What's up, y'all? I'm Chris Clair, Frankfort resident since 2015 and every day happy to be so. They want us to post pictures and videos, and I'll get to that, but frankly I have a face for audio and a voice for writing, so for interim purposes I'll stick to what I'm best at – typing.

How did I get here? In 2012 I was living in Chicago with my wife, who did some consulting work for the Commonwealth. She visited Frankfort several times and remarked once that it would be a good place to take a motorcycle trip (we both ride). So in the fall of 2012 we rode down here and spent a long weekend exploring Frankfort and the Bluegrass. By the day before we were to leave to return to Chicago, I was looking at homes for sale in Frankfort. My wife thought I was joking. I was, but only kind of.

I remember on that trip being struck by Frankfort's perfect little downtown, by the rows of historic buildings lining Main Street and St. Clair and Broadway and by the fact they were occupied. I was taken by the beautiful old state capitol downtown, by the winding river and the hills. And the people … I've lived a lot of places and you'd be hard-pressed to find more friendly folks than those who live here.

We returned to Chicago without actually buying a house, but I kept looking.

In 2014, we returned, this time to Lexington for a motorcycle rally. Again, we met more fantastic people and saw more incredible scenery - the eastern Bluegrass and Appalachian foothills. The last night of the rally, as people were drifting back to their hotels, I said, "We'll be back to ride with you all next year, and we'll be living here." I doubt anyone believed me.

But in January of 2015, the stars aligned. Kimberly was offered a job at the state agency for which she had been consulting. My job for the past 14 years had ended with a layoff, but a nice severance. Another job in the offing allowed me to work remotely, from anywhere. We moved to Frankfort that February.

We rented to start, but in the late summer of 2015 we bought a house in South Frankfort two blocks from our rental. The circumstances surrounding how we came to own this house speak to the kind of place Frankfort is. I was signing a lease for a storage unit because our house in Chicago sold faster than we expected. The fellow running the storage complex and I got to talking about whether we were looking to buy, and where, and what kind of house. He said, "I know someone who's going to be selling a place like that pretty soon." Next thing I knew I was talking on this guy's cell phone with the gentlemen who ended up selling us his house.

Many of our friends from Chicago, and other places we'd lived, didn't understand our decision to move here. Later many came to visit. Almost all of them ultimately said "We get it now." In 2017 my parents moved here from Oregon. A friend from high school, also in Oregon, came to visit in 2018 and moved here the following year. His wife said she would stay for a year or two but now says she won't leave. His daughter moved here, too, and is settled with a job and lives around the corner from us. My wife's mother moved here from Chicago in 2021.

So that's the story of how we got here. More to come on what life has been like here, but for now I'll say we have never once regretted our decision to move to Frankfort. We have made so many wonderful friends and memories since coming here.

You should come join us!