The Bluegrass State - part 3

Kentucky

(Sightseeing)

December 6, 2017 to December 17, 2017

From Harrodsburg we went northwest to Louisville, Kentucky.  We found a campground which purported to have 250 sites.  When we got there we found it was a parking lot for an enormous flea market which, at this time of the year, is only open on Fri and Sat.  At first we thought there was only one other RV there but then we spotted two trailers tucked in a corner.  They looked like they had been there for months!  There were about 10 spots sort of marked off for use so we backed in to one and got set up.

Looking down (past my finger which got in the way) the flea market parking lot from the door of our motorhome.

Almost the same view when the flea market is open!
It becomes a very (and I mean VERY) busy place on Fridays and Saturdays!

Nice sunset from our campsite.

When we paid for our campsite we saw pictures of the "campground" around the time of the Kentucky Derby.  I don't think you could have gotten another RV into the area.  It was jam packed!  So glad we were NOT there at that time.

Our first stop in the Louisville area was Farmington House, a former hemp farm owned by the Speed family who operated it with the labor of about 60 slaves.  It's particularly interesting because of the Speed family's connection to Abraham Lincoln.  Before Lincoln married, he and Mary Todd had a break in their relationship.  His friend Joshua Speed invited Lincoln to his parents home during this time to help get his mind off his relationship woes.  It's thought that this was probably Lincoln's first and perhaps his sole experience with a slave based farm prior to becoming President.  While at the Speed plantation, Lincoln met Joshua's brother James who would later become his Attorney General.

Farmington:  The Speed family home.

Detail of the doors on the main floor of the home.  The details are painted on to resemble real wood.

Detail of some of the molding around the doors on the main floor. 
They have been restored to look like their original finish which you can still see on the un-restored portion.

The Formal Dining Room. 
The local DAR chapter was preparing for a dinner they had auctioned off at a benefit they held earlier in the year.

The Parlor (or what we would call living room)

Boy's bedroom.
Trundle bed along with a hoop, ice skates, walking stick and a childs toy.

The tool on the left is used to "tighten" the ropes holding the mattress so it wouldn't sag.
Thus the origin of the phrase "sleep tight".

Girls bedroom.

The Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom fireplace.
Notice the children's chairs and the old infants "roll around" chair.

Everyday Dining Room.
This room is in the "daylight" basement near the rear entrance to the house where family members could come in with muddy boots and dirty clothes from working in the fields.  

Storeroom in the "daylight basement".

Guest bedroom in the "daylight basement".
It is believed that Abraham Lincoln probably occupied this bedroom during the three weeks he spent at Farmington.
The pictures on the mantel are of Joshua Speed and Abraham Lincoln.

The bed in the guest bedroom.

The Speed plantation produced hemp rather than cotton.  The hard work was done mostly by their slaves.
This picture of a picture shows workers placing hemp into piles.

The hemp would have then been placed across this implement.  The top piece is then moved up and down to crush and break the hard fibrous outer layer of the plant. 

The inner fibers of the hemp plant are then bundled and ultimately used to produce textiles.
Behind the man holding the bundles you can just see the end of the implement pictured above.

An ad offering a reward for a run-a-way slave taken out by John Speed.

Our next field trip was to the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.  

The center is located in a restored trolly repair building.

It felt to us as if the center was a work in progress although that may have been because vendors were setting up for a craft fair in the largest space of the building.  It's possible whatever was normally in that space had been temporarily moved elsewhere but there was definitely an unfinished air about the place.  In one area there was an extensive exhibit on Muhammad Ali, a native of Louisville.

The many windows in the facility made it hard to get a picture of Muhammad Ali shaking hands with then Senator Barack Obama.  The note next to the picture says "Muhammad Ali, left, was pleased to meet U.S. Senator Barack Obama after his arrival at the Muhammad Ali Center.  The two had expressed admiration for one another before they met."

In another section there was an nice exhibit on "Great Black Kentuckians". 

Specific information for each of the 57 noted black Kentuckians.
Great role models for black youth.

In another room there was an exhibit of artwork combined with writings detailing the feelings of local blacks on whatever subject they chose.  We found the following two to be especially relevant.

Don't know why we can't do something about our rampant gun culture!
Oh wait, how could I forget!  It's because of the NRA!

Next we visited the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) which was was founded in 1858! 

The same complex also houses the Museum of the APH.  The facility offers tours of the several production areas including where Braille books are printed, audio books are created, braille books are quality checked, special printing requirements are designed and created (e.g. graphs, tables, maps, etc.) and a look at a few of the over 200,000 special products made by APH for the visually impaired.

Rob, our tour guide, shows us a braille book.  The paper is 80# weight or more and pages are 11 x 11 inches.
The binding is loose in order to allow the reader to feel all the way across the page.

The printing facility.  Huge spools of 80# paper are fed into the printers. 
Because the heat is on in the winter, humidifiers are used to condition the paper so it doesn't
perforate as the braille letters and numbers are punched in it.

This area is where specialized pages (embossed graphs, maps, charts, etc.) are created and printed.  

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the area where audio books were being made or where they are being checked for accuracy.  To create them a voice artist reads the book while an APH employee follows along making sure every word is read and pronounced correctly.  It's a long and exacting process.  To "proof-read" a book, a blind person reads the braille, speaking the words out loud while an APH employee checks them against the printed version. Again - a long and exacting process.  

The APH has it's own museum on the premises. It provides a fascinating look into the history of braille and the various machines used to produce braille books through the years. 

This type of machine dates from the 1960's.

Stereotype machine.
Individual letters and numbers are created by pressing single or various combinations of the keys.

You can create short braille messages using this braille writer and punching the correct letter configuration in each block.
I punched out my own name using the puncher hidden under the shadow in the upper right hand corner.

The World Book Encyclopedia in braille!

A volume by volume comparison of the written vs braille versions of the Encyclopedia!
You'd have to have an entire room to store all those volumes!

Musical notes in braille.

Unfortunately we had to leave the museum because they were closing for the day.  I'm sure there were many interesting things we missed seeing.  Although the APH isn't listed as a GEM in the AAA tour book, we really enjoyed our visit and think it's worth a look if you are ever in Louisville.  It's an area most sighted individuals probably don't think of very often but it plays a critical role for those with vision problems.

Our last visit in Louisville was to Riverside the Farnsley-Moremen Landing, a house along the Ohio River dating back to 1837.  Originally built by Gabriel Farnsley on a 200 acre piece of land, he operated a riverboat landing and a ferry between Indiana and Kentucky.  Rivers were the Interstates of their day and the Ohio was a very busy river. In addition to the landing and the ferry, the land was farmed and Mr. Farnsley increased his acreage to 400 acres before he died in 1849.  The property was purchased in 1862 by Alanson Moremen and his wife.  He increased the size to 1500 acres.  In the 1880's he began dividing the property amongst his heirs.  Moremen heirs sold the remaining property along with the house to Jefferson county in 1988.

The back of the Farnsley-Moremen home.  The front of the home faced the Ohio River

Picture of the front of the home taken from their website.

View of the Ohio River from the House.

Front hallway.  The door opens to a view of the river.
Notice the mark on the wall to the right.  In 1937 the Ohio River flooded and water reached that high inside the house.
Since then the walls and floors have been replaced as the house was refurbished.

Parlor looking into the dining room.

Dining room.

Beautiful sideboard in dining room.

Master Bedroom

Master bedroom fireplace and armoire.

2nd bedroom

2nd bedroom fireplace and armoire.

Dresser in 2nd bedroom.

This room is fitted out as a children's bedroom.

Fireplace and dresser in this bedroom.

This room is actually a guest bedroom for a traveler.
It has it's own entrance from the ground floor and did not originally have a door through to the main house.

Kitchen building.
For the most part kitchens were always separate from the house because of the danger of fires.

The cook would have originally been a slave who lived above this room in the attic.

Neat old washboard in the kitchen.

From Louisville we moved south to Park City in the cave region of Kentucky.  We were able to finally stay at one of our Thousand Trails membership campgrounds which meant we didn't have to dole out any additional money to stay there.  Yea!!!!!

 Our first stop was Kentucky Down Under/Mammoth Onyx Cave, a combination of Australian animal park and cave combination.

Dingo

Ring-tailed lemur

Rainbow lorikeets

Kangaroos

blue and gold macaw

We also saw laughing kookaburras, an alligator, gray/red foxes, cockatiels, cockatoos, an African gray parrot, emus, cavies, Indian peafowl (aka peacock), llamas, horses, donkeys, white bison, and a border collie herding sheep.

Because their kangaroos are quite tame, they allow you to feed them which was a new experience.

I think you can see that Laura was quite delighted with the whole experience.

This is the rear foot of a kangaroo and it's easy to see why they use it as a weapon.
The long middle toe with the thick sharp nail can do a lot of damage to an opponent.

The cave part of the adventure was also interesting. 

Cave popcorn

Flowstone

The start of cave curtains

Pool of crystal clear water in the lower third of the picture.

More mature cave curtains

We find the patterns of the rocks formed in caves by dripping water laced with dissolved minerals  endlessly interesting.  It takes about 100 years for a stalactite or stalagmite to grow just 1 cm.  That's a very, very long time.

Our next cave adventure was Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, KY.  This is a cave you view from a boat!  We just had to see it.  The cave has an interesting history.  It's been used by Native Americans, as a hideout for outlaws, and as a camp by both Union and Confederate soldiers. It's also been used as a water powered mill and as a 1930's night club!  The river which flows through it appears and disappears along it's route.  When it appears it looks like a blue hole of water.

The entrance to the cave.
The stone building on the left is left over from the time the river was used to power a sawmill. 

This is what remains of the old nightclub from the 30's.

Boarding the boat.

Inside the cave looking back at the entrance.
If it looks like there's not much distance between the ceiling and the water, there isn't.
We had to duck down for about 20 feet in order to get into the cave itself.

There weren't many formations in the cave but we saw a few like this area where drapery is beginning to form.

Tiny little stalactites forming from the roof of the cave. 

Nice section of flow stone.

Overall we enjoyed the experience although the cave is really very short.  We had visions of going in for about a 1/2 mile or so even though there's nothing in the literature to indicate how long the cave is. Still, there aren't many caves where you have to take a boat in even if it because they've damned the river inside the cave to make it possible!

Lastly we visited Mammoth Cave National Park although we didn't actually go into the cave itself.  It's such a famous place we felt like we really ought to at least go and see the visitor center and we're so glad we did.  Mammoth cave is the longest cave in the world.  412 miles of the cave have been surveyed thus far and the surveying continues.  That's almost twice as long as the next longest cave.

This is a map of the Mammoth cave system. 
It's hard to see it but a three dimensional model made of metal is shown at the very bottom of the map.
Our campground was behind the metal model, straight down from the letter M.
We found it strange that you can drive to the visitor center and not have a clue that you are driving directly over the cave system.

The key ingredients that make a cave system possible. 
Relatively soft porous limestone deposited over tens of millions of years as animals died in a shallow sea.
Later mountains rose as the earths plates collided with one another. 
Rivers running off the mountains carried sand and clay, depositing them on top of the limestone. 
These hardened into sandstone and shale.
As the slightly acidic water flows it seeps into cracks and crevices it finally reaches the limestone where it begins to slowly dissolve it, opening up passageways. 
New rock is created as dissolved minerals in the water are slowly deposited on the limestone forming the beautiful formations we see in caves today.

Examples of passageways.
Pictures of the real thing below.

There are a variety of different tours you take into Mammoth cave depending on how long you have and what you want to see.  Be sure to leave time to see the visitor center as well.  It's a very interesting and unique place.