Bowling Green, KY

I am writing this from West-By-God-Kentucky.... Every place west of the DC area is West-By-God just like everything is "dadgum," as if you can't get a good "goddamn" out around all that chewin' tobaccy. The border between Tennessee and Kentucky is patrolled by fireworks vendors, a new brand of vice to break up all the hookers and strip club joints at the other state borders. Here's something notable: if you drive long enough, your butt vibrates when you stop driving, the way your feet used to vibrate after you took off your roller skates.

 

The radio stations from Tennessee to the Kentucky border dwindled and dwindled from a not-bad station playing "twin tunes" -- where we got back-to-back Three Dog Night with "One is the Loneliest Number" and "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" (drank that mahty fahn wahn!) on a station that hooted WOOOHOOOOO! before identifying itself as WUHU. Closer to the border, the AM dial gave you two choices: static (or, as Wes refers to it, the alien rock-n-roll channel) and Willie Nelson. Two things, pick one.

 

The scenery: miles and miles of giant beer kegs of hay, ancient relics of Hayhenge, a row of lollipop-shaped trees at a place called Creasy Farms, the Three Springs Wash-n-Tan (an imaginative laundromat/tanning salon combo), the God Bless America Ace Storage Lot, and the Morning Star Dog Grooming Shack. On the plus side, you're driving into the sun, gaining hours as you go. We arrived in the Central Time Zone and got an hour back.

 

Went to the Corvette Museum http://www.corvettemuseum.com, admiring both the very well done museum and its vintage cars as well as the impressive scorch marks in the parking lot from all the Corvette burn outs as they left the premises. The Wendys on the corner had an autographed photo of Dave Thomas standing in front of a vintage Corvette, and all the staff wore Wendys shirts with racing flags on the backs. Keighley and Wes got shirts at the end of the tour which, inevitably, dumped you right out at the gift shop.

 

Then we made the inevitable pilgrimage to the Wal-Mart Museum where we viewed all of *their* displays and bought several artifacts and tokens. At 3:00 on a Friday afternoon, the place was PACKED. Bought everything on my list, except for hummus, which is apparently waaaay too weird/foreign for West-by-God-Kentucky.

 

Haven't seen any confederate flags yet, or any Stuckey's pecan rolls, but since they are probably PEEcan rolls down yonder at the Piggly Wiggly grocery, it would almost be reminiscent of...France :) Zut alors!