Natural Bridge

School and life are crazy as usual, but I wanted to make another blog post because it's been a week or two since my last one!

So, about a month ago, I was sitting at home and decided it was about time for another adventure. I texted my friend Ashley and told her we needed to go exploring, asked if she would like to go to Natural Bridge in Slade, Kentucky, and told her to be ready by 10:00 am sharp the next day.

Luckily, the day we chose just happened to be one of those randomly gorgeous sunny and warm enough to wear a sweatshirt as long as you keep moving and don't sit for too long type of days...

And after what felt like weeks of the sun hiding behind clouds, this day felt like a little slice of spring in the middle of winter.

BUT! Anyway, Natural Bridge State Resort Park offers lots of different hiking trails ranging in length from a quarter of a mile to 7.5 miles, and in difficulty from easy to strenuous. According to their website, this state park contains at least 12 different hiking trails.

Because we wanted to get back before dark and Natural Bridge is about an hour east of Lexington (in Slade, KY), we chose to do The Original Trail (.75 miles) on the way up to the bridge, and The Balanced Rock Trail (.75 miles) on the way down. It probably took us about half an hour to climb up to the top, and another half an hour to get back to where we'd parked the car.

Depending on your level of experience/fitness these trails could take more or less time, just as a warning. However, I also have a knack for stopping every 20 feet to take a picture with my fancy camera when I hike, so that adds a bit of time as well...

Although sometimes you get some lovely pictures like this if you're lucky, so the extra time is totally worth it! (I was loving the light and my little camera remote on this trip!)



The top of the bridge offers one of the best views you can get while hiking in Kentucky... We went in the middle of winter, so obviously the trees were fairly bare, but the lookout was still very pretty!

One of these days I want to come back here again because I've heard of a place called the Froggy Bottom Diner that I'd like to try, so hopefully that'll happen soon! (And another blog post will ensue, of course.)


Also, Natural Bridge is surrounded by Red River Gorge, which I've also heard is great hiking and even rock climbing... Unfortunately I haven't managed to actually hike or climb in the gorge yet, but I hope to over the summer!

So, if you're looking for a great place to enjoy the outdoors in Kentucky, the city of Slade offers some great trails that lead to great views!

Thanks for reading! More to come soon...

North Lime Coffee and Donuts

I just now made a very sad discovery... Apparently although I love this local coffee shop and visited here at least 4 times over winter break, I never wrote a blog post about it, and that's just sad.

So! Here goes... North Lime Coffee and Donuts. Yum. In case you haven't noticed yet, I am very fond of coffee, and I love getting it from random local places especially. I also have the worst sweet tooth in the world, and donuts are one of my favorite breakfast foods.

Obviously, just from the name you can tell this is my kind of place.

Located near downtown in Lexington, KY,  North Lime Coffee and Donuts offers delicious, freshly roasted coffee from a local Lexington roaster (Nate's Coffee, to be exact!) as well as a variety of donuts made from scratch. They also offer free wifi, which is always a plus.

My favorite drink that I've tried so far was a "wet" cappuccino with a shot of caramel. When I'm in need of caffeine, I go for as much espresso as possible, and a wet cappuccino is very similar to a latte, just with a little extra espresso.

Anyway, in my humble opinion they also have the best plain glazed donuts around, and the fact that their donuts are square instead of round makes me happy... They also offer many other flavors daily: chocolate iced, cinnamon sugar, funnel cake, and cinnamonkeys, plus a monthly special that changes depending on when you stop by.

So far, I've never had anything from here that wasn't wonderfully sugar-coma inducing, and I highly recommend adding this to your list of places to grab coffee or breakfast in the morning because there's nothing better than caffeine and sugar from a local Kentucky coffee shop to make you feel alive!

If only I wasn't in Morehead right now, I'd probably be making this blog post from one of the tables at North Lime... Seriously stop by!

Also, they now have two locations: the original at 575 N Limestone St. and another at 3101 Clays Mill Rd. 

Hours and more available on their website: http://www.northlimelex.com/index.php

La Petite Crêperie

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted again, but I'm really excited about this post.

About a month ago, my mom and I woke up and wanted to go to breakfast at a local place in Lexington. So, I checked this list of places I'd come up with that I wanted to visit before the break, and one of those places was La Petite Crêperie, located on Kentucky Ave.

I actually just checked their website (http://petitecreperie.com), and apparently they're closed for the rest of the winter and will re-open when warmer weather returns.

Still, this restaurant deserves to be written about, and I'm just glad we managed to go before they took a break for the season.

La Petite Crêperie is a traditional french café serving only crepes and salads as far as food is concerned. They offer many different crepe options, including both sweet and savory versions of the thin pancake-like dish. The salad options also looked great, but since it was early in the morning, we were ready for some crepes and coffee to start the day off right.


Not knowing exactly what to expect when we got there, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that La Petite Crêperie is actually a very affordable place to eat.

First, their crepes were only around $5 or $6 to begin with, and extra fillings or toppings were only $0.50-$1.00 extra. Even their salads are all under $7.

Plus, at least when we went early in the morning, the woman working there told us the coffee was free. So, I got this bowl-worth of coffee for no extra cost.

Then, when my mom got her apple crepe, and I got my lemon one, we were both amazed by how tasty and filling they were for such a small cost.

Also, the story of how the two women who own La Petite Crêperie got their start is pretty cool. To summarize what I learned on their website, the restaurant is owned by two women.

One of these women was born in the US, but travelled and studied throughout France. While she was there, she fell in love with the crepe, and missed them when she returned.

The other was born and raised in France before eventually moving to the US, working in many French restaurants as she was growing up, and bringing a great knowledge of French recipes with her to the states.

Between the two, they decided it was time for a place like Lexington, KY to enjoy some truly French cuisine (without the high cost generally associated with French restaurants).

So, La Petite Crêperie became a great addition to the city I call my home, and I am very glad it did!

Read the full story by clicking here, and be sure to stop by once they re-open in the spring! I promise you won't be disappointed!

Address: 191 Kentucky Avenue, Lexington, KY

Meadowthorpe Café

{ Pepper Burger }

So! As I admitted in my last post, I'm currently playing a bit of catch up on here. This post is actually from earlier during the same day as the last one, and this burger from the Meadowthorpe Café was delicious. 

I'm not sure of exactly how long, but this restaurant has been around in Lexington for awhile now. When I mentioned to my parents where we were headed to lunch that day, they both mentioned that they'd been here before. 

Meadowthorpe Café is open for breakfast, brunch, and lunch from 8:00 am- 2:00 pm Monday-Saturday, and they open an hour later on Sunday. 

As you can see from this picture, it's got a bit of a diner/burger joint feel, which was appropriate for what Kam and I were looking for that day. 

Since going I've heard that they have a pretty kick-butt breakfast too though, and I'll have to go back and try it sometime. 

Anyway, by the time he and I got here, we were starving... Luckily, our food came out fairly quickly, and we weren't a bit disappointed by it either.

Here's one more wonderful burger picture before I finish up this post and call it a day... I can't remember what it was called, but Kameron's was barbecue-y and didn't sit on the plate for another second after I forced him to let me take this picture. 

For more information on this lovely local Kentucky restaurant, click on this link visit their facebook page. 

Hope you'll stop by and try it!

Triangle Park Ice Skating Rink

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!!

Okay, so I definitely thought I'd do a lot better at keeping up with this blog over break, but obviously that didn't happen. On the bright side, I did do lots of fun things, and all of them were in Kentucky, so I guess I'll just have to play catch up with some of the best places I've been since being home. 

Numero uno: Triangle Park Ice Skating Rink. 

The weekend after classes ended, Kameron came up to Lexington to stay for a few days. Friday, we went to Blue Door Smokehouse, a newer local barbecue joint that I MUST write about one of these days... unfortunately I was so distracted by my ribs that I didn't take any pictures to write a proper post, so that will come later after I revisit and eat my weight in pork. 

Anyway! I have decided that I have an extremely patient boyfriend because that Saturday, after taking Kam to a Hanukkah party with all my high school friends (we're Catholic by the way), I dragged him downtown and forced him to go ice skating with me. 

He'd never been, and he told me he hated me at least 20 or 30 times, but we still had a lot of fun! I love the fact that Lexington puts up an ice skating rink downtown in the winter now because it's very festive... and the Christmas music playing as we skated made me that much happier.

The rink will be up until January 11, so grab your favorite person/people and head down there while you still can! 

{more blog posts to come in the near future!}