KY Day 5 - Caves, Carnivores, and Contemporary Art
I started today by eating the peanut butter cup pie I got in Louisville, and let me tell ya, it tasted it as good as it looked. Probably not the healthiest breakfast I've had on this trip, but there's protein in peanut butter... and cups.
After gorging myself, I needed more energy to move so I got some coffee at Common Grounds Coffee House in Lexington. The coffee was great, the place was cozy, and the barista told me one of the most complicatedly dirty jokes I've ever heard before noon so I really liked it there.
My big trip for the day was to see Mammoth Cave, the longest known underground cave system in the world, clocking in at 412 miles! In a staggering bit of coincidence Mammoth Cave happened to be located in Mammoth Cave National Park so thats' where I went. It was a bit of hike from Lexington and actually in a different time zone too, so this marked my first foray into the Central Time Zone.
The National Park above and around the cave is beautiful and open to the public for free, and for very low rates there are guided tours of different parts of the cave itself. Unfortunately apparently a lot of other people had my Post-Thanksgiving Spelunking Fever (TM), so most of the tours were sold out. There was one tour of the main caverns left, but I would have an hour and a half to kill before then. I booked it anyway and kind of wandered around the little museum area in the visitor center that explained what limestone is and what kinds of animals live in the cave.
I also went to the little house cafe, and got a decidedly average cheeseburger, but with side of some very delicious praline ice cream.
Unsurprisingly, it did not take an hour and half for me to cram a cheeseburger and some ice cream into my gaping maw, so I still had an hour and 25 minutes to kill. I took a drive down to the only other nearby recreation area named after prehistoric beasts: Dinosaur World. I didn't actually go in, because as eye-catching as the name and giant Triceratops outside were, a quick google search revealed that the actual theme park attractions would be pretty expensive and geared for a much younger audience. I probably would have still enjoyed it honestly, but I didn't want to have rush my time there and I was pretty contented by just the dinosaurs in the parking lot.
My desire to see some prehistoric creatures was sated however in an unexpected place along the way back to Mammoth Cave. I was struck by the big collection of gems outside of Big Mike's Rock Shop. I stopped to take a picture for my geology friends, and then when I saw a sign that said they had the largest gift shop in Kentucky I had to at least have a peak. It was pretty big, and mostly filled with pretty standard gift shop fare, with the exceptions of some really cool carved gemstones. But then just tucked in the back corner of the gift shop is Big Mo, the largest known Mosasaur skull in the world. Apparently mosasaurs were like 40 foot long crocodile/fish hybrids and somehow this five foot long fossilized skull of one just ended up in a gift shop display in central Kentucky. Life's funny like that sometimes.
After paying my respects to Big Mo, it was finally time to start my cave tour. While there has been some excavation the vast majority of the cave system is entirely naturally occurring. It was first discover ed by pre-tribal Nataive Americans and used as shelter from harsh weather, but not permanent lodging due to the total darkness. It went through a lot of phases until it ended up in the hands of the national parks service. Possibly the most interesting, was that some doctor in the 19th century thought that the constant temperature of the cavern would make it ideal for treating tuberculosis patients but again it turned out that impenetrable darkness made medical treatment almost entirely impossible so the whole thing shut down after barely two months.
I knew the cave would be big, but nothing could really prepare me for the "Rotunda Room", the largest open space in the cave. It was really breathtaking.
After the cave, I made the drive back to Lexington for dinner. I went to a pub called the Village Idiot. With a name like that, I would have gone no matter what, but it also happened to be one of the most highly recommended dinner spots around. I ordered the burger of the week called the Garbage Burger. It had everything imaginable on it, guacamole, salsa, bacon, mushrooms, and four different kinds of cheese. Every single thing about it was incredible. It more than made up for the lousy cafeteria lunch burger from earlier, and I felt more than a little full afterwards. The family at the table next to me was horrified that I ate the whole thing, but I regret nothing. To wash it down, I had an Oskar Blues Coconut Porter, which tasted really good, but definitely is too coconut-y to really pair well with red meat. It would have made a much better dessert beer.
After dinner, I went to 21c. 21c is a chain of hotels that also double as free contemporary art museums that are open 24/7. I believe they started in Louisville, but have since branched out to a handful of locations all with different exhibits and one happened to be in Lexington. The hotel aspect seemed really nice, but the kind of nice I'm not gonna be able to afford any time soon so I was very appreciative that museum aspect was free. As it was all contemporary, some of it was pretty strange but also pretty beautiful. I particularly liked the brightly colored sculptures of penguins and bears all over the hotel, a painting by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye entitled 11am Monday of an ambiguous Black figure, a photograph of a bunch of women standing naked in a line that spanned an entire wall, and a photograph of people painted to be a canvas (you might not even notice they're people at first glance).
Lastly, at Sonya's suggestion, I went to the Crank and Boom Ice Cream Lounge, a beautiful combination of words if ever there was one. I was told that they had really good ice cream, but their specialty was ice-cream-centric cocktails. I ordered the Stout Dreams, which featured coffee stout ice cream, bourbon cream, and espresso topped with brownie crumbs and salted caramel. Essentially all of my favorite things all in one drink, a perfect full circle of gluttony to close out the day on a high note.
Favorite Random Sightings: A wifi Network called "Macho LAN Randy Savage"; Nice Sugar; Barren County (a bit on the nose); Gun Town Souvenir Shack; Mammoth Cavern Knife and Gifts
Regional Observations: I've never seen many gun shops.
Albums Listened To: Keep Me Singing by Van Morrison; ken by Destroyer (I was a little disappointed because I really liked the instrumentation on their last album but this was more synth based which doesn't do much for me but lyrically it's spectacularly); Key Lime Pie by Camper Van Beethoven (a weird one); Kill Punk Rock Stars by the Fad (just Ska-Boom); Kiln House by Fleetwood Mac; Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (easily one of the greatest albums of all time by anyone's metric); King of Limbs by Radiohead (just Lotus Flower); King of Ska by Desmond Dekker; Kings & Queens by John Brown's Body
People's Favorite Jokes:
Some men are out golfing, and they ask one of the guys what he does for a living. "I'm actually a hitman," he says. "How does that work? I think my wife's been cheating on me so I might be interested" one of the guy asks. "People give me a target, I scout them out, and then I kill them. Here look at this." He unzips his golf bag and pulls out a sniper rifle. "Here," he says. "if you want to be sure you can look through this scope at your wife." The man looks through the scope. "There's my wife," he says. "And there's another man there! That bitch! Alright I'll do it. How much does it cost?" "Well," the hitman says. "I charge $2000 a bullet" "Okay," the man says "I want you to shoot her in her lying whore mouth, and I want you to shoot him in the dick to teach him a lesson about sleeping with other men's wives". "Okay," the hitman says, and starts lining up his shot. A few moments go by and nothing happens. "What are you waiting for?" the man asks. "Don't rush me!" the hit man says, "If you give them a minute, I can save you $2000"
Songs of the Day:
One downbeat, one upbeat
I love this video, and I'd like to suggest a new nickname for Van: The Groovy Potato
Bonus Jazz:
I didn't make it a song of the day, because I generally try to highlight things I don't think people will know as well, but this has recordings of Miles and Trane so it still needs to be seen