Part 4: Kentucky Fried....Continued

Just a quick round-up on some other goings on in Kentucky other than climbing. What an awesome place.

Other Goings On:

To be honest I didn’t really climb as much as I thought while being here, I think I probably averaged about 3 days a week all up. Other than climbing I mostly hung out in the Miguel’s restaurant getting to know the staff pretty well and drinking far too much filtered coffee (when in Rome right?).

I also very luckily managed to score some ah “volunteer” work at the Rock House, which is a local restaurant down the road from Miguel’s. The guy who runs it is an absolute legend and the guys working in the kitchen are hilarious, it’s been a really fun place to work and will make the trip go just  a little longer. They also make some of the biggest burritos you’ve ever seen. De-licious!

This photo is un-bear-able..........sorry.

The weather here is also pretty up and down, apparently it was super wet just before I got here which explains why the car parks were a muddy catastrophe and at the end of November it got super cold, like 10 degrees below zero cold. Luckily me and Scotty insulated the shit out of the van. One cool thing that came from the cold weather was the formation of massive icicles at the top of the cliffs which as they melted in the warming weather would come crashing down with a huge rumble echoing around the crag as we were climbing. Made things pretty exciting for a couple of days! Had to watch your step walking in though, a giant icicle to the head would end the trip real quick. 

I call them Death-cicles

I also got to experience a proper American thanks giving. Scotty and Lina invited me back to spend the holiday with them and their family, which was bloody amazing. After helping chef Scotty do some cooking during the day we all sat down to a huge meal together of turkey, country ham, mash potato, pumpkin soup, stuffing and green bean casserole with pumpkin pie to finish. Then with some glasses of wine under the belt, was schooled in the finer points of American football, which if I’m going to be honest, was pretty enjoyable to watch. Thanks for letting the uncultured aussie crash your day guys, had a blast!

The man knows his turkeys alright.

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Apart from that my time mostly consisted of sitting on my laptop in cafes and eating way to much food! The Food here is so damn good. I’ve been enjoying all the sweet fatty things you don’t see back home, biscuits and gravy baby, holy shit, and corn bread, the best! Not to mention all the fast food which I'm trying to sample some of each, Waffle House, Wendy’s, IHOP, Five Guys, Applebees, Arbys, Chipotle, Chillis, Dennys, Cracker Barrel, Dairy Queen, the list goes on. There are also so many candy bars here that you don’t get back home (new addiction to reeses pieces chocolate bars). Ive definitely put on at least five kilos since being here, sad face. So enjoyable though.

Deep fried to perfection!

Where the magic happens.

Now to Really Hit the Road:

So that’s about all of everything I got up to in Kentucky. Met some awesome people, did some bad arse climbing, ate some amazing/terrible/”god damn it, why did I just eat that whole thing” food and hung out with some good mates. Off to Chattanooga now for some hiking around for a couple days then more climbing and bouldering before Canada for Christmas. Missing everyone back home for sure, big hugs and kisses for everyone back home, or just a high five if kisses from heterosexual males isn’t your thing. See you all on Facebook soon.

Laterz