Friends and Family Tour: Louisville, KY & Morgantown, WV
The main goal of the road trip was not the Natchez Trace – it was just a very cool and fairly convenient route to go forth and visit friends and family.
Just under 5 hours from Nashville is Louisville, KY, home to my bestie Laura and her husband Mike. I have been to Louisville many, many times, so I have covered most of the tourist spots, so now I focus on places frequented by locals.
We started our one full day by walking over The Big Four Bridge. The original 1895 bridge was a railroad bridge plagued with problems and rebuilt in 1929 to accommodate larger diesel engines. In 1969, it was abandoned and the debate on the fate of the structure was debated for the next 25 years. Louisville wants to take advantage of the miles of riverfront and developed a waterfront Master Plan in the early 1990’s, showing it would make an ideal pedestrian bridge. The conversion started in 2007 and completed in 2013- creating a ½ mile long pedestrian/bike path that takes you over the Ohio River from the Louisville Waterfront Park to Jeffersonville, IN (where there is a convenient farmer’s market on Saturday mornings).
Another Louisville development project, still in the works, is the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, (which will soon include a 2-acre Japanese Garden). Only about a mile from the bridge, the free Gardens provide a popular place for graduation and wedding photos.
It’s meandering paths, bordered by lush gardens – a mix of decorative and practical, interspersed with water features, are guaranteed to lower the blood pressure by several points.
Our next stop on the “things to do with Carolyn” tour incorporated a link to the earlier parts of the drive. Locust Grove is a former plantation home, once near the western most part of the American Frontier – and one of the first hosts to the returning Lewis and Clark in 1806 (partly because Clark’s older brother was a frequent inhabitant of Locust Grove).
The museum and grounds are free to visit, to tour the home (timed guided tours) is $12pp. (As an aside – I adore castles and forts, Plantation homes are nice, but lack the fascination I have for the other structures.) We chose to visit the museum and grounds (and planned to leave a donation – but could not find a donation box) and pass on the house.
We ended the day at “Zoo Lights” at the Louisville Zoo. These special nights, promoted by several zoos across the country, are great fundraisers for the zoos and their mission to preserve members of endangered and threatened species. One of the few animals interested in greeting us was a resident warthog,
most of the remaining inhabitants happily hid themselves away in their burrows and sheds. Instead, we saw an amazing mixture of real and imagined flora and fauna shaped “lanterns” as we meandered the zoo with thousands of others (it happened to be the very last night of Zoo Lights and a good portion of Louisville citizens turned out).
The next day, I was off to Morgantown, WV (5 hours away), the home of my brother Malcolm and his family. The city of 31,000 prides itself with West Virginia University. I spent most of my time here visiting the family – so I did not do much “touristy” stuff (sculpture gardens, museum, Theatre), but I really enjoyed the waterfront paths starting at the Edith Barill Riverfront Park and Trail (technically in Star City)
– which is part of a network of trails that line the Monongahela River and Deckers Creek. The trails are a mixture of paved and crushed limestone paths that extend 8.2 miles – all the way to Point Marion just over the Pennsylvania state line. Starting at Edith Barill Park, I walked along a shady paved trail for about two miles, stopping to appreciate the waterfalls.
Next up – Philadelphia Flower Show and Memphis!
Nice