More Road Trippin in Kentucky

Hey - y'all know I've been itching for a trip to the beach....

But you gotta love the one you're with......

And right now, the one I'm with is the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

No beaches here.

Plenty of stuff to see, though.

And while my favorite spot is Pleasant Hill, ( see my post about it ) there are a lot of other points of interest..
........ especially if you're in the mood for some unusual sights.....

So....
.... why don't we all pile in our imaginary digital car ( a Corvette... vrooom vrooom.... )

ummm...... you can have the front seat.

...................... what we want is to go somewhere -
we can have fun, a little mystery, some tragic irony,
.........maybe even go where no man has gone before.

.............hhmmmmmmmmm..................



So... lets crank up the travelin' music....
and we can HIT THE ROAD!

First Stop :
Bowling Green for the home of the world's greatest sports car: the Corvette!

Here in Bowling Green,
every Corvette that was ever made since the late 50's- was made HERE...

and you can tour the manufacturing plant.....

... very cool.....

and you can actually buy your new Corvette,

......... and have it delivered to you RIGHT HERE at the plant........

Oh yes.

The only thing I'm missing is the $60,000 for the down payment.....


But, even cooler is next door :
the National Corvette Museum...
right off the highway on 31W.

Here you can see all the different year models of the Corvette - 

....................... from the earliest models to today's hotties.


Me, I like the 1961's ....

but it's not like I'd turn down the keys to any of these....

............plus a large display of Chevrolet racing memorabilia,

and a killer gift-shop with every Corvette item you can think of!


I got a very cool Corvette silk shirt that's too nice to wear.........

...... I'm not really sure what my logic on that was, exactly........

This place is an absolute must-see for any car-enthusiast!!!




Let's get back on 31W ---- and mosey our way east awhile........................

This is sure gorgeous country alright........

.........plenty of rolling hills,

................horse farms,

...................country stores, 

  ........................ red-headed hitch-hikers.....

HEY! Wait a minute.... slow down for pete's sake!!!!

 awww..... yer no fun anymore......



                        Okey dokey, well.. let's get focused and head EAST! 

 ................ Outside the town of Corbin, near Cumberland Falls State Park....

               we can visit a real live Ghost Town of a real fake Ghost Town...

............................. the remains of a theme park called Tombstone Junction.......

Tombstone Junction was a Wild West amusement park built in the 1950s, 

                           which burned down in 1989 - TWICE. 

 All that's left of the place is a few Kentucky-fried railroad cars,
  a barn with a sloped floor which used to be the Haunted House...    and .....

this......

..............................................   the old Tombstone Junction gate sign. 


 Is there anything CREEPIER than an abandoned amusement park?? 

Not on my list, there ain't.



Oh... we're having some fun now......
  (hey, can we turn around and pick up that redhead???)


RATS.    ........... party pooper.



We'll continue east - through and past the route for
 THE WORLD'S LARGEST GARAGE SALE -- 
    --- the annual US Route 127 Sale -- featuring tens of thousands of roadside sellers,
  running alongside US-127 from Defiance, Ohio thru this part of Kentucky to Gadsden, Alabama.     (it runs for a week every August);

   ..... 400 hundred miles of garage sales...

....... from end to end to end to end to endless end.............

ACK!!!

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS, YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!


Be ready for the worst traffic jam,
... and the worst drivers you have ever seen in yer life.


My advice, unless you're here for the sale ---
if it's the second week of August,
just stay the hell away from US-127 entirely.




Next............... northbound.

Ever heard of "Crystal Cave" ....... or Floyd Collins??

We'll take a detour north to visit Mammoth Cave National Park
......... and the saga of Floyd Collins - the "Greatest Cave Explorer Ever Known".

You see, in the early 1900's, Floyd was what you'd call a world famous cave expert.

He had explored and mapped many of the cave systems in the Southeastern U.S..... and his family happened to own the property containing a very beautiful cave system called "Crystal Cave"... which didn't get a lot of visitors, because it was kinda hard to get to.

Visiting caves was a big tourist industry in Kentucky, and Floyd was determined to find an entrance to the cave system that was closer to the highway. He worked down in those dark, damp caves all alone for about three weeks, until he slithered through a narrow crevice into what was soon to be known as "Sand Cave".

He explored it some, but his lamp was failing, so he tried to exit the way he came......

... but he got his leg pinned between a rock and the crevice.

The rock slipped, locking his leg in place.

He was now a prisoner of Sand Cave..... trapped about 150 feet from the entrance.

His friends came looking for him the next day... dropped him some food and water...

and of course, they also tried to dig him out.

But that old boy was stuck.

During the following week, the media circus was three rings....

It was the biggest story since Lindbergh crossed the Delaware.

Wait... that hadn't happened yet.

Or was that a guy named George?

Anyway....

As I say, the old boy was stuck.

The newspapers were full of news about the rescue efforts.....
.... especially how after four days, the would be rescuers accidentally caused a cave-in that cut off Floyd from all light - and all supplies .

Only his voice told the rescuers that Floyd was still alive.

And that voice went silent on the fourteenth day.

Three days before they could open up a new hole to him.

And TWO MONTHS before they could retrieve Floyd's body.

And once they did, they put it in a glass case, and re-displayed it in the cave, as just another tourist attraction.


Here's a picture of Floyd, before his discovery of Sand Cave.......

........that triangular ribbon he wears advertises "Great Crystal Cave".

How's that for tragic irony, hmmmm?





  
   Turning westbound...............................  



 We gonna visit the birthplace of a real honest-to-goodness Psychic.

 I'm not much on this kinda thing.

 But, this man was special.

 His name was Edgar Cayce, "The Sleeping Prophet"-
and his ability to diagnose people's illnesses, even though
he had no formal education was amazing- and well documented.

 He didn't do it for the money -

 He did it because he felt he had been given a gift from God,
that he was obligated to use for the good of his fellow man.

 Much of what he predicted came to pass...
but some of his predictions were wrong, of course.

 That one about Atlantis rising from the sea in the 1960's ....


( I've dived the Bimini Road.... and that's no Atlantis.....  )

OH well....... even Nostradamus had his off days, ya know?

Still..... a very interesting guy.

He was born here, and is buried here.





Hopkinsville itself is a sweet little town, with a nice family diner and very friendly folks.


It also happens to be the home (drum roll)
..... of one of the most bizarre cases of "close encounter" reports ----

the infamous "Kelly-Hopkinsville" incident, in 1955.

Gremlins.

Yes, I said Gremlins.

At least, that is how the alien visitors appeared to the seven people terrorized by the 3 foot tall taloned creatures at the Sutton farmhouse the night of August 21.

 ( State troopers and other local authorities also reported sighting strange lights and hearing strange sounds in the vicinity........ )

..... Oh, did I mention that these little UFO creeps were green?

You know....... like Gremlins.


Local authorities investigated, and found all kinds of bullet holes everywhere.....

..... where the folks had been shooting at the varmints, with no success.

The Air Force suggested it might have been monkeys escaped from a circus, although no troop of missing maniacal monkeys was ever reported.





Northwest we go.... to the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers.....

and the town of Paducah to inquire about one of it's most famous residents... "Speedy".

I warn you, though.... the residents here aren't that fond of ugly muscular strangers from
far-off ferr-in places like Charlotte asking damned-fool-questions about "Speedy".......

to call them petulant would be an understatement...
to call them truculent might be an overstatement.....
so we'll just call em xenophobic and leave it at that.

I did find one kindly soul at the downtown antique store who told me the story after selling me some very overpriced but very nice collectibles.....

Anyhoo... the story about "Speedy" is this.....
... he was just a feller who worked for a living in the town processing tobacco.

One spring day in 1928, "Speedy", who couldn't swim, went fishing on the banks of the Ohio River, fell in, and promptly went down like a stone.

 His friend, A.Z. Hamock, who happened to run a funeral home, decided to experiment on the body with his new 'miracle' preservative.

Which turned "Speedy" into something resembling a wood statue.

So, of course, his friend put him on display at the funeral home....
......... where he remained--  until the great flood of 1937.

 At that point, "Speedy" and the rest of the contents of the mortuary, along with most of Paducah, were washed down the Tennessee River.

 The body was eventually returned to the town along with the bodies of flood victims.

 He was turned over to the now widowed Mrs. Hamock, who kept him at her house until 1994, finally burying him in the town's Maplelawn Cemetery. 



What is it with these people and dead bodies, anyhow????

Does anybody else get the feeling that life in these small towns can get pretty weird ????

Do me a favor....
..... if by some weird chance I croak in Kentucky, would somebody PLEEZE rescue my body?

PLEEEZE???