Kentucky is best known for two things - horse racing and bourbon - and I had plans for both. Equipped with my new hat and dress shirt I drove north for Louisville and the 150th annual “Run for the Roses” - The Kentucky Derby.
The drive from NOLA to Louisville was 700 miles and my map told me to expect over 10 hours of drive time. I had to complete it in one day because I was driving in the middle of the week and I couldn’t miss more than one day of work. This was the most grueling drive of the trip so far, and it spanned 5 states. Unfortunately, I got a late start loading out of my Airbnb, and I wasn’t underway until noon.
I left New Orleans heading north on the 24 mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain. I then crossed through Mississippi next. I stopped for a late lunch at Jimmy John’s in Meridian. I talked with the two girls working behind the counter as they made my sandwich and asked them for a recommendation for my future visit to their state. “Not here” was their emphatic response. They referenced the issues of crime and drugs and told me about a recent case where an elderly couple were killed in their home for apparently no reason. So, no to Meridian when I come back this way - noted.
My next stop was Tuscaloosa, AL to juice up at a Starbucks. I found myself right in the middle of the University of Alabama, which I knew from their dominant football team. The college town wasn’t at all like the stereotypical backwoods images Alabama conjured up in my head, but a southern preppy country club vibe.
After Alabama came Tennessee. The hours were dragging on, and with all the stops for food and gas, I was running way behind. It was going to be a late night. I stopped for a final round of snacks and caffeine at a Buc-ees near the Kentucky border. I’d never heard of Buc-ees, but apparently they’re a whole thing in parts of the south. Their store in Luling, TX has the dubious honor of being the largest convenience store in the world.
(Bucky the Beaver swept me off my feet)
Just after entering Kentucky, I crossed the 10,000 mile mark for the trip. I was still averaging 1,000 miles a state. I hope Pierogi makes it.
RADCLIFF
At 4:00am I finally arrived at the Gold Vault Inn in Radcliffe, KY delirious from lack of sleep, my body aching. The woman at the front desk, whose last fuck had left town long before, checked me in. I climbed the lobby’s grand stairs, which were adorned with horse banners for the occasion. My key didn’t work, so I jiggled the knob and tried again. Then I heard a cough and someone speaking in the room - she had given me a room someone was sleeping in!
I hastily retreated to the lobby and got a different room. Thankfully, this one was unoccupied. My head hit the pillow on the rigid bed. I barely had time to appreciate the faded 70’s decor and the ghosts of a thousand dead cigarettes before I was out.
Radcliffe consists of three miles of Highway 31W and a collection of the same featureless fast food, grocery, drug store boxes you see everywhere across America. The only thing interesting about it is that is sits next to a 170 square mile blank gray area on Google Maps - Fort Knox.
The name Fort Knox is synonymous with gold storage in the nation's collective consciousness, but it’s actually a large military base. The base does, however sit adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which still stores half of the US Treasury’s gold - 4,583 metric tons with a current market value of roughly $290 Billion.
So why was I in this podunk town an hour from the horse track in Louisville? Simple - I had planned ahead enough to buy tickets to the derby four months prior, but not enough to book myself a place to stay. The very limited accommodation options in the city started around $500 per night, so I was stuck at the Gold Vault Inn.
KENTUCKY DERBY
The next morning, I dressed in my blazer, new coral shirt, and the snappy hat I'd purchased in New Orleans, then drove into Louisville. Having never been, I started out on the earlier side because I didn’t want to risk getting jammed up with the rest of the 150,000 people getting to the race. As it turns out, I needn’t have been too worried - they’ve done this once or twice before.
I parked in the lot for L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium, where the University of Louisville Cardinals play football. The Kentucky Derby is a single race, but you don’t just show up, watch a 2-minute race, then go home. There are three full days of races over a long weekend at Churchill Downs.
This year, the derby was race number 12 of 14, starting at 7:00pm. I arrived at 11:00am so I decided to take a beat in the parking lot for a pre-party nip off the bottle of Tanqueray I'd picked up in New Orleans.
When I opened the cooler to grab the gin I discovered that, in my blind frenzy packing out of New Orleans, I had thrown a nearly full tub of butter into it without considering the consequences. Everything in the cooler was slick with melted butter. “Well that’s inconvenient,” I thought to myself as I poured gin into a can of lukewarm grapefruit seltzer, “I’ll have to clean that later.”
The half-mile walk to the track was replete with two things - street corner preachers with giant signs and megaphones, and T-shirt sellers. Some of the shirts were for race day, but most had vulgar, misogynistic statements about the current administration.
When I had looked at tickets back in January, entrance to the infield was reasonable - $75 or so. Seats in the bleachers around the outside started at $1,000, so I was in the infield. I scanned my ticket and got there through a long concrete tunnel that ran under the track.
The mile-long track left enough room in its middle to house lots of people and activities. Food stands, liquor stands, betting tents, beer stands, merch tent, everything you could want for a giant party. I very quickly noticed that you couldn’t actually see the track because they had put up another set of bleachers along the inside so they could sell even more expensive seats.
So yeah, I went to the Kentucky Derby and didn’t actually see a single horse. I did however, watch the races on a 170-foot wide video display which, when it was installed in 2014, was the largest in the world. It’s now 29th.
I grabbed a mint julep and wandered around. Most people were dressed up - some classy and reserved, some extravagant, and some just plain silly. It was somewhere around the 4th race and the party was already in full swing.
Every 30-45 minutes, when a race came on the jumbotron, everyone would hush for the start. Once the starting gates opened people would start quietly cheering on the horse they had bet on. As the race progressed, their cheers would become louder and more passionate until, in the home stretch, they would be shouting and jumping up and down. The excitement would peak and then there would be a lull, some people stoked about the result, but most not. Everyone would head back to the betting tents to cash in their tickets, make more bets, then do it all again.
It struck me as strange they didn’t have live music or other entertainment between the races, but I guess dressing up and day drinking was all anyone really needed. I walked around, people watching and soaking up the scene. I couldn’t help but wonder just how different my experience of the day was from those in the stands and boxes. I bought a commemorative blanket to sit on. I placed dozens of small bets and lost the vast majority.
As the day went on, the carnage intensified. More and more people showed up. Some of those who had been day-drinking since noon stumbled around like zombies or collapsed on the ground in what little shade they could find. After all, this was the event that Hunter S. Thompson called "Decadent and Depraved" in the title of his 1970 essay.
After race 11, the crowds at the betting tents surged and everyone took their spots in front of the screen. An announcer built excitement while two parachuters floated down to the track.
The horses were put in their starting gates and you could hear a pin drop, then they were off! The 1.25 miles went quickly and ended with an exciting photo finish. Mystik Dan just edged out Sierra Leone (my horse) and Forever Young.
As soon as the race ended, the crowd moved en masse toward the exit - the large concrete tunnel I'd come in through. It was a slow-moving and sweaty crowd, so I decided to stay and watch the last two races.
I visited the bathroom for the first time since midday and found what could only be described as a crime scene. These porta-potties had been disrespected far worse than any music festival, fair, or outdoor event I'd ever attended. They were full up to just a few inches below the seat, and not just with the usual number one and number two. There were cups, bottles, cigar butts, half-eaten food, you name it, filling the toilet and piled up on the floor. It was absolutely appalling, but I did find it interesting to see this had happened at such a "classy" event. In my experience, those with the most entitlement often have the least consideration.
It didn’t occur to me until after that I should have taken a picture. Lucky for you, I was too disgusted to think about it at the time. While writing this I did some googling to see if others had had the same experience. What I discovered shocked and amused me more than the state of the potties.
Apparently it's a tradition at the Preakness Stakes, and to a less extent the Kentucky Derby, for the occasional drunk to climb atop the porta-potties and run the length of the row while the crowd tries to knock them off with half-full beers. You can’t make this shit up.
DINOSAUR WORLD & TREASURE TROVE PARK
Sunday I drove to Bowling Green, near the Tennessee border, which was to be my home for the next five days. About two thirds of the way there I passed a 40-foot tall T-Rex along the side of the highway, followed by a three-headed dragon. Intrigued, I turned around at the next exit to see what was going on.
Off the exit, I discovered Dinosaur World, an 18-acre park and educational center. I spent a couple of diverting hours there wandering, doing a giant jigsaw puzzle, simulating an archaeological dig, and being hunted by an animatronic velociraptor.
I walked the winding trail past 150 life-size statues, many depicting species I had never heard of. It felt like walking through Jurassic Park.
As I was leaving, I asked someone who worked there what was the deal with the dragon they put by the highway. Instantly a look of disdain crossed the woman’s face. “That’s not us, that’s the place down the road.” she told me.
Intrigued, I continued on for a mile and pulled into the parking lot of Treasure Trove Park. The owner, one Michael Barrick aka Kentuckyana Jones (more on him later), greeted me. He told me that they weren’t open yet for the season, but his employee Angel would be happy to take me for a little tour. I happily agreed and followed her into the building.
Beyond the gift shop there was a hall of displays with artifacts of questionable provenance. There were sections for vikings, ancient Egypt, medieval England and more. Angel explained in reverential tones that Michael was an honest-to-God treasure hunter and he had collected these objects from all over the world. He had even, she told me, discovered a fossilized pig snout and blood in Kentucky which proved that Noah’s Ark and the 40-day flood were real. I didn’t follow her logic and couldn't fathom fossilized blood, but I nodded in feigned awe nonetheless.
Inside the park I found pigs and chickens rooting around massive statues of dragons, dinosaurs, and an angry gorilla. This place had - hands down - the most disjoined assortment of attractions I had ever seen in one place and was clearly much larger than I could see. I thanked Michael for his hospitality and left. It was a train wreck of a park but to be honest, I wished I could have spent more time exploring.
In a shockingly predictable twist, it turns out that our friend Michael is a charlatan of the highest order. In 2019, “Kentuckyana Jones” pleaded guilty of 11 counts of bank fraud, was sentenced to 33 months of prison, and forced to repay $1.4 million in ill-gotten gains. He represented himself throughout the majority of the case, although at one point he did hire a lawyer. She withdrew from the case two months later, citing a fundamental disagreement that strained the attorney/client relationship. I would have given anything to buy that man dinner and listen to his stories.
BOWLING GREEN
Bowling Green is a cute little college town in southern Kentucky, about an hour from Nashville. The school in question, I learned, is not in fact Bowling Green University, which is in Ohio, but Western Kentucky University. The spring semester had just ended a week prior, so I found the town sparsely populated and low-key.
To make everything fit in Pierogi just right, I had been packing my cooler in the back of the car laying on its side. Unpacking, I realized how bad The Butter was. Every ounce of it had melted and the vast majority had leaked out of the cooler, soaking into the industrial carpet in the back. It had gotten on my cervical neck pillow, but remarkably none of my other stuff. Its smell was pervasive.
I spent several nights that week wandering the nearly deserted downtown. My first night exploring, I saw a bouncer chase two girls down an empty sidewalk, demanding to exchange their purses, which they’d left, for their drinks, which they’d taken.
One night there was a tornado watch, but thankfully no tornado. I sat on the deep porch with a glass of bourbon watching the dry lightning in the distance. Thunderstorms are something from my childhood which I deeply missed living in LA and Portland, where they rarely occur.
Two nights I ate out at Anna’s Greek Restaurant, which is housed in a repurposed church - I wrote a little about it in my FRIENDLY post. The food was nearly as amazing as the building itself. I drank Proverb wine at the bar and ate lamb in front of a stained glass window of Jesus with lambs.
My first night eating there, an older woman who introduced herself as Carmen Carmen (not a typo) came up to me and asked what I was eating. I told her the lamb chops and offered her a bite, which she accepted. We chatted for a bit then she invited me to visit her at the assisted living home where she lived thirty minutes away. An hour later she called the restaurant while I was talking to the owner and demanded a refund for the take-out order she’d gotten.
Sometimes life feels like a Mad Lib.
A different evening, I went on a quest for legitimate local fried chicken for dinner. When in Rome, I figured. Much to my disappointment, I found only chains - KFC, Popeyes, Raising Cane’s, and two I’d never heard of - Zaxby’s and Slim Chickens. I settled on Raising Cane’s and hunkered down at my Airbnb to paint a miniature.
CORVETTE MUSEUM
The thing that Bowling Green is probably the most known for is the National Corvette Museum. All the locals told me I had to visit, so I did.
I am not much of a car person. Although I enjoy driving a fast car as much as the next guy, I see them mostly as tools - get me from point A to point B reliably, and carry my stuff. The closest thing I ever had to a car I truly loved was a leased Infiniti Convertible. I traded it in for Pierogi when I bought a house, got a dog, and got married (in that order). A convertible just wasn’t all that practical for Home Depot runs.
(that's me with the blinds for the windows of my new house)
The museum had an incredible collection of cars, from very early consumer cars, to rare limited editions and even race cars. They had sketches, clay models, and prototypes.
The coolest part of the museum however, in my opinion, was their display on the sinkhole that had opened underneath the museum in 2014, swallowing up 8 cars.
It turns out that part of Kentucky is a lattice-work of underground caves. 30 miles from Bowling Green is Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave system in the world. I’ll have to put it on my to-do list in the future.
At the end of my visit, I went to the gift shop to buy a sticker for my laptop. The woman checking me out pleasantly asked me where I was from. “I’m homeless.” I responded, cheekily. Shocked, she said “I’m so sorry”. “Nah, don't be,” I told her, “it’s by choice.”
“Oh, okay.” She looked relieved. Then she took on a conspiratorial tone and said to me under her breath “Isn’t all homelessness really by choice though.” It was my turn to be taken aback, so I responded “I don’t know, I think a lot of it has to do with addiction and mental health. But hey, that’s just me. Thanks for the sticker.” and left. Maybe I had been an asshole unnecessarily, but the tone deaf privilege of her comment had bothered me.
That afternoon, before repacking, I took my car to the self-service car wash to deal with The Butter. I pulled the mats out of the back of the car, hit them with the soap spray, gave them a rinse, and ran them through a mat squeegee machine to dry them. Easy-peasy, I thought, that should take care of the smell.
Saturday morning I headed south. The time I had spent in Bowling Green was just what I needed - pleasant and restorative. I was glad because it was sandwiched between a very full week and a half in Louisiana and what promised to be a packed agenda when friends flew out from LA to show me around Memphis.
Yes, and…
Matt
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