The Saturday Morning Post - 50 States in 52 Weeks - Kentucky

Friday was the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium. About 10 miles from Brugge. I was off the ship for a couple of hours, for a local walk. A small town, with a HUGE port.  Lots of shipping going by. I like ships, so there was something to see.  Saturday morning we get off the ship, bright and early, they really want us all off by 8:30 AM so they can reset the ship for its next trip.  It has been a good trip.  We have not had any major storms, periodic rain, but no real rough weather.  The food has been good.  The internet at sea WiFi has been very disappointing.  It is StarLink. The connection was very intermittent, and gave clear preference to some services and not to others.  Facebook almost always connected, at times Blogger would take 5-10 minutes to connect. Overall it was not worth the frustration. I am looking forward to being on land and having better WiFi in hotels. 

A couple of the ports, specifically Zeebrugge and Portland are not cruise ship friendly, in that they don't allow pedestrians to and from the ship.  The shuttle service was slow. In Zeebrugge it took me about 500 feet, but took 10-15 minutes each way.  In Portland it was unclear where it went (we took a tour that day.) Southampton offered shuttle bus service, dropping you at a shopping mall about 2 miles from the ship.  I walked back, it was a long walk in the Port. There were other much closer places for the shuttle bus to pick up and drop off.  I suspect the shopping mall is subsidizing the bus service.  

I am not from there, but I lived in Kentucky from 1995 through 2008.  We owned a home in Lexington.  I went to law school in Kentucky, I am licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth. I learned about  working in a mindless hourly job, law, horse racing, the difference between new and old money, and bourbon while living in Kentucky. 

Government is accessible, you can literally walk onto the floor of the state legislature.  I talked with the governor one day, he had a last minute cancellation and decided to go into the rotunda of the Capital and shake hands and let people take photos. 

Kentucky is the northern edge of the south. The eastern part of the state is deep Appalachia and deep in poverty. Central Kentucky is rolling, horse country. Western Kentucky is the beginning of the great plains. Louisville is an old rust belt city.  Northern Kentucky is the twin of Cincinnati, again very rust belt. 

I went to my first horse races in Kentucky, placed my first bet on racing.  Horse racing is dominated by old money, old money was very quiet in the background, with massive homes and the occasional Rolls Royce.  New money invests in horse racing, but they don't get invited to the old money parties.  Doctors, lawyers and professors are treated as new money, and are not invited to the old money parties. I had a gym buddy who owned a broodmare farm, and had hosted Queen Elizabeth II when she was in town for the Derby one year.  I worked a couple of hourly jobs for a year while waiting to start law school. I needed that to fully understand life. 

It was an easy place to live. And neither of us really wanted to stay there.