Carrie was staying with us last week from Arizona. She'd been in Ohio all summer and found herself with a few days and nothing to do. So, she came to Kentucky to hang out with Em and me.
Wednesday and Friday I took her to work with me. Filing made her just as miserable as it does anyone really. She did take on two 6 hour days of it though and got some much needed pocket change to take home with her. Thursday she was out sick with a cold and a lot of tired.
Saturday morning, we were all up around quarter after eleven. So, we went to the Farmer's Market. We bought a bumch of fruits and vegetables and some really good bread. Carrie really seemed to enjoy the whole thing.
When we got home, we set to work packing. I fetched the tent and both of my sleeping bags. Em and Carrie cleaned out Em's car. They chopped vegetables and put them in tupperware. I went to Save-A-Lot and bought aluminum foil and water and ice. We packed up our bags, loaded the car, picked out some music (including, "Songs in the Key of 'mary' " Volumes One and Two because those mix CDs Waste made me are just wonderful), consulted the maps and headed off.
We were going to visit the monks. We drove along the little backroads. Carrie marvelled about how Kentucky looks like France, and I insisted that this far from Lexington, really, it looks more like Bavaria.
We maneuvered a detour really effiently without getting even a little bit lost (although we were lost on the map, but we figured out what was going on pretty quickly). Eventually, I asked "How much longer do we stay on 152?"
Then we faced the reality of the part where the monks aren't actually on the map. Their town is, but it's not attached to any roads. So, we didn't actually know. We stopped in the next town, Springfield, and asked around.
First we went to the BP station. There we were told to go to Bardstown and.. well... they didn't really have a plan past "there's a McDonald's on the left when you get into town.". Except we weren't trying to get to Bardstown. We had our lunch and dinner in the car with us. We didn't want McDonald's. We were trying to get to a point decidedly west of Bardstown on the map. They were of no help.
So, then we tried some locally owned gas station. No one there had any idea where the monestary was either. They also gave us directions that ended suddenly in "There's a McDonald's on the left.". Yeah thanks. Finally, one of the clerks looked at the map and advised us to keep driving in the general direction of the monestary. No really, that's what she said "If I were you I'd just go on roads that take you mostly west."
We got back on the road and continued heading west, just kind of hoping that we'd somehow stumble upon someone who could give us directions somewhere in backroads KY. We broke into the PB&Js and some fruit and had a really tasty lunch while driving along.
We passed St Catherine's College and an awfully lot of Pro Life billboards. We figured we were getting closer. Right after the next crossroads, both of which looked like they might take us to the monestary, we saw a big Catholic Church, St Francis of Assisi on the hillside. There was a house next-door. We drove up, put out our cigarettes, and tried the church door. Locked.
Not to be daunted, we knocked on the door to the house. The fatehr came out and very happily interrupted his watching of the Little League World Series to give us detailed directions to the monestary. Mostly they actually consisted of "Keep going the way you're going. At the one other road, there's a sign that says 'Trappist'. Follow it. You can't miss it. It's the only thing on the road."
We followed those directions and quickly arrived at the monestary. We talked to a sweet old monk, hung out in the library, walked around on the grounds, and attended Vespers. It was very nice. That place is so peaceful, and the monks are just amazingly adorable and happy in their simple way. I don't have words for what it was like, you'd have to go and visit them yourself. It's just a simple, pretty place that's everything you would expect a monestary to be, including mostly closed off to the public while still being very inviting.
When we were finished at the monestary, we drove on to Bardstown. The first sign we saw advertised camping in one direction and the state park in the other. We followed the camping sign because we weren't actually in town to see My Old Kentucky Home or Stephen Foster: The Musical. The campground we eventually found was really just like an RV lot in someone's back yard.
We stopped at a gas station and got some ice cream and asked a nice police officer for directions to the campground at the state park. We arrived at it and the attendant was very friendly and not just a little bit silly. Eventually, we'd paid our $14 and secured ourselves a primitive camping site for the night.
We pitched our tent as far away from the road as we could. We brought all the food to the table. At one point or another, before dark, we each changed into long pants right there by the side of the road (and the playground actually). I'm sure that was confusing to the other campers. We pitch our tent way back there, practically on the golf course and then we change clothes right by the road...
After a few false starts, we managed to build a fire. Mostly due to Carrie's ingenious idea of wrapping a twig firmly in cardboard and then setting the cardboard on fire. We cooked and ate dinner and had a liter and a half of wine. We were in bed pretty early.
As we were setting up the tent, I started to mess with the rain fly. Carrie said "I don't think we'll need it. I doubt it'll rain tonight." and after thinking a second, I agreed. So, naturally, we woke up in the middle of the night and it was raining. We fastened the fly to the tent sans pole (actually I was doing it without glasses or shoes for that matter) and slept schnug and dry the rest of the night.
We were all up by nine thirty, which was fortunate because we wanted to be out to there before ten when the "Church Worship Service" began not fifty feet from our campsite. We cleaned up the site, packed everything back up, took down the tent and decided to go to the Stephen Foster Diner for breakfast.
Breakfast was everything you might want out of a diner. Complete with a buffet which none of us ordered off of.
We asked all the staff for directions to our next destination, The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Convent/School. Except at the time we only knew it as "Nazareth College, where the retired nuns live.". They didn't know. We stopped at a gas station in the general direction out of town that we thought it was in. A woman working at a gas station helped us. We asked about Nazareth College, but she didn't know until I said "retired nuns home.".
We followed the directions, past McDonald's on the left and Wal Mart. We also passed a distillery. We had passed two the day before, but we're so silly we thought maybe they were prisons. Big, ornament free buildings that look like barns, except with a thousand tiny, tiny windows. In bleak fields. With high fences. Fortunately, the literature they gave us at the campground had pictures and we glanced at it before attemping to use it as kindling and learned that a million barrells of borboun were the only residents of the buildings.
The convent/school/retirement home place was gorgeous. Just amazing. The grounds, the building, the whole place. Everyone we met was so friendly. So very, very friendly. They encouraged us to just walk around and go in any door that was open. They were so nice and inviting and the whole place was just breathtaking.
We stayed there for a long time, walking inside and out. The main building is seventeen acres under one roof. We visited the church, starting at the top balconey and slowly winding our way down, and getting a little bit lost until we found ourselves in the proper sanctuary. There was a moment of guilt as Carrie and I thought about what our mothers would say about the hair, clothing and shoes we were sporting. Then a sister came over and gave us brochures and welcomed us warmly into their church.
We visited the gym and the cemetary. We walked around and looked at the cute little fountains. We toured their museum...
The museum was really fun. It had displays of amazing artwork and crafts, and lots of really interesting displays explaining the history of the SCN and the region in general. It was full of interesting things, some of which were clearly very rare and valuable and others which were just valuable because they belonged to someone who was loved or because they were created with love. It was nice to see it all together like that...
It was one of the neatest places I've ever been. Really. The place was beautiful and just full of art and life and comfort. It was absolutely accesible while at the same time containing the single most beautiful church I've seen in this country. (When I told the nun I thought that, she said "Yes, yes, I think it mentions that in the brochure. I think it pretty much officially is.")
When we were finished touring and meeting the sisters, we headed on back to Lexington. Carrie got to see Versailles KY, castle and all. She was suitably confused. At any rate, we were home within an hour, absolutely exhausted but really pleased with our little trip.
And later that day when the Mormon boys came knocking on our door (Emma is so dissappointed that she was in the shower and she missed them. She seems to think it would be really fun to try to seduce a Mormon boy on his mission.), I told them how I'd spent my weekend and they went away almost as easily as when I start talking to them about paganism...
