Kentucky - Days 2 - 4 - Louisville

Louisville KOA
Wednesday the 2nd through Friday the 4th, October, 2019

route on Thursday the 3rd

I spent all week having trouble remembering which day it was.  I was completely thrown off balance both by leaving Illinois a day early, and by the 1st being on a Tuesday.  But sitting here looking at a calendar, I can say I spent both Wednesday and Friday in the campground and Thursday doing some sightseeing and errand-running in Louisville.

sunrise on the 2nd

Campground
It was blazing hot for October, even for Kentucky, all week long - hot as in setting daily high temperature records in the mid-90s.  But that sunrise was really nice to see.

I spent an entire day trying to figure out which way to go when I'd left Louisville, and finding most campgrounds booked solid.  Okay, it's a weekend coming up with pretty weather, but it's still October.  Don't people go to high school football games and community events in October?  I guess other people besides me know October is one of the best months to travel in, with usually milder weather and fewer families on vacation.  The Good Sam RV travel club had bought out an entire campground for the weekend.  I guess it's those retirees who have time to travel.  (Unlike me, of course.)

I checked campgrounds along the Ohio River heading east.  I checked campgrounds in the Lexington and Frankfort area.  I checked campgrounds over in the Appalachian area.  I checked campgrounds back west where I'd just come from.  It was incredible how hard it was to find a decent spot for the weekend.  I ended up staying Friday night here at the KOA, just to take care of one weekend night, and reserving a spot for a couple of days at a state campground not far from Mammoth Cave to the south.

Louisville
I had several destinations in mind for my Louisville tour, but I also wanted to try to get a feel for the city itself.

First I should say how to pronounce "Louisville."  I've always said LOO-ee-ville, but no Kentuckian says that.  Instead they say LOU-ih-ville and sort of swallow the "ih" part.  This being the south, some slur it to very nearly leave out the second syllable entirely.

Next I should say that it's bigger than I expected: 620,000 in the city, plus another 150,000 in the metro area.  It's Kentucky's biggest city and the 29th largest in the US (per Wikipedia).

Driving into the heart of town, I passed the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, where they hold the state fair, right in town, like in Indianapolis.

I passed something called the Highlands Latin School.  Latin not being common in relation to schools these days, I looked it up and learned this is a private classical Christian school, founded by a Latin textbook author.  Didn't know we had anything like that in the US.

Belle of Louisville

Louisville owes its existence to historic travel on the Ohio River it sits on.  Of course part of the outdoor life of the city lies along a River Walk.  And that's also where the Belle of Louisville is docked.

The Belle, built in 1914, is the world's oldest operating Mississippi River style steamboat.  Meaning, I think, that it's a steam-powered sternwheeler.  It still operates with frequent sightseeing and dinner cruises.  That's not my photo because I missed the turn to where it's docked, but I did see it as I passed by.  Pretty boat.

When I passed a bus stop I noticed a sign saying Lou Lift, and wondered if it were some sort of aid to the disabled.  Turns out to be the new name for the city bus fleet, which is all-electric and free.

Walnut St. Baptist

I passed the Walnut Street Baptist Church and gawked all the way down the street.  This colored drawing is the only un-copyrighted version I could find online, and I wish I'd gone to the trouble of going around a few blocks so I could take a photo.  The carving on those towers is amazing.  I connect this style more with the Catholics than the Baptists, but the sign definitely says it's Baptist.

Old Louisville

I ended up accidentally in a section of town known as Old Louisville.  The whole area has been declared a historic preservation district, and it's the largest in the US that solely features Victorian architecture.

The view I saw looked more like fall than the spring in this photo, but that's the kind of houses I saw.  It's a big district - I was driving through it for a lot of blocks - and my view was partly obstructed by the dozens and dozens of what looked like vendor booths being set up along the sidewalks.  And when I found a batch of port-a-potties, I knew something was going on.  This weekend is the annual St. James Art Show, where hundreds of folks display their artwork and handcrafts.  They draw up to 300,000 visitors - and I'm wondering how the local residents deal with the current American disdain for property rights and belief in a right to litter in their front yards.  But if I were going to be in town, I'd have gone to the show.

The University of Louisville is in the middle of town, along with the famous Speed Art Museum and the Louisville Cardinals stadium.

Churchill Downs

I turned a corner and found Churchill Downs, of Kentucky Derby fame.  I always imagined it to be out in the country someplace, but it's smack in town.  I went to a little grocery store right across the street and walked the dogs in the residential neighborhood there.




My photo on the right above is the front entrance (nice statue there), but I couldn't find a safe place to take the photos I really wanted.  This arena is thoroughly landscaped, with vines climbing on trellises all over the place, a little like this photo on the left I got off the internet.  The place has an antebellum southern mansion atmosphere about it, which is certainly pleasant and gracious as long as you can ignore the slavery that created it.

I wanted very much to see some horse racing here, but my timing was way off.  There's no live racing scheduled here until the very end of the month, when I'm unlikely to be in the area.  Such a shame.

I also spent some time touring the American Printing House for the Blind and will make a separate post about that.

Besides the grocery store, I also went by the CVS to pick up the prescriptions I'd forgotten a few days ago, and I found a liquor store, where I learned Kentucky allows only beer to be sold in grocery stores.  Wine and hard liquor must be sold in a separate store, and even if the liquor store is owned by and sits next to a grocery store, it has to be walled off from it with a separate entrance.  A big change from the laws in the last few states I've visited.

My overall impression is that this is a city full of neighborhoods, like Boston and New York City have.  I found different neighborhoods had different atmospheres, and each had its own batch of services - like grocery stores and cleaners and liquor stores and so forth - but they seemed to me to be distinct from each other.  Quite clearly there were different income levels in various neighborhoods but even more clearly were their different characters.  Honestly, I found it really pleasant there, even with their streets and traffic being difficult to navigate in my RV.