Our Trip to Kentucky

We had a really good trip. We left on Thursday morning and headed to Nashville. We took Tres over to his parents house and spent a couple of hours there talking to his the Boemers, and also going through some of Hank's old stuff. Mrs. Boemer had found some pictures of Hank growing up. I am not going to tell you what they are, I am just going to post and let you make comments... they are interesting. It will be a few days, since we will have to find somewhere to scan them in. She had also found some old report cards, mother's day cards (that he had made), his bracelet from the hospital when he was born, etc. It was fun to go through it. While Tres was occupied in the sand box, we snuck out and headed over to Jackie and Danny Butler's house. From there we all went and had Mexican since it was Cinco de Mayo. It was good food, but the restaurant was so crowded! Then Jackie and I did some shopping for appropriate "Derby Wear" at Kohl's and Target. I bought a hat (which will try to post a picture of later, depending on when Danny & Jackie get a chance to e-mail pictures!)
After that we went back to their house and watched National Treasure and headed to bed. We left out at 7:30 am for Kentucky. It was a 2 1/2 hour ride and we went straight to Churchill Downs (the race track). Friday is not the Kentucky Derby. It is known as the Oaks. Races go on all day, leading up to the main event race (Race # 10, I think) called the Oaks Race. I actually placed a bet on the Oaks race and won! Let me just say this. I hope this doesn't offend anyone. We looked at this as a vacation... we set aside money, knowing we would spend it (or loose it). We do not gamble in our everyday lives, this is just for fun... like going to the movies or dinner or to see a play.
Hank and I took a certain amount of money, and placed extremely conservative bets. We just about broke even on Oaks Day.
Derby Day was crazy!! We were at the track by 8 am to claim our spot on the fence. There were over 150,000 people there! It was wild!! You should have seen all the hats and dresses. There was more silicone in that stadium than in a doctor's office!! Derby also had a slight feel of Mardi Gras. There were a lot of beads being handed out, and you can guess what people were doing for them. There were also a lot of drunk people stumbling around (which did not make sense to me. You pay good money for tickets, only to spend more money on drinks ($6-$10 per drink), just so your memory is hazy on how you spent your day? Stupid!).
We saw some pretty cool stuff, too. In the paddock area... where they bring the horses in to saddle and prepare for the race... they commission a painter each year to paint a portrait that will be used on the tickets for the following year. We saw that being painted. Also, I just loved watching the horses. They are gorgeous! Some of you know, I grew up on a farm, riding and showing horses, so I was loving it! At our seats, they would walk the horses past us before each race (almost like our own personal parade). One time, they were being led past us and one of the guys in our group asked the young man leading a horse "Is he going to win?" And the young hispanic answered "I don't think so." Very honest... we did not place a bet on that horse... and he did not win! Funny, huh? It got very hot on Saturday, so Hank and I spent some of the time finding shade. About noon or so, we place a bet on a race. We placed a $2 Exacta Box. This is where you pick 3 horses, and if 2 of the 3 come in first and second, you win. Well, it was a controversial race... but when the dust settled, Hank and I had won over $200!! Can you believe it! I immediately put that in my purse, and we didn't touch it. So after all was said and done, we came home with the exact amount of money we spent on the entire trip!! Gas, food, bets, entry, etc! We were even able to take Hank's mom to lunch and buy my mom's mother's day present with it! I'm just glad we didn't loose. It was so funny... you would see Joe Dirt Poor in line next to Joe Millionare. Joe Dirt would place bets for $1-$5 dollars... Joe Millionare for $1,000-$10,000... amazing! We did place a bet on the main event, the Kentucky Derby. We did not win, however. Because a long shot won! And when I say long, I mean long. If I had placed a $5 bet on Giacomo to win, I would have won hundreds of dollars. If we had done a $2 Exacta, we would have won around $9,800. The big winner would have been the Super Fecta (I'm not sure what that is) but they would have won $1.7 million. It blows my mind!! The amount of money being thrown around at this place was staggering. I read in the paper the next day that over $90 million dollars in bets were placed on just the Kentucky Derby race alone!!
Anyway, after that we went and had dinner and went to bed!! We got up and had breakfast and headed home to pick up our boys after that.
It was a fun, interesting, and eye-opening trip. I would like to do it again!