In Photos: Cherokee Park at Big Rock

"All this, dear children, belongs to you..." Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline and the Gypsies

On beautiful fall days like this one, my girls and I like to walk to Big Rock in nearby Cherokee Park. Some days we wear our rain boots to walk on the rocks, feed the ducks, and splash in the shallowest part of Beargrass Creek. We always spend time on the playground, and sometimes we walk through the woods to the huge rock that gives this section of the park its name. We also like exploring the historic Gaulbert Pavilion, which was built in the early 1900s and was recently restored. The columns frame the landscape beautifully—and they're perfect for climbing, too. We think this is one of the prettiest spots in all of Louisville.

The Sartorial Side of Keeneland

I’ve often thought I’d like to see the cast of Jersey Shore navigate a fish-out-of-water setting. Instead of putting them in their native New Jersey, or flashy Miami, or even Italy (where they’ve done nothing but make all Americans look like tasteless rubes), why not take them out of their natural habitat and send them to the most WASP-ish place on earth, the Keeneland clubhouse? I think America would enjoy seeing the Situation be forced to put on a blue blazer over a velour Ed Hardy track suit. We’d love watching Snooki be escorted out by one of those sweet elderly ushers, mascara streaming down her face, after a day of behaving badly. Actually, let’s face it: she wouldn’t last five minutes.

Keeneland chic is anti-Jerseylicious; it’s low-key, well-bred, and effortless by definition. The perfect outfit for a fall day at Keeneland has been the same since the track opened in 1936: brown leather boots, a tweed dress, a cashmere cardigan, pearls. Too much shine or bling is a fatal mistake. If you look like you’re trying too hard, you’ve missed the whole point.

There’s a difference between dressing for Churchill Downs and Keeneland, and I think that difference can be distilled down to one factor: effort. At Keeneland, everyone does try; the key is to make the right amount of effort: not too little, but definitely not too much.

Churchill Downs, bless its heart, has an anything goes, Bourbon Street quality. Especially at night racing, it’s all gluttony, excess, and pimp hats. If pimp hats seem out of place at Keeneland, it’s because there’s no dance party in the paddock. The paddock there is used for more traditional paddock purposes—horse viewing, people watching, and strutting of one’s stuff. At night racing, the main use of the Churchill Downs paddock is an after-dark dance party with someone called “DJ Squeeze.”

I’m not knocking the dance party. I want Churchill Downs to thrive on days other than Derby Day, and night racing truly brings out people from all walks of life and packs them into the massive new structure that is Churchill Downs. All God’s children go to night racing, and they fill in every section and level of seats according to the pre-appointed social position prescribed by their ticket or, Lord-willing, Turf Club pin. Of course, there are portions of the track that will forever remain pimp hat-free; the best place to watch the paddock carnivale is from a perch high above, where the dress code is more Lilly than Snooki.

What I love about Keeneland, though, is its lack of flash, its quiet dignity. It’s where we Kentuckians go when we want to be on our best behavior, and we know to adhere to its old-school dress codes and decorum. All our statewide vices may be on parade—the bourbon, the tobacco, the gambling—but for the most part we try to bring our best manners with us, too.

We may live in a Jerseyfied world, but as long as there's a Keeneland, there'll be at least one place where a classic strand of pearls trumps rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses, where men are required to wear jackets, and women are strongly encouraged to act like ladies. And we mostly do—even as we carry flasks full of Four Roses in our purses. Snooki could learn a thing or two.

My Kentucky: Lexington Born and Louisville Bred

I was born in Lexington but grew up in Louisville, among a family of storytellers whose tales are so tied to this place that the stories and their settings are impossible to separate. When I was a child, my family would get in the car and embark on a family history tour of Louisville. We’d visit the sites of my grandmother’s stories, and she’d come along to narrate. Hearing her tales was and still is fascinating; it gave even the most mundane places in my hometown a sense of personal history.

Because of those stories and that tradition, my Kentucky is all tied up with the places where life has unfolded.

My Kentucky is the old JP Kayrouz, where my mother would take me for Benedictine sandwiches on days I was off of school. It’s dashing across the street to Plehn’s Bakery for almond macaroons after lunch, and I swear those macaroons still taste like freedom.

My Kentucky is the St. Matthews Woman’s Club, where I put on white gloves and went through a receiving line every Friday night of my early adolescence. It’s the agony and the ecstasy of Southern cotillion rituals; it's surviving it all somehow and being rewarded with a cookie and a bottle of Coke at the end of the night.

My Kentucky is that stretch of road on Frankfort Avenue, where as a teenager I once experienced the transcendence that only a newly-earned drivers license and a song by the Cranberries can provide.

My Kentucky is heading to Dee’s Crafts each April to design my Derby hat. It’s the ability to pair the hat with the ribbon with the flowers to coordinate with the dress. It’s the instinct, possessed by Louisville girls, that dictates exactly how much is too much; it's knowing to stop just before you cross that line.

My Kentucky is the BW-3’s in St. Matthews, where I met my husband through mutual friends as we gathered to watch UK play in the Maui Invitational Tournament. It’s the corner of Breckinridge Lane and Shelbyville Road, where we shared a thrilling first kiss a few months later. (As my grandmother would say, “He chased me until I caught him.”)

My Kentucky is the bridge I crossed to leave for Chicago when I was a new bride. It was the same bridge that brought us home for good with our first baby a few years later. (Incidentally, don’t get us Louisvillians started on the topic of bridges).

My Kentucky is the Highlands home I share with my husband and two young daughters. It’s drinking wine and playing cards on the porch after the girls go to bed. It’s the tree-lined streets where we walk and drive, the restaurants where we eat, the parks where we play. It’s stopping for coffee at the Heine Brothers in Douglass Loop, and knowing that my great-grandparents once shopped at the market there. It’s the comfort of knowing that the places that once were theirs are mine now.

Kentucky fits me in a way no place else does, and living here gives me the opportunity to share this place with my two little girls. How could I ever properly pass Kentucky along to them if we lived anywhere else? It’s more than a story I could tell them, or a recipe I could make for them. It’s more than wearing Wildcat blue or a Derby hat. Kentucky can be appreciated in pieces, from afar, but you have to live every day among its places and its people to truly understand.