"I ate where it all began"

Sometimes you just need a good Quest. By day 3 in Kentucky, we had already achieved the two most serious pursuits I had wanted out of the state: bourbon tastings and fresh air. Plus we only had a few hours to spare before the Big Event. It was time for some old-fashioned Americana -- something slightly irreverent that would make a good, one-line story, something along the lines of, "We ate at the original Kentucky Fried Chicken."

This is cooler than you might be thinking right about now. First, a word about Kentucky Colonels. Colonel Sanders was a real colonel, just not of the military kind. As Portland has its Rosarians, Kentucky has its colonels: an honorary title bestowed by the state's governor for various forms of achievement, like being president of the United States, or the inventor of fast-food fried chicken (it had something to do with pressure cookers).

Second, Colonel Sanders was a real person - not just a life-sized statute with which you can pose for pictures:

At the wedding dinner, I sat next to the man who had married the bride's parents in the same chapel (which is cool), and he said he had been to a funeral once where Colonel Sanders came to pay his respects - leading the deceased's grandkids to all elbow each other in the ribs when Sanders walked in.

Third, there's something wonderfully pointless about driving an hour when there's a KFC right down the street, just so you can say you ate at the KFC. (I would also posit that the food was ever-so-slightly better: the mashies much less glutinous, the coleslaw a bit crispier, the chicken not quite as rubbery. And the biscuits - oh, the biscuits...)

One thing doesn't change, however: they serve the same "honey syrup" as all other KFCs, the ingredients of which are (in order) high fructose corn syrup, sugar, honey, corn syrup [not a typo], natural flavor [also not a typo], and caramel coloring.

Finally, there was just enough campy kitsch around in a pseudo-museum layout to make me feel like I was at Epcot Center.

In all, a successful quest. And we still made it back in plenty of time for the wedding (and the all-vegetarian reception).