Day 4 - Louisville, KY
An unintentional Sabbath:
I knew it was coming. Frankly I expected it before this. On my first tour It took exactly two days for my untrained muscles to cry out for rest. So I expected much the same.
I genuinely think if I didn’t go at my absolute maximum yesterday I could have just kept on trucking with minor muscle pains without a rest day.
But fate intervened. At about 11pm Jeffrey called me and floated the idea of taking a burley tow-behind trailer. That would put all the equipment weight off of the back wheel entirely and it would just have to bear my weight, which it absolutely should be fine to do. To make that happen he had ordered a mating attachment suitable for my bike and had it shipped ASAP via Amazon. It would be here the next day.
Upon waking up yesterday it was clear that my legs couldn’t handle another day without rest. My entire lower body felt like it had been in a fight. So this, combined with the need to wait a day for the parts just seemed like a fateful confluence of circumstances that so often happens in my life. It was to be a Sabbath one way or the other.
Hey Slugger, welcome to Louisville
In our previous conversation Jeffrey had suggested we go visit the Falls of the Ohio, situated on the Eastern side of Louisville. It had come up the previous day in our conversations about science, and geology, and his previous work surrounding those topics.
So around 2pm, he picked me up from the hotel and along with his son Ben, we took the drive down to the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive center
You’ve likely been to a similar science or historical center in your area. The Interpretive center is situated in the Falls of the Ohio park right next to what was once a much more expansive, two mile stretch of rapids caused by the channeling of the Ohio river through limestone and sandstone channels filled with fossil beds.
Up to this point in the Ohio river is navigable, and it represented the farthest point upstream from the Mississippi from which goods could be brought and then barged down river to other areas for trade. This effectively meant that the falls are the entire reason that early settlers favored this area for the founding of Louisville. But let’s be clear, this has always been an important place for humans. Western settlers didn’t just discover this place uninhabited. The Shawnee and Cherokee that lived here for thousands of years did so because the falls are a fecund and fertile area full of resources, fish, mollusks and other food. So necessarily when white settlers came, there was considerable friction between these two peoples.
Not only did that friction bring violent conflict, it also brought smallpox and other illnesses endemic to Europe. It’s estimated that smallpox, influenza, and malaria wiped out 65 to 95% of native populations in the Northeast of the US. I cannot even fathom the level of societal and social collapse that would occur if 9 out of every 10 people I knew simply died, let alone 6. Later the advent of the French-Indian war resulted in the displacement of the remaining indigenous people from the Eastern bank, largely leaving the only active native villages north of the Ohio river.
Ultimately the plight of the native peoples in this region was one of pandemic, genocide, and displacement at the hands of white settlers. The later being codified into law by decree of President Andrew Jackson when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which lead to such horrors as the Trail of Tears, a forced march of native people to the western territories that left thousands of dead.
On my previous tour I crossed over the Illinois river near a town named Golconda. It had a kind of Steven Kingian / Derry vibe. It felt wrong, but I couldn't place why. Later I learned from a plaque by the river that it was the crossing point of that river for the Trail of Tears. To me, I simply assume that vibe came from the echoes of the many people who must have died there. The sort of stark gravity that rests over places of mass death, like Auchwitz or Gettysburg.
I say all this because in this moment especially we need to understand an honor the people that came before. Those who were genocided and ethnically cleansed so that people that look like me could manifest their destiny. Especially coming from Appalachia, which to me which has some examples of how different peoples can cohabitate and intermingle, and the great loss represented by the malign actions of some of our ancestors. Even if they were not my direct anscestors, I feel a deep responsibility to never allow such acts to be repeated.
Louisville before Man:
Aside from the human history here the Falls have a deep geologic history that is literally shown on the face of the rock.
Above you see some fossils stuck into the limestone beds that were laid down in the Devonian era, when this part of the contient was in warm southern hemisphere, under a shallow tropical sea. A rich garden of Crinoids (the round stalk shaped fossils), Ancient Corals, Trillobytes, Celocanths, Nautilloids, Bivalves, Blastoids, among many other animals lived here. Eventually as tectonic plates moved this are was pushed northward and upward by forces deep within, resulting in the plains of northern Kentucky and lower Indiana.
Dunkleosteus: An Early Ancient Predator.
As the seas changed from warmer shallow waters to a deeper ocean Dunkleosteus roamed, presumably predating species like the Nautilus, necessitating the massive shearing jaws fit for destroying their shells.
Louisville, the City Proper:
There is more history than just what is described above. Louisville was once a factory city for companies like Colgate. It was the origin point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. It also has a trove of some of the most exquisite Victorian homes in the United States.
Street upon street of historic structures in a band throughout the city:
After spending time at the falls Jeffrey took me on a tour of these different structures throughout the city before he generously paid for one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Asiago and Ricotta filled gnocchi with pesto and chicken:
Our evening was filled with dirty jokes, stories, an extremely thorough rundown of the deep lore of Godzilla from Ben—we all have our thing that we need out on, and this was absolutely his—among many other topics.
I was and am throughly blessed to have spent the day with Jeffrey and Ben.
Onward — maybe?
As I write this Jeffrey is barreling down the highway with the trailer and part to try to set me up for the next leg of my journey. However, I’m certain that this is a connection that was meant to be, and he will remain a facet of both this journey and my life going forward.
Anyway, here's Some other pictures from the day:
