Cumberland Gap has been evading us for five years.  We had it on our original itinerary when we were selling the house, but somehow it didn’t work out along the route and got scrapped.  We tried planning it a couple of times on successive rounds around the country, but it simply never happened.  Earlier this year we’d even planned on stopping en route to or from Asheville, but the excessively brisk Floridian winter urged us otherwise.  So went with plan G.  Or maybe H … a weekend trip from from Louisville.

And then we were in Louisville.   And the weekends were ticking away.   Thunder …  Marathon …  the Oaks and Derby …  Mothers Day …  Go go go!  We planned on this weekend to make it happen.   It’s a very reasonable 2-2.5 hour drive from Shepherdsville.

And Friday forecast heavy thunderstorms throughout the night.  We quickly changed plans from a weekend of camping to a night in a hotel before a single night of camping.   A nice kick back in a hot tub instead of pitching a tent in a downpour with lightning in; really a no brainer.

We got to Cumberland Gap bright and early on Saturday, before the visitor center even opened, had our pick of campsites, evaded a Boy Scout troop from Ohio, and headed out on a hike directly from the campground.  Mad props to any and all NPS parks that loop the campground in to the trail system!

We hiked a loop that we didn’t really measure the distance of.  Essentially, we hiked up to the ridge trail, learned about several ‘forts’ that changed hands throughout the Civil War, looped through the Pinnacle, and came down to the saddle.

We saw NOBODY until we were within 20 feet of the paved trails near the

History with a View

Pinnacle parking lot.  Which is normal for National Parks, but still sort of eerie.  It was our first real hike since North Dakota, so the tried and true was unique and new again…  The overlook was cool, but when it got crowded we retreated back to the trails and headed down to the actual Wilderness Trail across the Saddle of the Gap.

We spent a while basking in the historical importance of the gap; early settlers’ first path to western expansion (or invasion, depending on your point of view) before taking a side trip up to the top of Tri-State Peak, the point where Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky meet, and continuing our hike along the

Lollygaggin' in the Footsteps of History

Wilderness Road back to the campground.  Ceridwen wrote up a entry on her Wanderlust Bling blog on the historical geek significance of the moment.  It was good.  We had beautiful, clear views the whole way and the weather was great for hiking, if maybe a bit on the warm side.

When all was said and done, the hike was close to 13 miles, which wiped us out a bit more than we’d expected, so it was a lazy evening around the campsite before settling in to the test to weather the next set of storms that promised to roll in throughout the night.  The storms left a nice overcast haze in the morning, so we were glad we enjoyed the hike while the views were good.  We harassed the NPS workers at the visitor center and made them show us some historical movies so we could be all learned and stuff.

So now we’ve been to Cumberland Gap.  And our original itinerary has been fulfilled, barely five years later.  So, I guess that means it’s time to find some new places to explore.

Yup. Pouring rain started at around 3:30 AM, little later than forecast, but certainly as hard as forecast. The outlook was pretty much for rain all day, but the weather pattern was showing the storm just skirting Louisville, so we packed up our DriDucks and headed to Churchill Downs.

In case there was any doubt, Louisville takes it’s Derby seriously.  Very seriously.  Like, religiously seriously.  Aside from the town going all out with Derby-oriented events for the entire month leading up to the Derby, people wish each other a “Happy Derby” like it’s the next holiday coming up this weekend.  Whether or not people go to the Downs, chances are they’re doing something to celebrate Derby, even it it’s just renting out their driveway and lawn or selling cold beer and bar-b-cue on the sidewalk to Derby-goers at prices ever so slightly less offensive than the prices they charge inside the track.

Parking patterns had been changed a bit such that we couldn’t figure out how to park at or near Papa John’s Stadium, so we circled back to the jackpot of Derby parking options; Coit Cleaning had a $10 “Park for the Cure” with. $5 shuttle. All for a good cause, plus shelter from the wind and rain and complementary wine, beer, and car air fresheners. Woot.

The rain was light when we got to the track between races 7 and 8, so we got ourselves a tip sheet and got settled in. We placed bets on and handful of races, including the Derby, but only won a few of them.

The rain came pouring down for a while, scaring most people back inside, but we just slipped on our handy aforementioned DriDucks and hung out with the other die hards. The skies cleared up just in time for race 11; the Kentucky Derby, which is quite a production. While our seats were off in left field for most races, the length of the Derby places the starting gate right in front of us. Plus, since it’s a 20 horse field, we had the auxiliary gate assembly action.

The number of people cheering, the number of horses racing, the sun coming out just in time, plus a few mint juleps made for a pretty frickin’ exhilarating two minutes.

None of our Derby bets panned out, but we won on a couple of other races and had a great time. We met a lot of fun people, had a blast with our comrades in the rain, and are very glad we made the stop in Louisville for the Derby. Is it the type of thing that we’ll ever do again? Probably not, but we’re not committing to that. Because we don’t like to commit.

We stuck around for the two races after the Derby, which very few other people did. This allowed us to get right up on the fence and be able to see and hear much more of the action. Quite an awesome little bonus. Plus, no lines to collect our winnings (such that they were; some might consider them “slightly decreased losses.”)

One should start this description of our day at the horse track with an open confession that we have very little clue how horse betting works.  Or what statistics matter when making such a bet.  Or just picking a horse to root for, for that matter.  So, consider yourself disclaimed.

The Kentucky Juvenille Stake

For those that are as clueless as we were before we looked in to it, the Kentucky Oaks, like the Kentucky Derby, is just one race during a day of horse racing.  Both days are a part of the larger Spring Meet at Churchill Downs.  There are twelve races the day of the Oaks, only open to thoroughbred fillies, whereas the thirteen races on tomorrow’s Derby day is open to any thoroughbred that meets the earnings requirements.  And the winner of the Oaks gets a blanket of Lillies instead of a blanket of Roses.  Got it?

Unlike most modern day sports stadiums which are built just off a highway in the middle of nowhere and include a ridiculous amount of parking, Churchill Downs is in the middle of a residential neighborhood and has very little parking of its own, which sells out well in advance despite the ridiculous prices they charge for it.  Fortunately, Louisvilly has been host to the Oaks and Derby for 136 years (and several other huge events for slightly less time) and has gotten the whole traffic flow thing down pat.  Public parking is available at the Kentucky Expo Center and Papa John’s Stadium, as well as just about every other business in the area willing to privatize their lot, all walking distance from the Downs.

We ended up chipping in our $15 to park at a day care center near Papa John’s Stadium and strolled the short

Ceridwen's modeling her Oaks outfit and Mint Julep

hike to the Downs in time for the third race.  (The Oaks is the eleventh race.)  We found our seats, got settled in, fetched some mint juleps, and made a very poor attempts at wagering.

Our seats were in the fifth row of the northernmost section, giving us a crap view of the finish line and monitors, but an awesome view of the horses coming around the northern end of the track on the last turn before the spring to the finish.  Which is pretty damn cool given that that’s where the breakaways happen.  If there’s going to be an exciting change of events, we got to see the action up close and personal.

There’s one other difference in traditions between the Derby and the Oaks that we didn’t know before we got there; instead of mint juleps (bourbon, sugar, water, and mint, or, in the case of the Downs, Early Times pre-mixed sweet watered down bourbon with mint flavoring…) the drink of choice is an Oaks Lilly.  Unlike the mint julep which is available from stationary or roaming vendors every twenty feet or so, there’s only one place at Churchill Downs that sells the lilly; Ye Olde Finlandia Tent.  We waited in line once to get a round, learned that the reason the line moves so slow is not only the fact that there’s only one place to get them, but that the bar is made of carved ice that everyone needs to make a photo of the bar and/or a photo of their friends and the bartenders.  Seriously, people?  Get a grip.

(Side note: the official recipe, as far as we can find, for an Oaks Lilly, is one park Finlandia Vodka, one part sour mix, three parts cranberry juice, and a splash of Triple Sec, but we don’t buy it for a moment.  The drinks were mixed from only two bottles; one a premix of something resembling fruit punch and the other vodka.  They tasted far less “sorta like a Cosmopolitan” as people described them and far more like a nice Hawaiian Punch.)

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed watching all the races, despite our lack of betting prowess.  After the Oaks, we were a couple of dollars shy of breaking even, and the heat was getting a little much given our lack of water consumption, so we called it a day and skipped the last race (along with many others) and moseyed our way home for the night.  The overnight forecast called for a very wet Derby day, so we were very glad to have enjoyed the awesome Oaks day while we could.

The horses of the Kentucky Oaks

Technically, Derby season in Louisville kicked off last weekend with the Basketball Classic and a golf tournament.  But we’re not big basketball or golf folks, so we planned to start our Personal Derby ExperienceTM with Thunder Over Louisville, the world’s largest fireworks display and first (major) event of the Derby Festival’s primary schedule¹.

Thunder Over Louisville essentially amounts to a two-part excuse to spend the day sitting on your butt in the part staring at the sky; first an air show, then a fireworks display.  All above the Ohio River, visible from many locations along both the Kentucky and Indiana sides of the river.

We followed online suggestions to park in a garage on a one way street that would send us away in the direction we need to go (south) and as far away as we were willing to walk.  (In hindsight, we were more willing than we thought we’d be…)  As we got to the waterfront and got a feel for the crowds (read: lots of them, staking out large squares of space, with grills and coolers and family members taking turns guarding the turf), we decided to use our $8 investment ($4 a pop) of Festival “Pegasus Pins” and set ourselves up in the official Fest-A-Ville area; essentially a county fair within a county fair.  We became more enamored with this decision as time wore on and it became clear that the open areas were sheer chaos (whereas the enclosed area was moderately reasonable chaos).

The Fest-A-Ville amounts primarily to food and drink stations which only accept tickets that have to be purchased at separate stations, plus a stage where a mediocre country cover artist was doing covers of random songs, some of which you might consider country.  There were cowboy hats, though!  There was also fried dough, which Ceridwen was quite excited about, but it turned out simply not to hold a candle to proper New England fry dough.

The Airshow

We are far from airshow aficionados, but from what we’ve learned, this was one hell of a show.  Some people come to Louisville just for the airshow portion of Thunder.  Presumably, they stay for the fireworks, but that’s not the draw for them.  For us, the fireworks were the draw, but the air show was an awesome bonus.

The show started up in the early afternoon and went straight on through until sunset.  They do a good job mixing in stunt fliers with the military fighters, cargo carriers, and random civilian media copters and the like.  With only a couple of lulls, there was nearly always something flying over; sometimes repeatedly until they had to make room for the next guys, sometimes a one time blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flyover.

F-15s, an F-16, a P-51, a C-160, T-38Cs, an FA-18 Hornet, T-34s, a V-22, a C-38, a C-130, and all manner of other things.  It was quite dizzying, but in a good way – and much more entertaining than just sitting around all day waiting for fireworks!  A full list of acts is available on the Thunder site, here, though I’d imagine at some point in early 2011 it’ll be updated with what’s coming next year…

F-16 Demo

Flash Gordon Aeronautics

Red Thunder Aeronautics

C-160

Those are just some highlights.  (Click on any for a 700 pixel wide version.)  Hope we got the labels right!  Feel free to submit corrections.    Plus, if anyone out there is a true blue aviation geek and wants to see more, we’ve got plenty to share.

The Fireworks

The fireworks display was pretty much just as awe-inspiring as one could hope. Maybe more so. They kick it off with one last after-dark flyover of a pair of helicopters each flying a ginormous American Flag around as they play the national anthem. The flags were sorta lit by follow spot operators on the ground, which was a cool effect, when they hit them²

The fireworks setup is essentially along the Clark Memorial Bridge plus a floating barge on the river to either side of the bridge.  However, when they pulled out the barges for showtime we learned that each barge was actually four (or maybe five) barges strung together.  Damn.

The setup was ideal for allowing the maximum number of people to be able to enjoy the show; both sides of the Ohio, parks on either side of bridge, rooftop parties on the large downtown office buildings, riverfront restaurants, and probably every household or business window facing the right direction was able to enjoy at least a portion of the huge show.

Our vantage point allowed a nice close side view of the bridge with west-of-bridge barge fireworks in the background and east-of-the-bridge fireworks just a slight head swivel to the right.  And we we close enough to be subjected to the one downside of such an insane fireworks display: showers of charred detritus.  Mmmmm, tasty.

Long story short, lots of awesome fireworks everywhere you look.  The show started about ten minutes late because something was out of sync and they had to bounce the computer controllers.  Once it started, it ran just over twenty minutes before we started the hike back to the car and the long ride home³.

From Georgia, we headed northeast towards western North Carolina. Partially because we’ve never been to Asheville and that’s all the reason we need to go somewhere, and partially because a friend of Ceridwen’s from High School lives there and we were hoping to maybe get together. (Unfortunately, between illness and allergies, it was not to be.)

The RV park Ceridwen found was a bit north of downtown, on a mountaintop overlooking the French Broad River valley and Blue Ridge Mountains. While it made life a bit chillier than downtown, the awesome little park, remoteness, and views more than made up for it.

We spent Sunday wandering downtown Asheville. In the rain, but somehow it didn’t matter. Asheville somehow escaped the invasion of large corporate chains invading downtown areas – pretty much every business we saw was local. Plus there’s a pretty strong “shop where you live” campaign, which we can only assume is in response to malls or box stores that must be hiding somewhere, but for a rainy Sunday afternoon, it didn’t look like there was a problem with suport for local business. Plus the local businesses actually sold unique and interesting items; not just boutique prices versions of the same junk as the malls.

We’re not huge consumers, but Ceridwen was still looking for a party dress for our friend’s upcoming wedding, so we stopped in a few stores. I ended up buying a fedora from a vintage clothing store (my head is annoyingly too big for most fedoras, so finding one that fit was a score) but we never found the perfect dress. We found LaB, a local brew pub, and stopped in for a couple of rounds – everything we tried was really good.

And we observed Ashevillians. Wow. These are some weird folks. Austin and Key West both proclaim the “Keep _____ Weird” slogan, but they’re really not all that weird to start with. Asheville folks are just … off.

Since our RV park was off in the hills, we spent most of our week hiking and running the trails surrounding us, but we also found some time to head out to Chimney Rock State Park. We tried heading out to some waterfall hikes on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the road was closed, despite NPS claims that only a few miles of it were closed. D’oh!

Best of all, we successfully left Asheville without wasting money on The Biltmore. While it looks like an awesome place to stay for a vacation it didn’t seem interesting enough to warrant the cost for a short visit.

Yeah, we were pretty surprised to learn than there was a LaGrange in Georgia.  And that it was LaGrange, not La Grange.   (Turns out, there’s actually almost a dozen cities of LaGrange in the U.S., all presumably named for the French town of LaGrange, and apparently it’s just Texas that felt it necessary to make it two words.)

We picked LaGrange primarily because the weather was still quite chilly and we didn’t want to go too far north too quicky, and because it was about half way between the Gulf Coast and Asheville. And has an RV park with good reviews. It actually turned out to be a pretty cool little town out there on “the western coast of Georgia.” There’s a fairly decent sized art museum (presumably tied to LaGrange College, known for its arts programs), a 3D movie theater (where we went to see Alice in Wonderlnd), several downtown bars, including one that runs pub trivia, a number of local restaraunts and stores, and of course your requisite mall and box stores, including a Verizon Store where Ceridwen could compare some Android phones without the typical hassle of sales reps.

Oh, right, there’s also pub trivia at the local pizza joint. Though definitely “family friendly” (they tag their tables with postcards of classic musicians and bands like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and such, but the photo of Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Sid Vicious was just “Pistols” … Seriously?!) they were indeed a bar of sorts. A bar where the cops hang out sippin’ their Diet Coke waiting for a call from dispatch. A bar with The Family Guy pinball. A bar with underage cashiers who need to have a cook or busboy get your drink after they ring you up. A bar with yummy pizza.

Our RV park also ran a roller rink, but they only have open skate on weekends and with a Sunday arrival and Saturday departure we didn’t make time for that. They were also right nearby McGee Bridge Recreation Area, which is a small park (primarily to provide boat access to the lake) but very beautiful and great fun to walk or run around. Although they didn’t have the water running for some reason, which made for unpleasant surprises in the restrooms. (Hey, Army Core of Engineers; if the water isn’t on, lock the restrooms so people don’t use them! Ew!)

And then northward!

Damn.

So Sunday morning’s low cloud cover scrubbed the STS-130 launch and delayed it until Monday morning.  Our seat-of-our-pants planning resulted in updating our reservation at Crystal Lake RV Resort until Monday, so we had no problem returning to our site (thoughtfully flagged as “RESERVED” by the kick-ass owner-operators) and slept until we couldn’t sleep any more.  And as a bonus to our aforementioned seat-of-our-pants planning we were able to upgrade our viewing tickets from the Visitor Complex to the causeway viewing area for only $42 ($21 per person).

Learning a bit through trial-and-error (and asking the same questions of every employee we talked to), we learned that that the parking lot doesn’t actually close and re-open, but rather that you just need a parking permit to be there after the Visitor Complex closes.  For those of us who live in an RV, this worked out well, as after a last minute drag race down I-95 to get the causeway tickets, we returned to Mims, packed up the RV, and grabbed a pole position in the KSC RV lot to nap for a few hours before heading in for our bus ride out to the causeway.

A couple of notes on the logistics of a launch, now that we’re seasoned veterans of two days:  First, the best thing in the world is a scrubbed launch.  It sucks to be out all night in the cold waiting for a launch that doesn’t happen, but so many people plan their flights home the same or next day (preventing any chance of attending a rescheduled launch)  that NASA releases a certain undisclosed number of tickets the next day.  Your ticket is mission-specific, not date specific, so anyone with Sunday morning tickets could have shown up Monday morning, but they have so much history that they can pretty accurately predict second (and presumably third, fourth, etc) attempt launch attendance rates.  Second, the tickets out to the causeway are “like gas cards” (best analogy ever; thanks ticket booth lady!) – once the shuttle launch is “go” long enough for the bus to take you out the causeway, it is used.  So anyone who went out to the cause way on Sunday morning’s attempt had to stop by the ticket counter to buy a new bus ticket for Monday morning’s attempt; first-come-first-served.  Which is awesome for those of us snubbed by the random-space-geek-selector on on January 6.  At 1:30 in the afternoon – “so late in the day” according to my new favorite retail employee ever – we were able to snag causeway tickets and make a trying night in the cold with other obnoxious tourists (they’re obnoxious; not us, of course) in to an awesome space-geek-bonding experience in a remote corner of a secured island.

Sunday morning was marked by sheep mentality.  Thousands of people sought entry to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at the same approximate time.  We all needed to pass through security to make sure we weren’t trying to bring weapons, alcohol, or luggage in to the isolated area seven miles away from anything scientific.  This is accomplished via four doors leading to twelve (possibly more) operational turnstiles and metal detectors.  There was one line (door two, counting left to right) that went all the way out to the end of the parking lot and doubled back at least a quarter mile while the other three lines  were maybe a hundred people long and remained in the “entrance plaza.”  As much as we love sheep, we hopped in one of the short line which took about 45 minutes to clear the metal detectors and bag check.

Monday morning was s study in efficiency.  The same number of security staff were working – possibly less – and the doors didn’t open until two hours later (11:00 versus 9:00) despite the launch being scheduled for 25 minutes earlier.  We strolled up with no line so quickly that I felt it necessary to apologize to the guy at the metal detector because I didn’t have a chance to empty my pockets before I got to him.  Damn.

All the cold and misery of Sunday night was worth it when we got out to the causeway.  The KSC website describes the causeway as having no facilities, so we cut off our fluid consumption a couple of hours prior to avoid unpleasantness with the local alligators.  Once on the bus, however, our driver (B-squared, as he called himself) informed us that “no facilities” amounts to porta-potties, folding chairs, mercury lights, and concessionaires with coffee, tea, cocoa, snacks, and hot sandwiches.  In their defense, the concessionaires was cash-only.  That’s pretty low-tech, eh?

We were worried that the return buses would be chaotic, but they actually have one bus per busload, so there’s no waiting for a bus and ferrying back and forth.  We were on bus 32 and required to return ont he same bus.  (Our driver went so far as to give us a password to make sure nobody else snuck on his bus and left people having to stand on the return trip.  I love this guy almost as much as I love the ticket chick.)  Better yet, some combination between the lower crowd volume and our get-there-at-5:30-nap-then-enter-earliish strategy paid off; we got to the causeway early enough to be only one body back from the ropes and were able to position ourselves away from bright lights and with big gaps between shoulders of the people in front of us.  We set up the tripod with both still and video and settled in for a couple of hours wait.

There was a bit of a cloud ceiling concern, but despite the same percent chance of scrub (40%), the Air Force forecast anticipated a better likelihood of a launch window than last night.  They were right.  Clouds rolled in around 2:30, started clearing up around 3:30, and the T -9:00 countdown kicked off at 4:05.  Then . . . wow.

(Thanks to Jason for the down low on how to rotate video!)