Random musings after two weeks in Louisville.

I’ve been here almost two weeks and the weather was unseasonably mild most of that time. It was great, but real KY summer weather showed up 2-3 days ago: 95 degrees F and humid. Now that I think of it, the hot weather pretty much showed up promptly on the summer solstice, June 20th. Figures. Long, hot days…classic Kentucky summer. When I was young I could run, practice football, play basketball, do hard labor at the lumberyard in this heat and not really feel it. Now if I try to just walk a half mile in this heat I’m gasping. Not good.

One big unknown in my lack of fitness is whether I’ve actually had COVID-19 or not. I spent quite a bit of sleepless time last night thinking about it, and I’ve got myself convinced that I did in fact have it. A mild case, correlating to my O blood type. The symptoms were there – a cough that lasted 3 weeks, a sore throat, extreme fatigue, and then later coughing up phlegm as I recovered. I still don’t have the lung capacity or ability to exert myself that I did in January. So I’m self-classifying myself as one of the recovered. I’ll still socially distance and wear masks around others indoors (I’m convinced, but not reckless/stupid).

I’ve now driven to Ashland and back twice to visit my Dad (who’s doing fine, picture below with Phyllis in their isolation chamber), and the drive is beautiful but tedious. Green, green, green…so much green. Basically it’s a drive through 200 miles of forest with just an occasional pasture or river. The green satisfies a deep need in me, but six hours of it at a time (round trip)…that’s the tedious part.

Had a great Father’s Day with Emily and the grandkids (picture below). Spent lots of time with them (that’s pretty much the point of this trip), and Emily took me to a wine bar I’ve wanted to visit: Cuvee Wine Table. Great place, and we had lots of 2 ounce tasters of wines from all over. My favorite was a 2012 Gran Reserva Rioja.

The new season of Yellowstone started on Father’s Day. Absolutely love that show, and it’s Costner’s best role ever. I plan to go back and watch all the episodes from the first two seasons – it’s that good.

I thought of one other KY name for a creek: “ford”. I’ll add that to the original list.