Thursday, August 03, 2000

We started the day in Millersburg, KY looking for the road south to Winchester. We stopped at a connivance store and found out that a bridge that we were supposed to use no longer existed. So we went via Paris, to get to Winchester. From Winchester we continued on to Irvine, a total distance of 55 miles. Paris is only 13 miles from Lexington, KY. There were a number of thoroughbred horse farms on our route south from Paris. They all had large pastures with one or two horses in each pasture. In some of the pastures a fence surrounded the trees, so the horses would not rub the bark off the tree and thereby kill the tree. Most of the fences were made of wood and painted black. Barbed wire fences were almost non-existent. If wire fences were used, the top edge of the fence would be wood and wire mesh would be used between the posts and below the wood top.

Along the edge of the highway were stone fences made of limestone. Flat pieces of limestone were piled up until the fence would be 3 to 4 feet in height. At many of the horse farms, fancy entrances existed similar to the type built by builders to showcase a new fancy subdivision of homes. Some horse farms had gates to prevent anyone from entering the farm and all the buildings were so far from the road that they could not be seen. Between the road and the farm buildings were trees and shrubs and all the grass was neatly mowed.

Again the riding was up and down one hill after another. We would go down a hill at 25 or more miles an hour and climb up the next hill at 4.5 miles an hour. Within an hour after we left Millersburg, my shirt was completely wet with sweat. During the morning the sky was cloudy which kept the temperature down. We reached Winchester at 10:30 AM. We stopped and ate a light lunch taking our time. We needed the rest. When we left, the clouds were gone and the sun was out. The temperature had risen while we ate our lunch. When we arrived in Irving, we found out that the temperature was 93. I am very glad that we started early so we reached the motel by 2:00 PM.