Claude was given two tickets to the Friday evening to KET (Kentucky Entertainment Television) 27th Annual Summer Celebration Cruisin' with KET. What a L O N G title. We have never been to one of these.
Claude tried to get information about dress and other things so we would attend appropriately dressed and ready to participate in whatever the evening presented. He told me his understanding was it was 'festival casual'. What does that mean???? He said something about some people may be in costume. The impression was that we would be in a field on a farm. That was our understanding. I wore khaki slacks, a nice 3/4 length sleeve t-shirt and my newest sneakers. I was the only lady there in sneakers. Such is my life...
This was a fundraiser for KET. The tickets were purchased by Kentucky League of Cities (KLC) for a table. Claude is 1st Vice President and that is why we were offered the tickets.
It was sort of 'in a field'. The location was Donamire Farms. The MapQuest instructions to get there took us through beautiful bluegrass horse farms. These are just the prettiest drives down country lanes. Absolutely gorgeous drive. The entrance gate was large and imposing. The lane into the property was so pretty and came to the front of an enormous home. Simply gorgeous. Claude: "We could live here." Sandi: "I can't keep up with what we currently own. This would require a staff of help!"
The road curved through a farm with several enormous horse barns made of stone, not brick but stone, with huge wooden double doors. Horses live on the high end of life's scale in the Kentucky horse farms.
There was a race tract of dirt and another of sod. The lake on the property was acres of land. This is a piece of it. The owners home overlooked this area from the left side of this picture. Can't see the home but that is where it was located.
Inside Claude presented our tickets and I started to take in our surroundings. Clearly this 'tent' stayed up all the time for all the events this 'farm' could hold. The driveway in front of the tent had a covered place for the valet to take your car. Fans were located in places along the walls and some sides of the tent were up for air flow. The sun was setting.
Claude and I were under the misconception that there would be a car show to enjoy. Well, as we drove the lane into the farm to the tent, there were amazing cars placed at each turn. That was the car show. We walked out of the tent to find the car show and found the next Lexus that Toyota will have coming off it's line this year. There was also a race car with the sides open to view the interior. That was it. Oh, except for the Rolls Royce looking car at check-in.
We wandered down to the end of the tent where the silent auction was held. This was a big part of the fund raising effort for the evening. We placed bids on an oil change and a CD and DVD of John Denver music. These were definitely low bid items and we were the first on the bid list so we were pretty sure we would not get these things, however, if we did, we would have been happy with both items. Someone must have bid higher than us as we never were notified to pay for anything.
Back to our table we went and found other KLC people sitting there. They were already eating so we got in the buffet line. Then we ate while we listened to the band playing some oldies but goodies music. The only problem was the music was so loud you couldn't carry on a conversation with others at the table. We all tried but we each gave up yelling at one another.
We stayed until 10pm and then went to get in line to have the valet retrieve our awesome vehicle. As he came up and walked me around to my door, I said, with a spring in my step and cheer in my voice, "We are the only car with a propeller!!" He got a good chuckle and I left happy we brought a little cheer to this nice man.
I have to say I would have totally been happy to just roam around this farm and take pictures in my sneakers!!!
Saturday my morning was full with attending the baptism of two of my Primary kids. Then I visited Papa for a while before heading back to Sadieville. Claude and I worked on things during the afternoon and then loaded up in the bright yellow Jeep and headed north to Florence, Kentucky. We would attend the Florence Freedom baseball game.
It was a beautiful evening. We got there about a half hour before we thought we would arrive so we sat in that lovely Jeep for a bit. We could hear the speaker inside the ball field and he seemed to be narrating some dog races. That seemed a bit odd. Then two people with huge dogs on leashes were walking them on the grounds around the parking lot. That seemed odd. Claude pulled out the tickets and, wonder-of-wonders, the only night we have found to enjoy just us at the ball park in two years was, ready for it...'Bark at the Park' night. That's right. People were bringing their dogs to the ball park.
Okay, lest you think I am not a lover of animals, I do like animals. However, dog breath over my shoulder or in my face while I'm trying to enjoy a night of fresh air is not my idea of great fun. I asked Claude what he paid for the tickets. He told me. We both felt it was little enough that, if we just couldn't take it, we would leave.
We entered the ball park wondering if the dog owners and dogs would have their own section to sit in. Not so my friend. There were water bowls for the dogs strategically placed through the stadium. There was dog product vendors lining the walls where there wasn't a food vendor. Yep, this was going to be a dog-gone good night.
We purchased our drinks before finding our seats. Then Claude could get us food without worrying about carrying drinks. We watched a couple of endings, then Claude got us burgers and him a hot dog. After the 5th inning we shared a funnel cake. There is something good about ball park food. It is really just plain stuff but it just taste better.
The people two rows in front of us had a dog. I think it was a boy dog. It was dressed in a t-shirt and a tutu. Later on, I understood why. One of the events was a contest for the 'best dressed dog'. This dog was to enter the competition. There were four dogs entered. My two favorites were these.
They always have interesting little bits of amusement throughout the game. Between innings or as the teams swap which team is in the field. My two favorites this time were the eyeball race and the underwear race.
The eyeball race was sponsored by an eye clinic and would have been their advertisement. Big plastic air filled eye balls were placed on three peoples heads and upper body. Each eyeball had a different color pupil: blue, brown, green. There was a little hole so the runners could see where they were running. They came in from center field and ran from 2nd base to home plate. Hysterical.
The underwear race was two enormous, and I do mean enormous, men's tidy whities. They had 6 boys, 3 on each team. One straddled the inside legs of the underwear. The other two boys were each inside a leg of the underwear. They were to run from 1st base to home plate. Whichever team got to home plate first was the winner. Reality was, the team that fell first knew they would lose. This didn't happen until they reached 3rd base. Lots of time for us to laugh and enjoy this unique race.
We made it all the way through the game, dogs and all. It was a great night to be able to be out in that fresh air and enjoy ball park food together.
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