I was thrilled to find this little bit of Paris while visiting the mammoth AQS (American Quilter's Society) Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky.
Culture shock had been killing me in Kentucky. Paducah is a small town (pop = 25,000) in western Kentucky that swells each spring when over 40,000 quilters arrive for this show.
It is also the site of the National Quilt Museum and has become known as "Quilt City".
Quilt shops are everywhere and I was even able to buy fabric in a coffeshop! The show is a major driver of the area's economy and the entire town caters to quilters.
Rooms are booked by August for the week of the show and we were lucky to find a B&B about a half hour away. A B&B with large portraits of Jesus everywhere, an explosion of doilies and doughnuts for breakfast. All the food was fried, including fried pickles and fried pie.
I struck up a conversation with an Australian woman who was shocked that her tour bus stopped every block in town because the women wouldn't walk more than one block. Massive obesity was everywhere and I've never seen so many women in wheelchairs or using rollator walkers.
No wonder the south is called the Stroke Belt!
But once I started searching for Paris and France, I was able to find remarkable examples. Stay tuned.
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