I was encouraged by a member of upper management at work to
attend an accounting/business office continuing education class this year. A
couple other accountants (Jacob and Kelly) in the building were going to one in
Lexington, Kentucky so I decided that I would join them. I had never spent any
time in Kentucky so it sounded like a pretty decent paid vacation.
The trip started out well enough. A 7 or 8 am flight out of
Mobile had me awake and on the road before the sun came up. I may have
overestimated the time required to drive to the Mobile airport and get through
security as I ended up sitting at the gate for about 3 hours. A solid hour
before the first person, apart from myself, showed up.
Our first flight was to Atlanta were we all grabbed some
breakfast before getting on our connecting flight to Lexington. The flights
themselves were short enough. Flying into Lexington was a sight. I knew horses
were a big deal, but I didn’t realize the extent. Looking out the window on our
decent, there were nothing but horse fields and stables as far as the eye could
see. It was later explained to me that Lexington is essentially the horse
capital of the world and it’s not uncommon to see kings and sheikhs arriving in
their private planes on a trip to buy and sell horses. I wasn’t lucky enough
for a sighting though.
First stop was our hotel; a Marriott a few miles from
downtown Lexington and a couple blocks off of UK’s main campus (The site of our
conference). The only thing close by was a race track. Having never watched a
horse race in person, that was a priority. After we got our room keys, I went
and ate lunch with Jacob while Kelly took a nap. That afternoon, we hit up the
race track for a little while before heading to the Conference Meet & Greet
Dinner at the Hilton Downtown.
The conference was as expected. They had put me in a first
year attendee schedule, which somehow equated to an overview of all the things
I learned in college, without actually teaching anything of importance. I
quickly learned that this was going to be the norm for the majority of classes,
with the exception of one on advanced accounting problems. We did some walking
around campus that morning. It’s a really beautiful campus from what I saw. We
had lunch in a student cafeteria and then the three of us took a detour on the
way back to class to buy umbrellas from the bookstore and check out their once
glorious campus basketball stadium (now replaced by the one downtown). The
arena also had a nice “hall of champions” with pictures of players, teams
coaches and a display case with a number of their trophies.
After the first day of classes ended, I had decided that I
wanted to visit the campuses Arboretum, which was highly rated on
TripAdvisor.com. Jillian had said before the trip that if I were serious about
going there, I should take a taxi. I was pretty confident, however, that it
would make for a short walk across campus. The problem was: 1. I should always
listen to my wife. 2. There was a lot of construction between the site of my
conference and the garden. 3. I’m an idiot. This stroll in shorts and sandals
ended up taking a little over two hours to walk to and from. By the time I got
back to my hotel, me feet were covered in blisters from my sandals and I was
exhausted. Jacob and Kelly had been waiting on me to go to dinner, so I had to
ignore the pain, shower and dress for downtown.
Thankfully, you sit down for dinner so I gave me feet a
rest. Our first dinner was at the “Tony’s of Lexington” steakhouse. I saw
walking in that it was a white tablecloth joint, but I had the better part of
my $55/day meal allowance to burn. I ended up getting a salad (as if it would
somehow make my wife happy and reduce my regret for not listening to her about
the walk), their bone in pork chops with bourbon whipped sweet potatoes. I even
decided at the end to order some kind of chocolate cake that rivaled that of
the Carnival Cruise Chocolate Lava Cake (or whatever it’s called).
Day two was more of the same. Boring classes. A tour of the
“Physical Plant Operations” got us good and sweaty before lunch. Afterward we
took our first Uber taxi to the mall for a couple hours and then grabbed
another one to take us to dinner and then a minor league baseball game in town.
Day three was similar. Half a day of boring classes and then
those who had paid a little extra went on a tour of a bourbon distillery and
horse stables. I’ve seen distilleries and horses before so I thought I would
make another unnecessarily long walk, with now healing blisters, to the
“nearby” Lexington National Cemetery. It was excessively hot, which made my
choice to remain in the khaki pants I wore to classes another poor choice. I
got there after my scenic hike and was not disappointed. As a cemetery goes,
this one was beautiful and enormous. Thank god I brought a bottle of water and
my phone to call Uber afterward.
Day four was our last full day in Lexington. We went to our
classes and then did a little exploring around downtown Lexington. We found out
there was a brewery “somewhere” nearby that had some really good local bear and
special beer glasses that were shaped like beer cans. I couldn’t pass up that
opportunity. Turns out, this location was also not “nearby”. So I got yet
another good walk in on feet that were destroyed at this point. The brewery was
a cool as advertised. I was a little bummed that we hadn’t found it early. We
all bought a few glasses and then took Uber back to the Marriott to pack up and
then go watch some more horse racing.
Day five was much longer and eventful than I had planned and
certainly more than I wanted. Because we had a relatively early flight out of
town, we only went to the morning classes and then bailed. We took a quick tour
of a brewery/distillery just off campus that made ‘Kentucky Ale Stout’; a
fantastic local beer. We ate lunch at a crappy Mexican place inside the
airport. Our outgoing flight was on time, but Mother Nature was causing havoc
in Atlanta, so our flight was diverted to BFE South Carolina, where we sat
still waiting an eternity for refueling. The delay was made worse by the fact
that I had failed to recharge my phone before take-off and with no battery, I
had nothing to keep me entertained. I guess I should be somewhat happy that the
lady sitting beside me was an insane person ripping pages out of a fashion
magazine; so at least the fear for my life kept my brain occupied. We ended up
getting back into Mobile around midnight. Exciting.
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