Lexington Revisited -

The Hotel

Please bear with me as this series of posts

will necessarily be a bit disjointed.

It is difficult to write the post independently

of the pictures,

which has to be done when one is without the Internet.

Secondly, if I were to attempt to simply write one

post about our long weekend in Lexington,

the post would be just that - long.

If all that were not enough,

I have been very busy this week,

getting ready for the family gathering

that will be at our house this upcoming weekend.

Now that we have gotten that business out of the way,

let's get this show on the road...

After leaving Lynn's and Louisville,

we headed east towards Lexington.

And there's our destination -

Griffin Gate Resort.

Looks the same as it did last year.

I attempted to reserve another room with a balcony,

but no such luck.

However, this time,

instead of overlooking the parking lot,

we are overlooking the golf course.

So I guess that is a decent compromise.

See, the golf course and the swimming pool.
Much nicer than the parking lot.

I always rearrange the room after settling in.

Not to worry though;

as I always put things back the way I found them.

One of the first things I noticed upon entering our room

was a liter bottle of Fiji™ water

with a card around the neck stating that

“A $5.00 charge will be added to your account upon consumption.”

It is a safe assumption that the bottle will remain unmolested during our stay.

The Foodie Daughter has many aspirations in life;

among those is to one day own a luxury resort.

To that end,

she has enlisted my help in plotting out some of the more mundane details,

such as room décor,

restaurant types and menus.

As such and given that we often stay in nicer places

for my husband’s Masonic ventures,

I do have strong opinions on proper hotel management.

To wit:
Internet service should always be complimentary.

Honestly, I would rather you charge me for breakfast.

In this day and age I can go to a McDonald's

and get free WiFi,

so why can't a fancy hotel pony up the free Internet service?

There is always a “Do Not Disturb” tag on the door,

so why not have one side read

“No House Keeping Needed - Please Leave Clean Towels”?

A mini fridge is essential in every hotel room

and should be provided free of charge.

A nice-sized ledge for toiletries in the tub/shower area

would be greatly appreciated.

(How many times have you had to pick up your tiny

travel bottles that fell off the tiny tub ledge?)

Extra towel racks would come in handy for those

who don’t mind using a towel more than once.

Have a built-in night light in the bathroom.

Have a second sink outside of the bathroom.

(Have you ever tried to travel with two or more women,

both of whom are trying to get ready at the same time?

Enough said.)

Do not make the guest have to jump through hoops

just to find the regular TV channels on the remote.

I don’t want to have to wade through two pages

of pay-per-view services just to find the free channels.

Don’t make me angry when I just want to watch

my Food Network shows.

Guests should not be the ones who have to report problems

with the room to the hotel management.

Get your staff to spend a moment while in the room each day

just verifying that everything is in working order.

Nothing is more annoying to a guest

than to find that there is a problem with the plumbing,

heating or a/c or electrical systems.*

*But more on that later.

The morning sun shines through the tree.

I discovered this little terrace and fountain.












Lovely.











Potted hibiscus standard


under-planted with sweet potato vine


and petunias.








Hibiscus bloom.

Pigeons around a skylight.

The pool area at night.

*I promised you a story, didn't I?

The evening we arrived,

my husband and I went out to eat dinner

with another couple (which will be covered in the next post).

We returned back to the hotel and went our separate ways.

Eventually my husband and I found our football tailgate friends

(and another 33rd Candidate couple)

at the Valley of Fort Wayne’s Hospitality Room,

so my husband and I visited with them for a bit.

Eventually we wandered down to the Valley of Indianapolis’ HR

and said hello to our friends in there before retiring for the night.

Oh, if it were only that easy.

I felt like I was caught in the Edgar Allan Poe story

“The Tell Tale Heart.”

Unfortunately,

the toilet was running and running and running;

and I was fair exhausted from chasing it around the room all night long.

Rim shot, please.

*Crickets*

Okay, be that way.

I even got up in the middle of the night to see if I could fix it.

The float arm was resting too low,

allowing the water in the tank to rise too high,

thus flowing continuously into the bowl.

After a couple of attempts to fix it with nothing more than a dime

(hey, I’m on vacation here;

I don’t bring my tools with me!),

I gave it up as a lost cause

and finally resorted to covering my head

with a blanket to drown out the noise.

The environmentalist in me couldn’t help but cringe

at the thought of all that water being needlessly wasted, though.

Before I went to breakfast Friday morning,

I informed one of the nice people at the front desk that the toilet was running

and was assured that someone would be heading up to fixing it very soon.

After breakfast I headed back up to the room,

passing a maintenance worker in the hallway.

The maid had just started in the room when I returned

and I asked if the maintenance man had looked at the toilet

as I could still hear it running.

She said that he would be back to fix it.

I spent the next bit of time

watching the men out on the golf course,

figuring out their ploy

(they only play golf so they can drive the golf carts is my theory)

and writing this blog post.

The maintenance man came back

and attempted to fix the toilet but to no avail.

Heh, if I couldn’t fix it, it wasn’t able to be fixed.

He needed to leave to get a new part to replace the broken piece.

An hour or so later, we had a mercifully quiet toilet.

All is right once again in my world.

My daughter will be so proud of me:

I went down to the fitness center and did 32 minutes on the tread mill.

The nice thing was that the fitness center

has small TV screens hooked up to each treadmill

with a place for headphones to plug in.

I happened to have a pair in my purse,

so I turned on the Barefoot Contessa

and walked as she turned the volume up on her old recipes.

And thus concludes the bulk of our hotel experience,

as the rest of our time was spent attending

meetings, tours and banquets.

Tune in next time to read about some of that.

Dinner at Dudley's

Satisfied and stuffed from our lunch in Louisville, my husband and I continued on our journey to Lexington, Kentucky. So far the sun still shone, although some clouds were beginning to move in. The drive on I-64 between Louisville and Lexington is beautiful, and we soon arrived at our hotel. White horse fences front the road and stone gates frame the entrance to the hotel. Griffin Gate Marriott Resort and Spa stands tall against the pines on the property while an antebellum mansion next door now houses Kentucky’s first four diamond restaurant.

We have arrived.

>

The Mansion at Griffin Gate.

We arrived shortly after 3 pm to find that check-in time was actually 4 pm and that our room wasn’t quite ready for us. No problem; we signed in at the desk and walked around the hotel for a bit before heading to the lounge for a drink.

Ooh look, a peek into the kitchen area of the hotel.

An hour and a half later we were given the keys to our room and headed out to the car to get our bags. After getting off the elevator, we walked and walked and walked down the hall. At last! We reached the end of the fifth floor hall and stood before the door to our room. We opened the door to find that we actually had been given a corner room with a wide window on the far wall and a sliding glass door on the right side wall. To our surprise we even had a balcony furnished with two chairs and a small table. Other than that, the room was the standard hotel room that one expects to find. Unfortunately our room also had one additional feature: a rather pronounced musty smell. Indeed, that evening as I was closing the drapes, I found that a large section of wallpaper had peeled from the wall underneath the window and that mold was growing on the wall. Fortunately for me, I didn’t seem to be allergic to the molds that were present in the room. The smell was dispelled by a judicious spraying of my travel-size lavender pillow mist. Rest assured that I used the courtesy comment card in the room to notify the hotel of this issue. After all, mold isn’t just a cosmetic issue – it is a very real health issue.





So far, just what you'd expect from a hotel room.

But wait, there's more...

Including a balcony.

A very disappointing discovery was that the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort and Spa does not offer free Wi-Fi. Period. However, for a small fee of $12.95 per day, guests are encouraged to connect to their iBAHN network using the provided cable. This means that the Internet is available only in the guest rooms or in the business center. Certainly not user friendly. Needless to say, I chose to forgo the Internet for the duration. What, me cheap? Well, maybe. And besides, it’s the principle of the thing.

As my husband noted, the hotel could easily charge four to five dollars more a day for each hotel room and offer "free" Wi-Fi Internet service to the guests.

But enough of that. Let's get on to the food, shall we?

Before we left home I had done some research on the Internet and had decided on a restaurant for us to try on Thursday evening. Dudley’s Restaurant is housed in a restored schoolhouse near downtown Lexington.

The storms hit about the time were ready to leave for the restaurant. Luck was with us and we arrived, not too terribly wet after our sprint through the rain.

The formal dining room.

The front room is a rather casual space with a bar along one wall. We made our way to the hostess station and asked to be seated in the more formal dining room. We were able to get a table right away and after settling in, began the difficult task of deciding just what to order.

After much deliberation and backtracking, along with some help from our friendly waiter, we made our decisions and ordered.

While we watched the lightning flashes and the rain pour down, we talked quietly and relaxed with our drinks, a nice Riesling for me and a whisky sour for my husband. Our food soon arrived and after I took pictures, to the amusement of our neighboring diners, we each tasted our entree.

I decided to be adventurous and ordered the daily special of pan-seared antelope leg medallions with a wild mushroom glace, apples, beets, fennel and Peruvian fingerling potatoes.

The antelope was cooked to medium and the meat was moist, tender and succulent. As the water had promised, the meat tasted very much like beef, with no overt gaminess present. The wild mushroom glace was smooth and held just a hint of sweetness from the red wine reduction. The purple Peruvian fingerling potatoes had been cut in half lengthwise and were nicely browned. The green-skinned apples (Granny Smith, perhaps?) were thinly sliced and lent a counterpoint to the rich, buttery flavor of the antelope. The fennel was thinly shaved and had just a bit of that anise flavor. The beets were diced and quite frankly, could have been omitted from my plate as I didn’t care for the almost acidic bite they lent the dish. But I suppose it is all a question of balance. All in all, this was an inspired dish that left me wanting more. I would gladly eat antelope again, if it was prepared as expertly as this was.

My husband chose the Classic Tournedos Maxwell with two petite beef filets topped with crab and béarnaise sauce beside asparagus and pureed potatoes.

My husband thoroughly enjoyed his dish and even ate a couple of asparagus spears, no small feat that. After dinner we briefly contemplated ordering coffee and sharing a dessert before deciding that we really should take advantage of the slight lull in the rain.

And my advice to you? If you ever find yourself in Lexington, Kentucky with a few extra bucks in your wallet, do yourself a favor and go to Dudley's. You will be glad you did.