Hillbilly Festival

Well, today, a friend from work, her boyfriend, another traveler, his wife and I loaded up in the expedition and headed to Pikeville, KY for the annual "Hillbilly Festival". I wasn't sure what to expect, but was certain that I would be in for an education. I was not disappointed. Pikeville is about 80 miles from Corbin, so along the way we decided to take the back roads to see some "real Kentucky".... After about 10 minutes weaving through the country I realized it wasn't such a good idea. Apparently, I now get a little car sick on windy roads.. Neat. So, we  quickly got back on the main road. All was back on track. We arrived at the festival about noon and started walking. It was streets full of carnival rides, fair food.. (fried anything you can imagine), music, a cornhole tournament, even a parade. It wasn't as "hillbilly" as I had expected, but there was definitely some good people watching. Apparently, here in Kentucky, it is fashionable to let your fat belly hang out of your shirt (man or woman)... UUUGGHHH!!!  Oh yeah.. bras are optional, too.. not to mention the teeth... or lack of... When you think of "Billy Bob teeth".. is is truly a reality here. Yep, us 5 were pretty much the cutest people in 5 counties... no joke!! After baking in the sun and stuffing our faces with all of the disgusting fried food, we headed for home.  About half way home, my friend wanted to take us to this place her uncle had taken her to get a really good hamburger. Place called Pete's Pool Hall in Manchester, KY. When she went before, (8 years ago) her uncle ran in to get the burgers because he told her that if she went inside she probably wouldn't eat them. Well.. he wasn't just a whistlin' Dixie.. When we pulled up, the place looked shut down, but we saw the open sign and ventured in... The place was a total shithole... It had a bar that ran the entire length of the building with most of the bar stools missing. The "kitchen" was basically just a grill behind the bar and a couple of fridges. There wasn't a person in there except two women, one chain smoking behind the till. We took in the sights, from the standing water in the bathrooms, to the back pool room that hadn't been used in years and threw caution to the wind and bellied up on the 5 stools that we could find. We ordered cheeseburgers, chips, and a pop. One of the women got to work whipping up our order. While we were waiting, a couple more people came in and ordered burgers. We got our burgers and they were DELICIOUS!!! As we were enjoying our burger, a guy came in with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth carrying a couple of bags. He went behind the counter and unloaded the bags.. they had some cleaning supplies, so we figured they must clean something, even though you couldn't tell.  He was talking to he women and reached up on a shelf and pulled out a stick of deodorant. I was thinking to myself, "Oh no he isn't"... well YES HE DID!!!  He lifted up his shirt and applied a couple swipes of deodorant under each arm, crack and all sticking out. I started laughing so hard I thought I was going to die.. Thank God we were done eating, cuz that pushed us all over the edge, so we quickly paid and got the heck outta there. We laughed the rest of the way home. As I am sitting here writing this I am certain I will regret that burger, but boy it was good. Her uncle was right, though, we should've stayed in the car....