No Destination: 5-6-09

I just realized that I never wrote about my first “No Destination” drive. It occurred in early May – immediately after my last law school exam. I picked up two Pepsis and a bag of Fritos and hit the road. The purpose of the drive was simply that – to drive. Consequently, I didn’t take as many pictures as I have on more recent No Destination sojourns.

I traveled down U.S. 27 from Nicholasville past Camp Nelson and across the Kentucky River in order to take KY-152 over Lake Herrington and to Burgin and even further, to Harrodsburg. While I gloss over the drive down 152, one cannot easily forget the beautiful topography of this part of the Commonwealth – rolling hills and seemingly endless praries, streams and rivers.

Once in Harrodsburg, I drove down a busy Main Street with its many shops. The most fun of my trip came up US-127 from Harrodsburg. With an eye open for historical markers, I finally decided to take breaks with my camera. In the small Mercer County ville of McAfee (est. 1779), I saw a nice little church. New Providence Presbyterian – so named because during a 1773 exploration of the area, the McAfee Company neared starvation until a deer was found, killed and eaten. The current church was built from 1861-1864 and the church cemetery was amazing – truly calming.

Down one small road, I saw a farmer using his horses to prepare the soil for tilling. Down another small road, I meandered down to the Kentucky River (and saw a wild turkey!). I’m not sure if I met the river at Warwick or Oregon – each was a ‘major’ shipping port for flatboats and steamboats destined for New Orleans. I sat down a few feet away from the river and watched it pass by. It was exactly the calm I needed. After leaving my spot by the river, I worked my way up a different road (Cummins Ferry) to make my way back to US-127 – then to Lawrenceburg. US-60 to Versailles and then my usual path home to Nicholasville.

I did manage to snap a few pictures:

Anderson County Courthouse – Lawrenceburg, Ky.

So . . . Anderson County has an amazing courthouse. The picture above really doesn’t do it justice. I don’t know a lot about architectural styles, but this building is a pretty amazing combination of the ornate and the simple. Huge cupola that rises tall above this small town, some really amazing Corinthian columns all on top of a base of irregular limestone bricks.
I couldn’t find much about the courthouse online anywhere, but I found a TON about the statute in the foreground. It’s one of Kentucky’s many Confederate war memorials. According to Wikipedia, (sorry), it was installed in 1894, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. Interestingly, the statute is not of a general – instead, it’s a Confederate soldier in winter clothes.