They Call It A River

Last night DD & SIL1 took us to Hall's on the River for supper.  It's about 30 minutes from Lexington up a narrow, twisty road out into the boonies.  It reminded me of rural Wisconsin supper clubs, all wood paneling with handmade tables and chairs and at a crossroads where it's about the only thing around, but there weren't any stuffed things on the walls.  Snappy Beer Cheese is their signature appetizer.  It's good, comes on a plate with crackers, pretzels, carrots, celery, and radishes for scooping up the cheese.  I especially like the radishes with the cheese on top, and the dip/spread comes in a shallow plastic tub with a lid so you can take home the leftovers.  Beer cheese sounded real Wisconsin-y to me but the menu was anything but Wisconsin-y.  I had spicy shrimp & grits with a puck of greens on top.  It was out of this world delicious, even the greens and I'm not usually a cooked leaves fan.  Durwood had crab cakes without the mustard and horseradish-laden remoulade sauce that he intelligently ordered on the side.  DD had a Hot Brown, a singular Kentucky "sandwich" and SIL1 had a beer cheese burger with what I thought was a fillet of fish on top but turned out to be a battered and fried banana pepper.  He also made Durwood's "too hot for him" remoulade sauce go away by dipping his fries in it.  I tried it, it was very tasty.

After we'd ordered I took the camera out onto the deck to see the river.  Well.  It might be a river in Kentucky but it'd be a creek in Wisconsin.  It was very low and looked like it was barely moving but I'm a big fan of rivers/creeks/streams that have carved their beds through rock so I liked it a lot no matter what they call it.  It was a very peaceful spot for a meal and if it hadn't been so blamed hot and humid I'd have lobbied to eat outside.

We drove back sort of into the sunset and I managed to snap this one picture out the backseat window of the van when the twisty road gave me a sort of side view of the setting sun.  If the road had been wider or if there had been any kind of shoulder I'd have made DD pull over so I could take a proper picture but this was a country road, paved was its major attribute.

I knitted the first repeat of the Virgo Hat, even managed to drop down six stitches, one at a time, to fix a major boo-boo close to the ribbing.  Two more repeats to go before decreasing for the crown.  This is a nice, easy pattern.  I like it.

September 2--Peter Armenia, Birch Tree.  Jan kicked a small box when she stepped out the front door to get the mail.  It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.  "To Janet" was printed in marker on the top.  No one called her Janet.  Her mom had but she'd been gone for years.  Jan turned the box over to see if there was anything else written on it but there wasn't.  There wasn't even a postmark so it hadn't been delivered by the mailman.  She looked up and down the street.  No one was in sight and the only car was Mr. Anderson's ancient Buick baking to a uniform ashen green in the sun.  She hesitated to take the six-inch cube of a box inside the house.  She didn't know why.  The package was too light to be a bomb.  In fact, it felt so light she thought it might be empty.

Today we seek out a AAA office to plot a route home that avoids the snarl that is road construction in Louisville.  Big plans but then it is our vacation.  We're vacating like crazy, naps and knitting and family time and eating.  What could be better?
--Barbara