This trip was a Christmas gift from my cousins to my sister and me. We all hopped in a truck on Friday and drove towards Kentucky. Friday night we stayed in a nice hotel in Cincinnati and had a lovely time there.
Then Derby day came. We awoke around 6 and took turns showering. I woke up at 5, little insomniac that I am, and began researching our upcoming day. We had tickets in the infield. Now, when you think of the Kentucky Derby you think big hats and clean bleachers and beautiful people with loads of money. Well, the infield is not like that. The infield is like Mardi Gras or Jamboree in the Hills: a drunken mess.
Now I don't mind a drunken mess. But I originally had brought nice dress pants and a shirt to wear to said derby. After viewing pictures of mud wrestling in the infield and reading stories about people dancing on port-a-potties, I opted for a pair of jeans.
So we left Cincinnati for Louisville. As we approached, it started to rain. I brought nothing for the rain (you can't take umbrellas in with you). We stopped at a gas station nearby and I bought a poncho. It was easily the smartest decision I made the whole day.
So we parked the truck and started to head towards the field. It was a decent walk, and it started to rain. This was maybe a little before 11 AM. We got in, got scanned by metal detectors, and entered the infield. It wasn't as packed and we found a place near the first turn to put our chairs down. It continued to rain.
I can't state that enough: it RAINED. It rained for 4 consecutive hours without ever pausing once. We were quickly soaked clear through and shivering because it was also cold in addition to raining.
But we had high hopes: this was the Kentucky Derby, damn it. Let's do some stuff! So we bought a mint julep. If you've never had one before, it's bourbon. And there's some mint. But it's bourbon. I didn't love it, but everyone else HATED it so I drank it.
My friends Nick and Nate (both of whom are fantastic) did a drawing of me enjoying a mint julep when I told them I was going. This is it:
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| Icon Ike up on the scoreboard. |
Turns out Icon Ike runs about as fast as this Ike, and he came in 7th. Gambling sucks. I will never have a gambling problem, because I hate losing much more than I like winning. Also our racing program quickly turned into a sponge, so we had to make up our minds quickly.
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| Our program, near the end. |
After that race we decided to have a look around (it hadn't stopped raining). So we walked under the track through a tunnel to enter the area under the "rich seats". Everyone and their mother was there, to stay out of the rain. It was pretty heinous: thousands of people in a small enclosed space. I had a slight claustrophobia fit as we pushed deeper and deeper into the hoard of people.
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| What a mess. The hat in the front left belongs to my sister. |
As we walked around, it was clear that everywhere was essentially the same: there were places to bet, eat, and buy mint juleps. And that's pretty much it. Your options were: A) to stand out in the rain, freeze, and see a glimpse of a horse race, or B) stand inside where it's warm, not see a horse race, and be crushed by a mass of people.
It was roughly 3 o'clock and we were in our fourth hour of rain. The actual Derby race started at 6:30. At this point I realized there was no way I was staying for that. A text conversation with my mother went something like this:
ME: It hasn't stopped raining. I think we all want to leave.
MA: If you leave you can't get back in.
ME: Yeah. Why would we want to?
MA: To see the parade of roses!
ME: ......I don't think you quite understand what's happening here.
My cousin's coworkers collected money and had her place a large bet on a horse to win the Derby. She did, so we were worried we'd have to stay and watch the damn thing in case they won. But, lo and behold, we learned that if you leave you can mail your winning slip to collect the prize money. Upon learning this, my shivering sister and I cheered and we took a vote: "Who wants to leave?"
It was pretty much unanimous.
So we left. As we sloshed our way out we walked by a drunken gentleman who had laid down a tarp on a small hill and was yelling "SLIP N SLIDE! SLIP N SLIDE! SLIP N SLIDE!". I was too tired to yell "We're ALL wet, asshole! The point of a slip n slide is to cool down in the sun! You may as well be yelling FALL DOWN! FALL DOWN! FALL DOWN! because that's what we'd be doing, ya jagoff."
It was a long walk back to the truck. And we kept passing people going in as we were going out. The drunk college kids I hated when I was in college were still around, just as annoying and stupid as ever. Large masses of people just aren't my thing.
We retreated to our hotel in Lexington. I took a bath, my cousins went to the hotel hot tub. Afterwards we went out to eat at Billy's BBQ. It was delicious: meat that came right off the bone, and it came with a huge slice of cornbread and I tried cheese grits and liked them (so there!).
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| My meal. Not pictured: the green beans. |
I should say that although this sounds like a terrible time, we still kept our spirits about us. My cousin who'd bought the tickets would often break our soaked silences with a hearty "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" and I would laugh every time. Next year she said she was going to chain us to a sturdy tree during a hurricane.
So that was my trip. I got to experience the Kentucky Derby, which involved getting drenched for four hours and watching the actual Derby on TV at the hotel. Congratulations to Orb, the horse that won, although he probably didn't know he was racing. Because he's a horse.
I'm not terribly upset, I got a decently funny story out of the whole thing. Had it not been raining, I'm sure we would've had a blast but that's the way it goes sometimes.
I should mention it kept raining as we left Kentucky THE NEXT DAY. I don't think I'll ever return to Kentucky, since apparently it likes to rain as long as I'm there. But oh well, there are 49 other states where the weather may be more welcoming. I'll stick to trying those.
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