Our first time in Kentucky: Horseback riding + trying a Hot Brown burger!

If we had written down what our perfect Kentucky day would have been, it would have been today. Hello from the Bluegrass State. It is our first time here in Kentucky, minus the tiny sliver we were in in our last vlog. We are so excited to spend the next couple days getting a little glimpse of what the state is all about. And we're starting off with the most iconic Kentucky thing we could think of, horseback riding. Before we get started, we thought we'd share a few fun facts and history about horses here in Kentucky, at least from what Google told us. So here in the Bluegrass region, there's a lot of limestone under the surface, which is super rich in calcium, which makes very nutritious grass, which therefore makes very strong and healthy horses. And the mild climate here in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky makes it a great place to raise and breed horses. And now today there's tons of horse races all over the state, including the most famous, the Kentucky Derby, which is known as the most exciting two minutes in sports. We also read, and we're not sure if it's true, that there's one person for every 12 horses here in the state. Even though we are from Texas, where the running joke when you tell someone from out of state that you're from Texas is, where's your horse? Or do you ride a horse to school? We basically have zero experience riding horses, so we are so excited to give this a shot. Today we're going to be riding at Big Red Stables, which is near Lexington, Kentucky, which is the horse capital of the world. The owners, Emily and Drew, are some of the nicest people ever. We've really enjoyed getting to know them, hearing about the history of their farm, and they even let us park our van here last night and sleep here, which was very much appreciated. So even though we have yet to touch a horse, we're already having the best time. I'll be riding today. Her name is Shadow. This is the horse I'm gonna be riding. Name's Sunny. Super soft. I did it! First try! All right, here we go. This is awesome. I'm doing great. This is fun. All right. A little scary, but we made it. Feeling good on the walking part. Feeling comfortable there, but then when we pick up some speed to the canter, it gets a little bumpy. So you gotta, you're supposed to use your feet a little more to kind of stand up a little bit and kind of roll with the bumps and the joltiness. So gotta get a little more comfortable there, but it's been fun so far. Awesome out here. Nice crisp day. Perfect for it. All right, about to go through a creek. That was cool. It was like knee high, huh? So if you see out there, there's a silo and the barn, the stable. That's where we started. The whole property is over 200 acres. Oh wow. This is great. I feel like I'm constantly just trying to remember everything I was taught, but so far we've stayed between the horse, which was the advice we were given. No one's fallen. That and remember to breathe and our coach is doing awesome here, making us feel real comfortable. Yeah, breathing is apparently the number one tip and you forget after doing this. You do kind of clench up, but you just don't want to breathe. But me and Shadow, we're having a great time. Oh. I'm out of breath from that last canter. I wish the camera could see my face as soon as Shadow starts to pick up the pace. My face is normally like, and I'm like, but that time I was actually kind of smiling the whole time and I was trying to breathe. I was like, and just like, oh man. I honestly didn't expect for us to go that fast today and I was kind of nervous, but I feel pretty comfortable. I think I'm enjoying it. It's a lot of fun. Every time, as soon as we start going faster, it kind of reminds me of the Alpine coasters. I just instantly like start giggling like nonstop. I just can't control it. It's a lot of fun. Kind of scary, but a lot of fun. Not graceful, but I did it. That was 1,000 times more graceful than me getting off the horse. So the horses here, they're not just in the stable all the time. They actually have about 15 acres just to roam around. So we're taking them to this little fenced area while we're trying to. Adams is really, really hungry. You like that camera too, huh? I know we're a bit of a broken record by now, but that was just truly so much fun. So incredible. The horses were, it was just, I don't know what to say. It was amazing. Yeah. I mean, we had never really, really ridden a horse. And so this was like our first real experience with it, like we said, but man, like Emily was so awesome and like coaching us throughout the whole way and telling us what to do and make sure we breathe. And yeah, it was just so fun to go out on the property. It was just beautiful. So beautiful. Even on this kind of gloomy day and we weren't expecting to get to canter and all that. And although it was a little scary at times, it totally made the experience even better. So just to give y'all an idea of how much this cost and kind of all the options. So we paid $65 a person for the hour and a half long ride. They have other options though, both in the time length as well as location. You can go off the property too, but that's just the option we did. And we highly recommend what we did. We did like the mid level one. There's an hour long and then there's one that's two plus hours, I believe. And they take you to another beautiful area. And yeah, this was awesome. Awesome. We're running out of words to say, but thank you, Emily and Drew, for not only letting us sleep here last night, but for giving us such an awesome experience, being patient with us, with us noobs and showing us the ropes. It's not going to be our last time we go horseback riding. Yeah, but it is getting late in the afternoon. We haven't eaten a bite today, getting real hungry after that ride. So it's time to go eat. Stuff our face. On our way to lunch, we are going to go on the Pisgah Pike and later the Old Frankfurt Pike for just a little bit. But these pikes are scenic byways in Kentucky that take you through like these giant pastures, like horse pastures and horse farms. The trees like cover the road. There's the black fencing along the road. There's also stone walls along the road as well. And a lot of them, they keep their pastures really pristine and really mowed really nice. So it's just a beautiful drive so far. There's also a freaking castle in Kentucky. It's this massive castle in this city town called Versailles, I think is how you pronounce it. And it's elaborate and gorgeous and beautiful and so random. For lunch, we came to a little place called Wallace Station, which came highly recommended to us to try a twist on a Kentucky classic. So here in Kentucky, they have a classic dish called a hot brown, which is an open face sandwich. So it's bread, turkey, tomato and bacon, and then a cheddar or cheesy Mornay sauce on top. And they broil it so the bread gets nice and crispy. And then on top, the cheese gets nice and brown. It sounds so delicious. And then here at Wallace Station, they have a big brown burger. So there's a burger patty in there. And you also have the other side of the bread. This one has ham on there. There's the tomato, the bacon, and then the cheesy sauces in there. Oh, this bread looks so good. We're so hungry. This sounds ridiculously so... Oh man, please stop talking. Oh my god. Alright, so we knew coming into this place that Guy Fieri had been here and we love our Triple D places. And I just read on the menu up there that when he came, he said this is one of his top five burgers, I guess, that he had tried at the time. And I'm gonna agree with him. This is one of the best burgers I've ever had. It's so, oh man, meaty. The bread is so good. The cheese is ridiculous. Way better than like American or cheddar cheese. Bacon is salty. The ham is good and salty. Oh man, the tomato adds a little acid. I'm gushing over this thing. It's so good. And I kind of have a weird assortment of foods for lunch. So I can't really eat many things here. It's a lot of just sandwiches and bread. So I got two different kinds of soups and fries. So this is their bourbon something chili, which has beef, two different types of beans and some other good stuff in there. And I got it loaded with sour cream and cheese on top. And then I saw they had tomato soup today. And I was like, well, that sounds really good, too, because it's really cold out. So it's like perfect soup weather. So I got tomato soup as well. And I'm thinking like this kind of weird combo. I'm thinking the fries are gonna be really, really good dipped in the chili. So I'm really, really very excited about this. These fries are off the chain. They are so crispy. Perfection. I just had to steal a bite of this. Wow, that cheese sauce. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, it's so salty and creamy. Oh my gosh, the flavors are amazing. This buns really good too. Dang it. I wish I could eat the whole burger. That's so good. Before we got to Kentucky, if we had written down what our perfect Kentucky day would have been, it would have been today. Riding horses, seeing cool farmland, driving on cool little back roads, eating delicious food. Today was just truly like the perfect Kentucky day. And while Kentucky is quite a bit different than the places we've been recently, we've been doing a lot more mountainous type stuff. The scenery here is still absolutely breathtaking, which is all of the green farmland and the roads. Like I said, it's just I'm loving it. We really wish we would have planned more time to be here so that we could check out some other stuff around the area, do some more activities, but it has just been a pleasant surprise. We've loved it so far, but we do have one more day left and we're going to check out some nature.