Day 2 - Lexington to Frankfort
Where the horses roam.
The ride out of Lexington was an easy one over a multi-use path called the liberty trail that wends its way along a river northward through the city and then eventually breaks into more open ground surrounded by more horse pastures.
Local lore claims that one of the reasons this area is so well known for horses is because of the hard water drawn from its heavily limestoned aquifers. This is also one of the primary reason there are many caves in Kentucky. Karst geology — that is to say areas with bedrock rich in limestone — are prone to chemical weathering by acids in the soil and water. It’s the main driver of having such calcium rich water to begin with: The water that percolates down to the bedrock level is slightly acidic and wears away the calcium rich limestone over time.
The more likely fact is that generations of selective breeding and animal husbandry has lead to the world renowned horses attributed to the area.
Let them drink bourbon: The haves and the have nots.
From the outside this area looks like many piedmont regions — lush fertile hills at the base of larger mountains. It reminds me of the Yadkin river area, or the Shennandoah valley in Virginia. Yet it’s different. Yes the geology is different, but also the equality is different.
Where I haunt in the Yadkin region of NC there are poor and rich folk alike, but the difference between them is not so insurmountable. This region of Kentucky seems to display a sort of wealth in its bones I've not often encountered, except for the poshest neighborhoods of cities. From barns that look like pastoral works of artistic fancy, to houses that are antebellum masterpieces, exquisitely maintained.
These houses and buildings represent a kind of generational wealth unique to the gentry of Kentucky. They are akin to the sort of wealth written about in the elites of Savannah or New Orleans.
Yet turn on the next street and you will find clapboard houses in wild disrepair, stacked one after another. There is a jarring disparity between those who have and those who have nothing, and this region of Kentucky shows it better than most. In checking the stats the Lexington-Georgetown area of KY frequently tops the metrics for wealth inequality. Inured, generational wealth has locked out upward mobility for many.
I saw the latter even more starkly in my first ride through Kentucky. So much of our American paridise is predicated on the shocking, and invisible poverty of these rural denizens.
Even as I say that, the only pictures I took were of the structures maintained by inured wealth and power. They have certainly been good stewards of the land, but at what cost to its people? And how true is this across the nation? Across the world?
But then again, we can engage from our privilege in such token ways. Today I saw what I assumed was a church group helping to build houses within a poor community in Lexington. All white. Certainly all well intentioned and doing a real good. But is their good a long term project of stewardship, or just a moment that allows them to later excuse their own lack of care in other ways.
Don’t get me wrong, these thoughts are more directed at myself and my own motivations than theirs. As I said to our church group “I don’t want people to come to church because I fed them. I want them to come to church because they want to feed others”. And I mean that sincerely — we have a duty to each other. Each from his ability to each for their need. But do I live this? Do I exemplify this? Am I a man in the spirit of the poor monk Francis? I think not. But I want to be. Or at the very least I want to want to be.
Musseling Through
The ride from Georgetown to Frankfort was largely uneventful. Marked by slow climbs over numerous hills (A total of 3900ft of elevation gain today). I was thankful for the assistance of the electric motor on more than a few, even so I sipped, going in a low gear.
On the outskirts of Frankfort, at the confluence of two minor rivers an opportunity that could have easily been missed occurred: I saw a brown sign similar to the one below.
So remembering the lesson of Tae, I pulled in to take the damn picture, as it were.
As I fiddled around with my kid a man exited a white cinderblock building next to me and asked if I was OK. Clearly my sweaty mess is both sweatier and messier than hoped — I thanked him for the offer of water but said no, but Indicated I was interested in looking around if that was OK. He indicated that would be perfectly fine.
So after getting situated, I opened the door to the building he had come from. It was empty but he quickly emerged.
Travis (his name) then showed me a bit of what was going on here.
Travis grows algae in those huge tanks. He then spins the resulting algal slurry down into food for freshwater mussels. Maybe you’ve eaten mussels before — they are a clam-like bivalve found, apparently, just about everywhere. However freshwater mussels were news to me, especially in Kentucky. However, Travis, and his coworker Adam set me straight on that account.
You see, not only are freshwater mussels indigenous to the US, we have the greatest diversity of them on the planet — fully accounting in just the American South East for 1/3rd of all freshwater mussel species. But that diversity is threatened, as so often is the case where human activities meet animal habitats. Certainly this isn't a new issue. Adam explained that sedimentation (the runoff of soils) into rivers and streams through human development, be it dams, or agriculture or construction, is choking out the habitat of these sensitive species. And they are sensitive — they are the canary in the coalmine with regards to water quality because they are often the first species to be negatively affected when quality issues occur. So the remit of their lab is to help boost endangered populations in Kentucky and the surrounding states.
You’ve likely been walking over and past mussels in the clear creeks around you without ever knowing — all you can see as they feed are two small holes in the sand.
That is unless you’re a fish, at just the right time of the year…
What you are seeing in the images above is a great diversity of different lures that these mussels uses to attract fish. Why? Not to eat them, but rather because they use them as hosts for their young. If you’ve ever seen a movie in the Alien franchise you understand: They inject their young into the open mouths of fish where they latch on to their gills, using their nutrient rich blood as their source of food until they are large enough to feed on their own.
In most cases the mussels infect fish simply by spraying a jet of free floating larvae at them when the fish attack their lures. These then get sucked through the gills and embed themselves, forming cysts.
But a few take it to extremes…
That’s a mussel with teeth — It literally lures a fish in and clamps down on its head, and then quite literally like the face hugger from aliens extends a fleshy appendage that seals over the fish’s mouth and then injects its larvae for maximal effect. If the fish isn’t large enough, it can be killed by the clamping force.
Adam then showed me many of the different parts of what they do to selectively breed different freshwater mussels for reintroduction into the rivers.
For example, behind him you see 1000 gallon tanks of water taken directly from surrounding rivers (Travis has the job of driving a truck around collecting it). This serves as a substrate to feed the growing juvenile mussels, which while smaller than you or I could see (200 microns), have fallen off of the gills of their host fish. They will go through a tank like this in 5-8 days.
This is important work that keeps our streams and rivers healthy, and in balance, and while it is not immediately threatened by the shutting off of federal dollars, it will be in the coming years as their contracts might not be renewed for the important work they do.
Overall they left me with the impression that they love what they do, and take it very seriously. It was an honor to have both Adam and Travis show me around their operation and I genuinely wish them well.
I took that picture, and I’m glad I did.
Anyway — Tomorrow on to Madison, Indiana — a new state!