We arrived in Louisville on Saturday night and our KOA campground was a buzz of activity. Shoeless children swarmed the playground and the screen was getting set up for a night time movie. The time changed on us again but it took several minutes of trying to account for that lost hour before we realized that we'd entered Eastern time. I took Lukas over to the lawn to watch Toy Story 3 and eat popcorn with the rest of the camp. This was Lukas's first exposure to the big screen, and his eyes were wide. He could hardly remember to eat popcorn he was so involved with the movie. It ended up being too scary for him, with the toys narrowly avoiding the garbage truck only to be taken hostage by some evil toys at the day care. I brought him home, filled up my wine jug, and went back to watch the movie. Not ashamed to admit I even shed some tears at the end.
The next day we decided to explore the town. First stop, an Irish pub in downtown where Brian could finish watching the British Open. It was on a strip along a walking street that looked like it got pretty lively at night. Hard Rock Cafe was featured if that tells you anything. Anyway, we get to the pub at noon and they don't start serving alcohol until 1 pm on Sundays! No Guinness with my lunch at an Irish Pub? Ugh, Kentucky.
We waited around long enough to chug a beer, then took Lukas to the Louisville Slugger Factory. We had a short tour of the factory, saw some of Buster Posey's special bats, then each got a mini bat. Lukas also got to hit balls in the the T-ball batting cage. Great place, would recommend it to anyone who's visiting Louisville.
It was still early afternoon so we decided to drive around a bit, maybe get some coffee. We drove, and drove, and drove some more, but could not find an open coffee shop. Apparently what there is of Louisville shuts down on Sundays. Mostly we saw run down brick buildings and closed diners. Finally we wandered into the "happening" area of town, the Highlands, and found a really good coffee shop with a drive through. That perked up our spirits quite a bit, then we found the Whole Foods! OMG, finally some good food. We loaded up on organic veggies and gourmet cheese.
On Monday Brian spent the morning golfing, then I went to Louisville Zoo. Walking through the zoo to the gorilla area I was less than impressed. The enclosures were all sub-par and the animals looked way too hot. The gorilla area was a different story. There were two giant yards and a several large indoor rooms, plus a lot of informative graphics around the African bush camp themed trail. Louisville has eleven gorillas and four patas monkeys in five separate groups. What a headache for the keepers! There is a group of four bachelors, all about twelve years old, the age when they really start fighting. They had two breeding groups of gorillas, and a geriatric group with a male who was in very poor health. As a keeper who has nursed a gorilla through some bad times, I know how stressful it can be for the keepers and the gorilla group. My heart goes out to them. They also had a group of patas monkeys that had been mixed with the gorillas, but the male patas is overly assertive so the mixed species group broke down. Which leaves them with the five separate groups to manage! Luckily they have a lot of space to work with, but still... that is a difficult situation from a keeper's point of view.
The harried gorilla keepers then sent me to the Islands exhibit, a rotating exhibit that houses orangutans, siamangs, tapirs, and tigers. Each species has several enclosures and the groups and enclosures are rotated several times a day, keeping things fresh for the animals. The Islands keepers have time built into their day for training and tours, so they seemed much more relaxed than the gorilla keepers. My main reason for being at Louisville Zoo was to visit Sungai, a siamang that I helped hand rear at San Francisco Zoo. She came right over to see me, reached through the bars and made some whimpering noises. What a sweetie. When she was a baby we spent quite a few nights together, and she had peed on me more times than I could count. It was nice to see her with other siamangs and doing well. I really enjoyed the Islands exhibits. Overall, mixed review on the Louisville Zoo. A few great exhibits, and some in need of renovation.On Tuesday we decided to check out the Louisville barbecue scene. I was sick for a couple days after the Irish breakfast fry up, but felt ready to take on some more meat. We drove to Smoketown, a BBQ place on the edge of the projects. The owner was a real character who called himself a redneck jew. His wife was a yard sale fiend and had decorated the place with her finds. Everything on display was for sale. We had some tasty ribs and greens, but they couldn't compare to the ribs we had in Wyoming. Then we drove to Clifton, the upscale part of town, where the houses look like mansions and the yards are giant expanses of perfectly mowed Kentucky bluegrass. I felt sick by evening time. Too much meat for this former vegetarian.
I took an afternoon tour of Mammoth Cave. Once again I was thrown off by a time change, this time back to Central time! The park is pretty serious about preventing the spread of White-nose Syndrome, a disease that has been killing bats across the country, and we were asked to walk through disinfectant before entering and upon leaving the cave.
Mammoth Cave has over 200 miles of passageways, many of them stacked on top of one another. We ventured to the third of six cave layers; the bottom layer is currently an underground river. Our tour guide had a thick Kentucky accent and was a great story teller. He told us about the Kentucky cave wars of the 1930s, when cave owners would pay their workers to sneak into competing caves at night to break off the stalactites, later selling the pieces on the road side. What I found most interesting about Mammoth Cave was its lack of formations. There was a small room with some formations, but mostly Mammoth Cave was very dry with large rooms and passageways that were once rivers.
The next morning I decided to take Lukas on a tour of Diamond Caverns. This cave was just the opposite, with water dripping on us throughout the tour, and formations everywhere. There were several stalagmites that had been sawed in half during the cave wars and polished so that one could see the deposition rings. It was a really spectacular cave, and I enjoyed it far more than Mammoth.
As for Kentucky, we had enjoyed it as much as we could and were ready to check out the next destination, Nashville, Tennessee.
RV PARK REVIEWS
Louisville South KOA, Shepherdsville, KY: B-
Big park. super busy on the weekend, bouncy pillow, pool, nature trail to man-made fishing pond and small rock overhang.
Diamond Caverns RV Resort and Golf Club, Park City, KY: B
Very quiet, lots of greenery, pool, across the street from Diamond Caverns and golf course.
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