Every winter I see it posted on my social media feeds. The posts accompany dozens of likes and comments of solidarity and agreement, except from me.

  Winter came fiercely to Kentucky, skeletal branches with leaves dead and curling on the ground. In some places, like the abandoned bourbon distillery outside Frankfort, the death rattle creaked against window glass a century old. Snapping one last photo, I switched my camera off and stepped out from the crumbling plaster and peeled paint into the frost-bitten desolation. The temperature had plummeted and the sun was disappearing beneath the rolling, isolated hills of the Blue Grass State. Another adventure for the books, another exploration conquered and documented.  It had been awhile since I spent an extended period of time in Kentucky. Having graduated in 2011 from a liberal arts…