I did not set out to write a blog post this long, and somewhere along the way I asked myself who I was writing it for anyway. The truth, dear reader, is that I wrote it primarily for myself. Writing is a kind of therapy, and I had mixed feelings about this trip. Writing my adventure helped me sort them out. But another truth is that writers want readers, and so, I also sought to inform and entertain. Bookmark it and read it in chunks if you need to. 😂
I do a lot of things solo these days. I’m generally cool with that. One thing I hadn’t done yet, was a solo road trip, so when my usual travel buddies were otherwise occupied during Spring Break, I decided that now was the time.
My planning process went something like this.
How long do I want to be gone? I’d like to get a few things done at home over the break, so maybe 3 or 4 days.
Where can I reasonably go in 3 or 4 days without spending the entire trip in the car? Somewhere in Kentucky… west I think. I’m from western Kentucky, but I left when I graduated from high school, and I’ve not spent much time there since.
What would I be interested in doing solo? Hiking. Visiting places of note where I could learn something. Ooooh! What if I stayed in Bed & Breakfasts (Beds & Breakfasts?) along the way? That would make it more interesting!
I made a list, checking distances between stops and the location of nearby Bed & Breakfasts (per Britannica.com), and my itinerary took shape.
Mammoth Cave National Park
I left Tuesday around noon and headed west. The weather was magnificent, high 70s, pushing toward 80, and sunny! I love spring so much. The days are lengthening, school is winding down and the weather gives us little teases of summer.
I went straight to the trailhead, located next to the Green River Ferry.
I passed a man and his son who looked to be seven or eight. As I approached, the boy waved wildly with his finger to his lips, so I tried to approach quietly, a difficult task as that part of the trail was gravel. As I got closer, he said in a loud whisper, “Deer!” and pointed. I looked, and sure enough, two deer were munching casually on some grass.
“Cool," I said out loud.
He frantically shushed me. The deer did not move during this exchange. I smiled and said, “These are national park deer. They aren’t worried about people.”
The dad turned and glared at me. “We are not ‘people.’” I heard the air quotes loud and clear.
Okaaay.
I smiled, and as I walked on by, I nodded at the deer, still grazing, and said “They think you are.”
I had this whole conversation inside my head where I thought of pithier responses to his comment.
Welcome to Earth.
Are you a cockroach in an Edgar suit?
What is the collective noun for humans where you come from?
Then I considered the possibility that he doesn’t get out in the woods with his son very often and was trying very hard to preserve a cool experience for his kid. Ugh. Why am I being so quick to assume the worst? To not give the guy some grace?
Properly chastised and attitude adjusted, I wound my way up to the Visitor’s Center at the top of the hill, refilled my water bottle and marked the meeting site for my cave tour the next day. I took a different trail back down to the parking lot and found myself alone for most of it. It was peaceful.
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| Echo River Springs |
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| River Styx Springs |
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| Mammoth Dome Sink |
When I got back to my car and tried to pull up the address to the Bed & Breakfast, I realized I hadn’t saved it in my Maps app. There is no cell service inside the national park, so I picked the direction that seemed the likeliest. I had studied the map before I left Georgetown. I was recently talking to someone about how I always used to keep a Rand McNally road atlas in my car, but now with GPS, I didn’t need it. Right. I’ve already ordered a new one. When I crossed the park boundary, my cell service returned full blast like I had crossed out of another dimension. I only had to backtrack a little.
I am not going to name the B&B. It wasn’t that great, but the owners were super nice, and they were trying. I’m viewing it as a case of “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” because running a small business is hard. I will say that I enjoyed talking with the other guests. One woman was on a writing retreat which intrigued me, and another was a retired teacher, so we had some things in common. And when I came to breakfast wearing my Foo Fighters T-shirt, all of them commented on it.
The retired teacher's husband pointed at me and said “Foo Fighters… You’re OK.”
We compared our Foo concert experiences, and the writer and I realized we had both been at the Bourbon & Beyond show in 2019. It's nice to meet a kindred spirit, and in spite of the B&B not being that great, the people were cool.
Wednesday morning, I did the Grand Historic Cave Tour. It is billed as a 4-hour tour, although it was actually 3 ½, and probably an hour of that time was sitting and listening to historic information at various points inside the cave. That's not a criticism, just informational. I mostly enjoyed the history. You get to see more than you do on the 2-hour Historic Tour.
We carried our lanterns across the Echo River, and then way back to a dead end where we could hear the rushing waters of the River Styx. We turned our lanterns off, and in the total darkness, everything disappeared except the sound of the water and the beat of our own hearts.
(Side note: Smart watches weren’t a thing the last time I visited, and the inky darkness was punctuated with little flashes of light each time someone moved their arm.)
Gothic Avenue was also cool. I think you can see it on the 2-hour tour. It’s been 6 or 7 years since I’ve done that one, so I don’t remember. It's the cavern with all of the names on the ceiling. As the ranger told us before we went inside the cave, that graffiti is all pre-1951 and most of it is from the 1800s. After 1951, any writing on the walls or ceiling ceases to be historical and becomes a federal offense. Fittingly, Edgar Allan Poe's publisher, WA Blanchard, has his name on the ceiling in Gothic Avenue.
The story of the graffitted names and the monuments like this one pictured here is notable.
In the 1800s, the cave was privately owned by someone who also owned people. The cave was open for tours, and the admission fee went to the property owner, but the tours were conducted by the enslaved people. They were allowed to keep any tips they could get, and being entrepreneurial, they looked for creative ways to earn them, and so they began offering to write the names of tourists on the ceiling for a small fee. They would have the guest write their name in the dirt on the floor and then use a mirror to copy it onto the ceiling in reverse with some sort of animal wax candle on a long stick. They charged another small fee for guests to build small monuments out of stones and name them after their home towns or states. The Kentucky monument (pictured) is the only one that was allowed to touch the ceiling.
I definitely recommend a cave tour, especially if you live in Kentucky and you’ve never done it. I’m including a few more pics below, including a selfie of me looking slightly demonic.
There are no good angles in the dark, and watching people try to get enough light for a selfie or a couples pic was amusing. I’ve included a link to my Instagram reel here since I haven’t yet mastered the art of getting video onto the blog.
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| The Wedding Chapel. People actually got married here. |
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| The tourists who paid to have their name written here surely didn't think they would end up as bathroom graffiti 200 years later. 😏 |
I was perfectly happy to finish my tour earlier than anticipated. I was starting to stress about my drive from Mammoth Cave to Grand Rivers. The weather forecast was ugly, and I wanted to get as close to my destination as I could before the storm hit, holding out hope that I would get there ahead of it. I did not. I was 40 miles from Grand Rivers when I ran into it. I had the weather app pulled up, and I watched my car moving straight for a garish gash of bright red slashed across the map.
I spoke dramatically to no one, “For god sake‘s Billy, you’re headed right for the belly of the beast!” I looked it up later, and I was slightly off. The line is actually “you’re headed right for the middle of the monster.” Whatever. It was bad, and I was headed straight into it.
I made jokes because I was scared. I debated about pulling off the road and letting it pass, but I wasn’t close to an exit and pulling off on the side of the road felt like a different kind of danger. I put both hands on the wheel and braced myself. I had thought the rain would be the worst part, reducing my visibility and causing me to hydroplane. While it did rain very hard for a few minutes, the truly scary part was the wind. I was sure it was going to pick up my Prius and fling it off the road. It physically moved me sideways, and my car has a low profile. Semi trucks plowed through the rain in front of and behind me. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, imagining one of them blowing right into me. A long 15 minutes later, the wind died down, the rain stopped, and I was no worse for the wear.
What’s a road trip without some interesting weather?
Grand Rivers and Land Between the Lakes
I forgot all about that weather when I pulled into Grand Rivers, a quaint little lakeside town on the northwest corner of Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. My friends of a certain age will remember Angela Lansbury's cute little town in Murder, She Wrote. Grand Rivers reminded me of Cabot Cove with a dash of kitsch added for good measure.
And this time I will gladly talk about my B&B because it was divine! I was charmed from the moment I pulled up in front of it. The Rose of the Lake Bed & Breakfast.
The lady who checked me in was lovely. She gave me a tour of the house and took me up to my room on the second floor. I loved this room when I saw it online, and after the disappointment of my B&B the night before, I had both fingers crossed that it was going to be as cute as it was in the pictures. It was even better!
In hindsight, I wish I had stayed here two nights. It was my favorite stop on the trip.
I said hello to another guest who was hanging out in the living room downstairs, but mostly I holed up in my fabulous room. It had such a good vibe. At one point, I looked out over the balcony and saw a family of deer crossing the lawn. I thought about the man and his son from the day before and remained quiet, not even getting up to take a picture. Grand Rivers deer are probably as oblivious to people as national park deer, and I found myself silently hoping they would hang around.
I had originally planned on meeting Dad and Patricia in Grand Rivers. Dad had talked up Patti's 1880s Settlement and I had a reservation for three, but that stupid storm reared its windy head again. Owensboro remained under a tornado watch most of the day, and Dad was not keen on driving to Grand Rivers in it. I wasn't keen on it either, so I ate at Patti’s alone... but not truly alone.
The tables at Patti’s are close together, and when the server seated me and asked about my visit, I told her I was on a solo trip across Kentucky. My neighbors to the left, three older couples, were interested. They wanted to know where I had been and where I was going. We had a lovely conversation. They were from Louisville, but knew the region well, and offered several suggestions. One of the couples had spent an entire year visiting the county courthouses of all 120 counties in Kentucky.
The food was fabulous. Patti’s signature item is their giant pork chop. I saw one pass by my table, and it was way more pork chop than I wanted, so I ordered the smaller version. It was still big! I am not sure exactly what they do to the pork chop to make it amazing, but it was amazing! It’s grilled and marinated in some sort of secret sauce and rubbed with a blend of spices. It was served with mashed potatoes and gravy, grilled asparagus and bread baked in a flower pot. The bread came with strawberry butter. If you've never had strawberry butter, I'm sorry for you. It's a whole experience in itself.
When it was time for the check, my waitress smiled and said I only had to pay for dessert. The couple in front of me had paid for everything else before they left. I gave her a bewildered look.
“Did they say anything?”
“Nope. They just said they wanted to buy you dinner.”
“Well ok. That was nice.”
I guess… They were long gone, and I could not thank them or ask them why. I had the uncharitable thought that they paid my bill because they felt sorry for me. If so, it was wasted pity. I was enjoying myself. I tried to assign an ulterior motive for their kindness, but it was hard to think of one when they didn’t hang around to reap any reward. Maybe I was creeped out because I was alone. Maybe I was being prickly because I was alone. Maybe I’m not giving people credit for just being nice. Whatever the reason, I did the only thing I could and paid it forward with a healthy tip for my server.
Here are a few more pics from Patti’s Settlement Village.
I’m not sure if they are really late getting rid of their Christmas decorations or if they leave them up all year long. See the polar bear at the top of the page. There was also a nativity scene next door to the moonshine shop. Sin and salvation in one convenient location.
The next morning, I ate the best breakfast of my trip. There was a little bit of everything on the buffet, but the biscuits and gravy were the stars of the show.
All of it was fortification for my hike, and after a pleasant visit with the other guests, I reluctantly checked out of The Rose of the Lake. I really wish I could have stayed longer, but I had an itinerary and miles to go before I slept.
There are many trails in the Land Between the Lakes. I had narrowed it down to two that looked suitable for a solo hike before I left Georgetown. They were about the same distance, one having more forested areas and the other having more lake views. The day was overcast in the high 40s/low 50s with a brisk wind. The forested trail would have been warmer. I knew the wind whipping off of the lake would be cold, but I went with that option because why come to Land Between the Lakes and not actually see the lakes?
I was pleased with my choice. The trailhead was next to a large parking lot, this one for the park’s nature center, and there were quite a few cars. I saw several families with children, so I assumed the trail would be crowded. Apparently, they were all there for the nature center because I didn’t pass a soul on my hike.
I hiked the Honker Lake Trail, named for Honker Lake which is named for the abundance of geese that inhabit it.
Full disclosure: I took this pic at the end of my hike. The trail is a five mile loop that starts on one side of the nature center and ends on the other. I followed the signage and my AllTrails app to what appeared to be the trailhead, but what was actually the end of the trail, and I did the thing ass backwards. I was suspicious when the signs marking the distance to the nature center were all facing in the opposite direction. I don’t guess it matters which way you hike it, but I did roll my eyes at myself. The hikes on this trip were the first where I’ve been responsible for finding the trail myself and then getting myself back out again. (Another reason I chose an easy-to-follow loop.) All things considered, I’m proud of myself.
The hike was chilly, but beautiful, and once I was moving, it wasn’t that cold. The trail started (ended?) in the woods and while there were teaser views of the lake beyond the trees, it wound around for a couple of miles before it fully opened up to the lake.
But when it did it was spectacular. I passed a beach yellow with wildflowers, crossed two levees separating Lake Barkley from an inlet called Honker Lake, climbed to the top of an island between the levees, watched geese gliding serenely, and held my arms out to the wind threatening to blow me off the levee.
When I finally left the lake behind, the forest was warm and welcoming for the last two miles of the hike. And as a final treat, I watched three eagles soar silently overhead. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and my favorite part of the trip.
This was the last pic I took before I left the trail (except for the sign🙄), and I took it for my Law & Justice colleagues.
Unlike Mammoth Cave, this national park has cell service. I was close to the end of the trail when my phone buzzed with a text message. The three of us have a group text that we use both for village business and for general silliness. The text I received fell into the silly category, and so I replied with a selfie of my current situation at the time and a report of the eagles I had just seen. More silliness ensued, but I also got to tell my friends about the really cool hike I was finishing, and it made me so happy. I realized I was starting to miss people a little. It was the first time on my trip that this occurred to me. I mean, I had talked to people all along the way, but they weren’t my people who cared about my stuff.
This feeling dogged me a little as I left the park, and a series of events occurred that added to a growing sense of anxiety. First, I looked at my dash and realized my gas light was on, and based on the display, it had been on for a while, and I was 20 miles from a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I know. Stupid. In my defense, I usually go three weeks or more without filling my tank, so it’s just not on my radar most of the time.
I have loved my car from the day I drove it home, and now I love it even more. I sweet-talked it for 22 miles. “You beautiful, smart, sassy thing… You got this. You are a badass hybrid bitch. If your efficient little tank runs dry, your big beautiful battery will get me to the gas station.” Or something like that. I definitely remember saying badass hybrid bitch out loud. I made it to the gas station. The display said I had no gas when I arrived, and I put 9.9 gallons into my 10 gallon tank.
What the actual fuck, Kathy?
(As a side note, my Prius took me from Georgetown, Kentucky to Cairo, Illinois and back again, including forays into two national parks and a couple of towns off the beaten path on 18 gallons of gas.)
Even so, what the actual fuck?
It would not be the last time that day I asked myself that question.
Paducah, KY
Paducah is another place I had never been. It’s only a couple of hours west of Owensboro, but when my family traveled we never went in that direction. Once I filled my tank, it only took me 25 minutes to get to Paducah. I chose it because it was close to Grand Rivers, it was an easy drive to the Mississippi River (on my itinerary the next day), it was reputed to have a riverfront worth seeing, and it had a restaurant of some note. I can report that all of those things are true.
Paducah also has a boutique hotel called the 1895 Washington Hotel. It was built in 1895 by descendants of George Washington’s half-brother from his father’s first marriage. I’m not making that up. I know it sounds like I am, but you can click through to their website and see it for yourself.
It is a beautiful old house. It's also a bit labyrinthian, and I got a weird vibe as the hostess led me through the halls to my room at the very back of the house. Many of the rooms we passed were open, and each was beautifully decorated. The house had a museum quality, like visiting Mary Todd Lincoln’s house. What it didn’t have was any other guests for the night. When I was left alone in my room, I found myself wishing I was back at The Rose of the Lake with its cozy upstairs hideaway.
I decided part of my problem was that I was hangry. My breakfast had worn off and I had another 4 hours before my dinner reservation. I find myself unpleasant when I let myself get too hungry, so I know other people do. Not that there were any other people there to comment on my general bad attitude. I googled several promising cafes and bars and then went back out in search of something to tide me over.
My afternoon in Paducah was pleasant. I found a sports bar downtown called the Over/Under that served me these delicious tacos and kept my ice tea filled. I realized in hindsight that I was also caffeine deprived. Small towns and national parks are lovely because there aren’t fast food restaurants and Starbucks on every corner, or any corner, but it also means non-coffee drinking caffeine junkies need to plan better than I did.
Newly fortified with caffeine and tacos, I continued walking north to the river. Downtown Paducah appears to be thriving. Restaurants and shops are plentiful and the old train station gives it a small town vibe. And it really is a small town, smaller than Georgetown. I guess I expected it to be more like Owensboro, but the only outward similarity is that they both have nice riverfronts.
The riverfront here is much smaller than Owensboro’s, but it is nice. The levee wall has been painted with colorful, historical scenes, and with the sun trying to peek out, it was inviting.
The Ohio River is wide here. The Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers meet it in Paducah, and it has almost reached its own end at the Mississippi. It’s interesting to me that Owensboro has grown so much larger than Paducah. Paducah is at or close to the confluence of several important rivers, and barge traffic is heavy. Paducah is on an interstate. Being off the beaten path has always been an economic problem for Owensboro. Paducah has been a historically significant port. General Grant occupied it for a while during the Civil War. Note his letter below, reprinted and still posted at the landing where his troops came ashore.
I suspect his line about “the strong arm of the government” being there to “protect its friends and punish its enemies” didn’t go over well here. All the men had joined up with Lloyd Tilghman and were fighting for the other side. (Side note: I realized for the first time where Paducah Tilghman High School’s name comes from.) It would be worth exploring how much of that history influenced Paducah’s growth or lack thereof.
I was brooding over the past as I headed back to my hotel. This time I poked my head into some of the rooms as I made my way through the deserted upstairs hallway. They were beautifully decorated. I should have taken pics, but I was caught up in my own thoughts. I was very pleased to discover that the bathrooms were fully modernized. My shower was hot and the water pressure was wonderful.
My last stop of the day was dinner at the Freight House.
I discovered this restaurant when I was planning my trip. The chef, Sara Bradley, is on the current season of Top Chef, and the food was as good as I hoped it would be. My appetizer was cheese and crackers… the cheese being whipped goat cheese topped with pepper jelly and thinly sliced green apples. I ate all of it and restrained myself from licking the plate.
My entree was shrimp and grits with pork belly and a New Orleans BBQ jus. Yes. It was every bit as rich as you are imagining. The grits were as light and fluffy as air, but the flavor exploded in my mouth.
This was the second time on my trip that I felt alone. I needed to say to someone, “Oh my god! Taste this!” Unlike Patti’s, these tables were farther apart, and there was no easy way to lean over to a stranger and tell them how mind-blowing shrimp and grits could be.
I skipped dessert. I was beyond full, and nothing was going to live up to Patti’s Derby pie anyway. No strangers paid my check this time, and in spite of wanting someone to share the religious experience I had with my food, I was glad of it.
I know. I’m so weird. Who gets creeped out by an act of kindness?
Once again, I navigated the labyrinth to my room in the far reaches of the old house. Now it was dark and the hostess had gone for the night. I was ALONE. I got ready for bed and tried to read, but I didn’t like the quiet, so I turned on my audiobook. I had 30 minutes left in the story, so I got in bed and let it play, hoping it would lull me to sleep. It did not, and I should have known better. I was frustrated by the ending and that made me more awake than I had been before I turned it on.
To fully appreciate my mindset as I lay alone in a dark, 120 year old house, you need to know what Sean had done to me the previous weekend.
Video game Interlude
Sean put a controller in my hand and asked me to sit down in his gaming chair in front of the screen. I have no idea how to operate a controller. I’m not a gamer.
The static on the screen resolved itself into a decrepit old house. The words on the screen said, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!”
He refused to give me any instruction, telling me to watch the screen. It would cue me. I didn’t like watching the screen. Scary things were happening there. He watched me fumble until I screamed, “What does LS mean” five times in a row.
Left stick. It means left stick.
“I can’t tell if you’re not moving your head because you don’t know how or because you don’t want to.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive,” I snapped.
“You’ve got the key to the back door. You know how to get out now.”
“Yeah but there’s a guy out there. I don’t want to go.”
I’m the stupid girl in the movie that does all the stupid things and dies a horrible stupid death, and at my son’s urging, I’m doing them anyway. At least the girl in the movie doesn’t know she’s stupid.
I screamed when the guy walked past the door. I screamed when a mannequin fell over at my feet. I kept up a running stream of profane invective as I tripped over furniture and clumsily made my way to the back door.
I got the door open and then got stuck in the door jamb because I’M NOT A FREAKING GAMER, and as I turned to straighten myself out, and in the presence of daylight, the guy murdered me.
I turned on Sean, shaking and sweating, “Why? Why would you do that to me?”
He just laughed maniacally.
After I calmed down a bit… I really hate horror in every form: movies, books, and now video games… he told me he had spent several hours playing it and that it was pretty scary in the middle of the night. He likes being scared like that. So many people do. He thought it was fun and he wanted me to have that experience too. He knew if he straight-up asked me to play, I wouldn’t, so he tricked me into the chair. He never said any of this out loud, of course. But Sean is my son and housemate, and I understand the things not spoken.
Back in the Deserted Historic House in Paducah
The room was stuffy, so the fan was on, and that had the effect of making curtains and blinds and anything not nailed down move in the breeze. With my eyes open, every movement in the dark became the guy walking past the door. With my eyes closed, every tap of the blinds were footsteps behind me.
I turned the fan off. Cue a raging hot flash, probably triggered by stress, and burning from the inside out, I dared any mf to bother me right now. I turned the fan back on. With my internal temperature normalized, I burrowed under the covers and waited to be murdered. When the plumbing made a weird noise, I turned the light on. I finally dozed off with the light on, but woke up sometime later, pissed off because the light was in my eyes.
This is how the whole night went. I slept fitfully, not getting any sustained sleep until the sun rose. I did wake up alive though. I was certain of it because I smelled bacon.
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The hostess was back and she cooked this lovely breakfast just for me. I asked her if she was expecting more guests that day. I had booked the hotel for two nights because I was using it as a “home base” for the next item on my itinerary. She smiled wanly, and said, “No, unless she had a walk-in, it would just be me again.”
“Oh… okay... cool...”
She assured me it picked up in the summer. I didn’t say it out loud, but I’ll just have take her word for it. I asked her what things I needed to do while I was in Paducah. She recommended the Lloyd Tilghman Civil War History Museum, but urged me to make an appointment so they would know they needed to open.
Uh huh, okay. So I’ll be the only person there as well. Got it.
She told me the Quilt Museum was lovely. It has regular hours. People come from all over to see it.
A definite maybe.
Oh, and as an afterthought, she mentioned that John Scope’s grave was in Paducah. I perked up.
“He’s from here?”
“Yes! The cemetery is very close by!”
Of course it is. But hey, I like wandering in cemeteries. And I’m a fan of anyone who stands up for academic freedom in the face of those who want to keep people uneducated and afraid, so I decided to pay Mr. Scopes a visit.
His epitaph reads, “A Man of Courage.” I visited with him for a few minutes, and promised to spend the last two years of my teaching career being brave in the face of whatever nonsense gets legislated onto my students.
I drove out of the cemetery and headed west again. I had come this far, and I wanted to go all the way to the end of the line: the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
Cairo, Wickliffe & The Mighty Mississippi
My route took me cross country on US 60 to Wickliffe which sits on the Kentucky side of the confluence. It’s not much more than a wide spot in the road. From what I could tell, and admittedly, I did not look very deep, it has two points of interest: a state historic site with ancient Indian mounds, and a bridge that crosses the Ohio river. As I passed through, I thought I might visit the mounds on my way back, but I was so close to my destination that I didn’t want to stop just then.
The Wickliffe bridge is the last bridge across the Ohio River before it converges with the Mississippi. The Illinois side of the bridge is right at the tip of the peninsula that separates the two rivers. Fifty yards past the end of the bridge is the start of another bridge that crosses the Mississippi River into Missouri. That bridge is currently closed. Both bridges look like they’ve seen better days, and I will admit to some mild trepidation as I crossed the Ohio. To cross the Mississippi, you have to drive north through Cairo until you reach I-57. According to the signage, there is a bridge across the Mississippi somewhere along the interstate.
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| Closed Mississippi Bridge |
The road closed/bridge closed signs precluded me from turning left at the end of the Ohio River Bridge to get to Fort Defiance State Park, which is the tippy tip of the peninsula. So I turned right and headed into Cairo. I figured I could get my bearings and figure it out.
I did not stop and get my bearings. Cairo might be the most depressing place I have ever driven through. Okay, that’s probably not true because I’ve driven through some depressing places, but it’s easily the most depressing place I saw on this trip. Every business along the main drag was shuttered and closed, and I mean every business. It was desolate which was baffling because there is a nonstop flow of traffic down that main drag. Every vehicle that needs to go from the toe of Kentucky to the other side of the Mississippi River has to go through Cairo to get to the I-57 bridge.
I did a little research on Cairo before I left home. It has an ugly history, with racial violence in both the distant and the more recent past. Several articles called it an abandoned town. That’s not far off the mark. I wanted to stop. I wanted to look at the map again. I needed to pee, and I wanted to get an iced tea to stave off another bout of caffeine deprivation. People live there because I saw houses, but there was not a fast food restaurant or a gas station to be found, and I drove all the way to the I-57 interchange. Nada. I’m guessing that if I had left the main drag, I would have seen restaurants and grocery stores and all the things a place with people needs, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to get lost there.
I decided to go back to Fort Defiance and find a way in. The flow of traffic took me right back to the bridge, and every single vehicle was turning left to cross the Ohio River. I stayed to the right, and although there were dire warnings about the Mississippi River bridge, the gates to the park were open, so I drove through.
There is no actual fort at Fort Defiance State Park, and it’s not actually a state park anymore, so pretty much everything about the name is a lie. It was a military encampment during the Civil War, but I don’t know for which side. Lewis & Clark camped there for a week in 1803 on their journey. And unsurprisingly, it was a site of great importance for indigenous people dating back 1000 years. Their mounds can be found all over the region.
In 2023, it doesn’t appear to be a site of great importance to anyone. Like Cairo, it feels abandoned. The structures of swing sets are there, but there are no swings.
This point had always been the last stop on my road trip. Mark Twain put it firmly into my imagination, and I have imagined it as one of the great natural wonders of the world, like the Grand Canyon or the mountains or the ocean. And it is one of the great natural wonders of the world. The two rivers are both so big, and then they come together and they form one massive river. It is a place of power on the earth. The indigenous people knew that. It is amazing, and humanity has desecrated it.
From where I’m standing in this picture, I can smell the river a little, but mostly all I smell is the overwhelming stench of diesel fuel pumping out of the barge several yards to my left. The Ohio River side looks like a parking lot for barges. They are parallel parked all up and down both banks of the river, and the one closest to me had its engine running. There were fewer parked barges on the Mississippi side, but there were some, and there was a long convoy of them coming down the river.
I wanted to be amazed, but mostly I was just sad. Maybe I’m being dramatic, and I'm sure my disappointment was exacerbated by the ugly drive through Cairo and a night of no real sleep, but I couldn’t help but think we had turned the mightiest river in our country into a glorified interstate highway clogged with ugly, low slung barges, stinking of diesel fuel.
And that’s where my thoughts were when I crossed back into Kentucky and headed through Wickliffe. I turned into the Wickliffe Mounds State Park mostly because I really had to pee. I was willing to pay admission into the park at this point, but happily, the bathrooms were outside of the ticket office. I took advantage of them and went straight back to my car, unwilling to be disappointed again. I headed back to Paducah thinking about my options.
Lloyd Tilghman’s deserted Civil War Museum was off the table. If I had been in a better frame of mind, I would have checked out the quilt museum. My grandmother was an avid quilter, and I am lucky enough to have several of her quilts which, in my estimation, are museum worthy. But I had descended into a dark mood. It wasn’t even noon yet. When I planned my excursion, I had imagined myself spending more time in Wickliffe or Cairo or Fort Defiance, but here I was with half a day left in front of me and the prospect of another night alone in that spooky hotel.
I had pre-paid the room rental, and it was nonrefundable. My penny-pinching self rebelled at the thought that had taken root and was quickly growing. “I'm getting my stuff and going back to Georgetown.” I rationalized that $100 was not worth a miserable night, and the money was gone anyway, whether I spent the night in a haunted hotel or in my own bed.
I pulled up to the hotel, practicing my speech for the hostess, but it was a wasted effort. She was gone. I had to use the door code to get in the front door. I gathered my stuff which was mostly packed already. I must have subconsciously known that I was leaving that morning because I was out in five minutes. I walked through the labyrinth one last time, shuddering, even in broad daylight. I found a post-it on the desk downstairs and left a note, feeling a little bit like a thief slipping out in the middle of the night. I won’t be leaving a review here either. Saying that I think their hotel is haunted because I played a scary video game last week probably isn’t fair and might be a little crazy.
I drove away without looking back, feeling the gloom lift off of me the farther away I got. I hauled ass back to Georgetown, stopping exactly one time in four hours to finally get my iced tea.
I sent Sean a text, letting him know I was going to be home a day early, but he never looks at his phone, so he was surprised when I walked in the door, but also pleased. I was pleased. We sat and talked for two hours. It was wonderful. It was home.
I count my first solo road trip as a success. I had some fun, added some new places to my list and learned some things about myself, including where my threshold for alone time is. Sure, Friday was a bit of a bust, but not completely. I did see the Mississippi River, and seriously, how many vacations has anyone had where there wasn’t at least one disappointment?
AND I did spend the night in George Washington’s half brother's from his father’s first marriage descendant’s haunted hotel ALONE!
