A Positive Note on Western Kentucky

I wanted to post something positive about my area and my alma mater, Murray State University.  After my Ben Stein post, I’m sure some readers are saying to themselves, “Why the hell doesn’t she just move?”  If my job hunt moves me out of the Western Kentucky area, so be it.  If it keeps me here, that’s ok too.  I’m not picky at this point, and Western KY isn’t a bad place.  There are some educational issues and critical thinking failings, but that happens everywhere.  

So, I thought I’d post some interesting links highlighting the area’s good points.  First up is one of my absolute favorite places, LBL.  That’s Land Between the Lakes to you non-locals.  The US Forest Service has authority over it now.  It’s a piece of land located between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley.  I’ve lived on one or the other of those lakes throughout much of my life.  My father worked for the Ky State Park System while I was growing up, so I’m a park brat.  Most of our time was spent in Western Kentucky on the lakes.  My mother’s house overlooks the Kentucky Lake side of LBL, which makes for a lovely view.

LBL and the parks offer a lot of interesting educational and recreational opportunities.  I love hiking in LBL and fossil hunting (mostly crinoids and other Mississippian fossils).  My husband and I also spent most of our dates (many many moons ago) in LBL and go back as often as we can.  We’re planning on taking my mother fossil hunting when the weather warms up.  It’s also a great place to take your pets.

Land is also not outrageously priced in parts of Western Ky, so if we end up staying around here I plan on buying several acres and gardening to my heart’s content.  It is a decent area for gardening and fishing and sitting on your porch drinking a beer.  The humidity kills in the summer, but we don’t get the crazy winters the Northern states are experiencing at the moment (most of the time).      

We also have a couple skeptic groups popping up in Western KY (including one at Murray State University), which makes me a very happy monkey.