Paris, KY on Stoner Creek

Paris, Kentucky was the first place I’ve been to in the United States that actually dates back to the Revolutionary War – it was settled in 1776. It’s got the oldest tavern in the U.S.A. (since 1788) and Daniel Boone used to slake his thirst there. Unfortunately it’s not open unless you call ahead, and we’re just not on the making-reservations-ahead-of-time tour of America. Alas.

Paris, KY is probably the prettiest Paris we’ve seen in America. It’s truly committed to preserving its historic buildings and town square. At the County Courthouse we found the Eiffel Tower, which is a candleholder hanging on a wall inside the Chamber of Commerce. As the wine from our Equus Run wine tasting wore off, I got hungry (we’d skipped lunch), and slumped in the seat next to Win. She went into the Farmer’s Market and bought me some apples, inquiring about a place to stay. Apart from the Best Western, there wasn’t much except high end B&Bs, which the owner was kind enough to call around about.

When he reached Pat Conley, proprietor of the Treehouse at Stoner Creek, and told him two ladies from Texas were looking for lodging, Pat said No, he didn’t have any rooms left, but send those ladies down here anyway and I’ll give ‘em a boatride on the creek. As I bit into a tart little apple and Winnie explained all this to me, I resisted saying, “We’re going to go riding around on the river with some guy we don’t even know who doesn’t even have a place for us to sleep tonight? And it’s already 5:00 p.m.? And we’re doing this why, exactly?” I just munched my apple and kept my mouth shut.

The Treehouse at Stoner Creek was the kind of place that made you wish you were the kind of people who made reservations (just a little bit). Tall and piney and smelling like fresh-cut wood, it had class. Pat Conley whisked us into his living room, poured us glasses of unsweet tea, and had us perched in the bow of his pontoon boat within 20 minutes. As we pottered along the creek he pointed out Kentucky standard bred horse farms, a tavern we could row his canoe to for dinner, some kids doing flips off the dam in the creek and turtles and great blue herons. He put a CD on (hip-hop music by a band from Bowling Green), pointed out the stormclouds that were roiling around and collecting above us, and kept trying to think of a way for us to stay.

We wound up barely getting off the creek before the clouds opened up and dumped down. While Winnie helped make up a vat of salsa on the marble counter in the kitchen, and Pat talked about the amazing gourmet quiche he planned to make in the morning, and Fiona the terrier shivered with each crack of thunder, I checked weatherchannel.com and confirmed that camping was out of the question. Pat called a buddy with a fishing cabin nearby, and his side of the conversation sounded something like this:

“Hey Buddy. I got a couple of American foxes stranded here looking for a place to stay. Naw, man, they’re girl scouts.” Pat covered the mouthpiece and told us, “He says a mess inside.” We shrugged an It-Doesn’t-Matter and he went back to Buddy. “They don’t care, they’re on a budget and have camping gear. How much would you charge ‘em? Yeah, man, Becky Thatcher types. All right. Okay.” Click. To us: “He’s got too much pride. Can’t rent it to you dirty. Sorry about that.”

As consolation he cracked open a bottle of Spanish wine he’d been saving for a special occasion. We about had him convinced to let us put out our bedrolls on his screened in porch when his wife intervened. Apparently, she had the good business sense to consider how it might look to their paying customers if a couple of stray cowgirls were camped out in the morning waiting for quiche. We hightailed it out of there and went straight to La Esperanza, a Mexican taqueria run by Nicaraguans on Main Street in Paris, Kentucky. I spoke Spanish fluidly and got us some vegetarian tostadas. We were sprawled in a lodge at the last battlefield of the American Revolution before midnight.

Next to “Southern hospitality” in the dictionary, there oughtta be a picture of Pat Conley.