welcome to Kentucky!

The drive from Nashville to Chicago tied for our longest drive of the road-trip. Rarely did we have a full day of driving that was as long as this one. We started out by heading to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. It is the longest cave system in the world! But unfortunately, the crowds were mammoth as well and we could only do the “self guided discovery” tour for small kids and those too lazy to call ahead with reservations. This place was a circus. Cabins were next to the cave entrance so you could stay overnight to enter the caves! A quick tour through the discovery cave and we got the idea, this place was cold and was underground. The history of Mammoth Cave was quite interesting though, early settlers even set up a hospital in one of the caves because the cool air eased the pain of tuberculosis sufferers.

mammoth cave was crazy

Just outside of Mammoth Cave National Park was Cave City, KY which was one of the tackiest places we drove through. We made a stop off at the Wigwam Hotel #2 and as we took photos, a guy driving by made native sounds by quickly waving his hand over his mouth. We giggled at this but sadly it was probably the only entertainment available in Cave City. The infrastructure of hotels and tourist traps like Dinosaur World! was a vestigal remainder of the happy motoring past of the United States, where oil was cheap and cars were plentiful, the hotels had clearly seen better days because they were mostly in disrepair.

even you can sleep in a wigwam!

Driving further up I-65 took us to the KY Stonehenge, which was in the yard of a house. Strange. Only stranger thing? A truck trailer attached to a car.

if only this was at walmart so I could put it on people of walmart

In Louisville we ate lunch at the birthplace of the Cheeseburger, Kaelin’s. However, Kaelin’s had been closed down and an Irish pub/sports bar was just opening at the same location. We had caught them on their opening day. The burger tasted great and the coffee washed down the tackiness of Cave City. After driving through Louisville to see Colonel Sanders’ grave (the one of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame and surprisingly a 33 degree mason) we lost Erby in the traffic and he accidentally headed off towards St. Louis while Jane and I saw the world’s largest bat at the Louisville Slugger baseball bat store in downtown Louisville. We were only in Louisville for a few hours but it looked like one of the nicer towns to live in.

ah, the colonel

We then crossed over into Indiana for a whole lotta nothin’. Corn and other junk for the rest of the drive. Indianapolis looked like a lifeless city. Probably like Uptown Charlotte in the late 80′s. A traffic jam due to construction kept us out of Chicago for a few extra hours, Gary, IN is a mess. We finally found a place to park in the Chicago neighborhood of our CouchSurfing host… my first reaction was, “What a skyline! So many cars!” Everywhere was a street sweeper zone so parking was limited, and so many cars…

We were famished and a little Chinese restaurant let us take some food out even though it was 1 minute before they closed. We met up with our CouchSurfing Host and slept hard, preparing for our two full days in the capitol of the Midwest.

And all it took was a little exposure to Kentucky and Indiana to finally conclude that the Southeastern US is aggressive weird. We only concluded this after speaking with our Chicago CouchSurfing host Patrick, but the seeds of the idea were sewn after the Jesus signs, the KY Stonehenge and more. I will have more to say on this soon.

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