# Short but epic Kentucky adventure



## salxtina (Mar 31, 2016)

So things were about to get pretty busy for me in New England, and I realized this might be my last chance to get out of the northeast for a while, so I decided to get down to Kentucky while I had the chance.

First off, I had almost impossibly good luck hitchhiking. Made great time. And it was like real spring down there! Flowers on the trees already and all.
Lost my wallet on a local bus, but it was returned to me, just, without my cash in it. :-\

I stayed with two friends of mine in Lexington and Berea, who I hadn't seen since I was living in east Tennessee. We'd spent a lot of the summer together last year, and I'd cooked at an action camp with them.

We decided to all hit up some art galleries together, they were free, there's actually quite a lot of them in Lex. At one of them, this woman had sown dozens of cloth plushie rifles entitled "OK-47." Check it out.
www.nataliebaxter.com/warm-gun/

At the next, there was a whole series of paintings based on the major arcana of the Tarot deck. Which prompted me to tell my friend about a witch doctor I'd met three years ago, who read my fortune at a little festival and given me stunningly-accurate information about situations I'd later find myself in. So the gallery attendant looked up and said, "I know her! Let me see what she's up to!" looked on her computer, and scribbled down some information for me.

And this resulted in me hitchhiking two hours east to see this woman again the next day, where she had a storefront set up in a small town out in the hills. My friend was going to drive me there, but something came up at the last minute. I guess I was meant to go alone. It was good to see the holistic health stuff she was doing there, feel like I learned something, and we looked over the cards she'd read for me again. She asked if I wanted her to do a new reading, but I felt like it was important for me not to pick up any assumptions or expectations that I might read into whatever's happening next right now.

Berea's a really cute town. I only got to stay four days but it was worth it, also somebody gifted me heart-shaped sunglasses.
This is a public sculpture there that I was particularly into:






So I headed back north and again, crazy good luck hitchhiking. I stopped in Jersey to see some old friends, and then these two guys in a pickup drove me all the way back to Albany. They were on their way to go camping and four-wheeling, their bromance was truly a thing of joy to behold.

The woman who drove me home was an antique dealer from New Hampshire, also really into Rainbow gathering and super-excited for the national in the White Mountains this year. (!?!!) (I think she's got me convinced and I'm gonna have to go there too.) 

I got back to Vermont just in time for my college graduation, which I feel weird about. Idk. Ceremony is wasted on me, but now I have a BA. Today I started a seasonal job at a plant nursery, so I'll be saving up some money for the next couple months, then hitting the road again at the end of June.
Figure I'll explore Red River Gorge first, then... Colorado?? No idea really.


----------



## Kim Chee (Apr 1, 2016)

Congratulations on achieving your BA!

I'm sure it took a lot of hard work, I hope you do good things with it,

Sorry you lost cash, but kinda sweet you still have your wallet

I'm hoping whoever took it needed it because life is tough, not because they they make life tough or just to buy pleasures.


----------



## Tude (Apr 1, 2016)

Sounds like it was a great trip overall!! And congrats on the degree


----------



## salxtina (Apr 1, 2016)

Thanks yall! Yeah, I don't really hold it against whoever took my money.
It's wild to think how I would have finished school like four years ago if I'd stayed on the normal college track. Tbh, when I see people my age who are locked into professional career-building and ladder-climbing, I just think, _there but for the grace of god... _Feel like I dodged a bullet there or something.


----------

