24-May-2024 Above and Below Ground, Kentucky

I how cool is it to tour a flooded mineshaft in a boat? Very cool!

But let me start with the above ground part of my day first. Before leaving Louisville I took a guided walk through urban jewel Old Louisville. It is a national preservation district which is home to the largest contiguous collection of Victorian mansions in the United States. There are many, many blocks of unique and interesting homes on beautiful tree line streets. They even have a couple of blocks called Belgravia Court which was the Nation’s first “walking court”: pedestrian only and no cars. Homes have cool arches and turrets and columns and even a gargoyle that wears a derby hat. I learned about different styles like the Victorian Gothic, Neoclassical, Queen Ann, Tudor Revival and so many more. Streets are lined with beautiful gas lanterns and the magnolia trees were blooming and fragrant.

I couldn’t resist taking the one picture of a plane flying overhead to remind me to share a fact I learned – this neighborhood is in the flight path to the airport and very frequently giant planes flew right overhead (picture shows a plane much further away – most were immediately overhead) with deafening engine noise. Our guide explained that Louisville is the world headquarters of UPS and WOW are there lots and lots of UPS planes flying in and out. Never knew that was their central hub! I do think it would be annoying to live in one of these beautiful homes and have such loud air traffic overhead all the time.

And another interesting fact: one of the houses on the pedestrian street is for sale and I pulled it up on Zillow: only $585,000! I thought that was so inexpensive and asked the tour guide about it - and she said “mortgage is only the first check you are going to write when you invest in one of these homes”. They are all under a historical preservation district which means everything must be replaced with original materials. Got a slate roof? You’re going to have to replace it with a slate roof. these homes can be a labor of love and can be VERY expensive to maintain.

I had initially thought of watching a horse race at Churchill Downs in the afternoon, but a couple I met on the bourbon tour yesterday told me they were heading to a place called the Gorge Underground this weekend (about 2 hours east of Louisville, in the Kentucky hills) …. a flooded cave where you can kayak or take a boat tour. The cave sounded much more interesting than horse racing so off I went.

The “cave” is actually a 100 year old springfed limestone mine. The limestone was used as a base for many of the roads and highways in Kentucky. Once all the good lime had been removed the mining company abandoned the shafts and they eventually filled with water (the cave holds more than 30,000,000 gallons of water). The air temperature inside the cave is 55° all year long, and the water temperature is a chilly 44°.

I had hoped to do a kayak tour but they were all sold out so I settled for a boat tour …. and in the end I think I got really lucky because it seems to me that the boat tour was way better! The kayakers all stayed close to the entrance of the cave/mine whereas we were able to take the boat way deep in to the very end of the shaft.

At the mouth of the mine the ceiling is about 30 feet above with about 10 foot deep water below. I learned that the mine shaft is 40 feet tall throughout the cave, but as you go deeper down the water is higher and as we came towards the end you could reach up and touch the ceiling while sitting on the boat …. Meaning there was about 35 feet of water below.

It is pitch dark in certain parts of the cave; our boat had some underwater illumination and occasionally our guide would turn on a light to see where he was going to point out certain features. Locals stocked the cave water with rainbow trout which grow to be 30+ inches - there sure are lots of big fish down there! It was interesting and unique to be able to explore a mine by boat.

I then headed on to Cincinnati, Ohio. I got a good deal at a hotel called The Graduate. I had stayed in a Graduate Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee and decided to try again here in Cincinnati. The Graduate hotels tend to all be affiliated with college campuses, have room key cards that look like ID cards of famous graduates, and have fun and eclectic decorations. The hotel is right on the beautiful University of Cincinnati campus and their rooms are adorned with Bearcat traditions and Ohio charm. My room has a picture of the actors from the old TV show “WKRP in Cincinnati” along with other Cincinnati sports and local lore items. Apparently that is Bootsy Collins on the wallpaper of my bathroom (according to Rolling Stone he is one of Funk and R&B’s notorious bassists, singers, front man and producer) …. And apparently I need to go to Skyline Chili for a famous Cincinnati chili dog!