocate to KY, even after surviving a freak snowstorm.  To celebrate officially being residents of the greater Lexington/Richmond area, we visited again a few weeks back and truly enjoyed the experience.

My Sidecar - so good!

I texted Chris this picture while he was pacing outside the restaurant,

trying to get Spectrum to grant us internet coverage.

He's the best, but I win this round for sure.  ;)

Just a few shots of the current menu - it changes with the seasons

A more recent foray north into Lex occurred just this past weekend, to celebrate Mother's Day!  When Chris asked me what I wanted to do to mark the occasion, I said a fun brunch sounded great, and he picked an excellent one - at Lockbox, the in-house restaurant for the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown.  We've eaten previously at the Hotel's Louisville location, in their restaurant Proof on Main (which is incredible), and Lockbox didn't disappoint.  The whole deal with the 21c Museum franchise is that they feature cool art in and around their hotels, including in their restaurants, and Lockbox had tons of neat items on display.  The building in Lex is also on the Register of Historic Places, originally coming to life as the Fayette National Bank Building, and the crown molding inside the dining room is super neat.

We started our meal with the Share Board, which featured a great selection of Southern-inspired delights - pimento cheese and deviled egg spreads, sweet and sour pimento jelly, homemade biscuits, bread and butter pickles, country ham, and so on.

So many noms!

We also had shrimp and grits (Chris) and chicken schnitzel (me) for our mains,

and they were excellent too, as were the brunch cocktails.

It was a lovely day - highs in the low 70s with a light breeze and not a cloud in the sky - so we finished our time in Lex at the Arboretum, the State Botanical Garden on the University of Kentucky campus (in planning this, I read that the Arboretum was closed on game days, and once we arrived, I realized why - it's directly across the street from Kroger Field, where the Wildcats football team plays).  Although the Visitor Center is closed on Sundays, the gardens are open from dawn to dusk each day, and we were by far not the only folks taking advantage of the amazing weather to get out in this generous slice of urban nature.

The Arboretum has 2 miles of paved trails, encompassing 100 acres landscaped with plants native to different parts of the state, and while we certainly didn't see it all on our first visit, we really enjoyed what we could.  So much was in gorgeous bloom from peonies to early season roses to irises.

The Arboretum is associated with the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at UK

Meandering down one of the wooded trails off the main path

I busted out my wide brimmed hat - sun protection, folks!

(I know, I know, I'm in short sleeves - ignore that)

A robin keeping an eye on things

The rose garden within the Arboretum also serves as home to the Flight 5191 Memorial, honoring those who lost their lives in the 2006 accident at the city's Bluegrass Airport.  49 folks passed, and the sculpture features the same number of stainless steel birds in flight; each bird houses a small space where family and friends placed items to commemorate those who were lost.

After about an hour of wandering and looking at lovely things, we headed home - we didn't even see a quarter of the areas within the Arboretum, so we'll need to plan a return trip in the future - their website suggest they have a lot of plant sales, so we'll keep an eye out for those!

Later!

Amy