Part Two: Nashville to Louisville
The Two-Week Loop: 1. Houston to Nashville › 2. Nashville to Louisville › 3. Louisville to Columbus › 4. Columbus to Erie › 5. Erie to Houston
We left part one in Nashville with the government shutdown still filed under background noise. Part two is where it stopped being a headline and started costing us cave tours.
Mammoth Cave National Park was the peg the entire two weeks hung on. Longest known cave system on Earth, more than 400 mapped miles of it, and the reason this loop bent north through Kentucky in the first place. We got as far as a locked gate and a sign, which is a hell of a thing to drive 800 miles for.
Here’s the thing about Kentucky: it barely let us feel it. Bowling Green quietly filed the day full, from an underground boat ride to a collection of Corvettes worth more than our house. Horse Cave, a town that could have shrugged at losing tourists to Mammoth, instead has a cave mouth yawning open right out of its downtown. Then Louisville threw museums at us faster than we could buy tickets, and if this leg has a lesson, it’s that a state gets a lot more interesting the moment the federal government stops curating it for you.
Trip Route Map
The Stops
Jackson’s Orchard and Nursery – Bowling Green, KY
A Bowling Green pick-your-own orchard and agritourism farm: apples in season, a fall pumpkin patch, cider and doughnuts, and a country market.
Lost River Cave – Bowling Green, KY
A Bowling Green cave you tour by boat, once a Prohibition-era dance club, now a nature preserve with trails, springs, and a deep blue hole.
National Corvette Museum – Bowling Green, KY
Home of the Corvette, across the road from the plant that builds them, best known for the 2014 sinkhole that swallowed eight cars right off the museum floor.
Hidden River Cave & American Cave Museum
A cave right in downtown Horse Cave, once written off as polluted and since recovered, with a cave museum up top and a swinging bridge in the dark below.
Farmwald’s Restaurant and Dutch Bakery – Horse Cave, KY
Amish-run restaurant, Dutch bakery, and country store off I-65 in Horse Cave, famous for rib eye sandwiches. We ate one. I still can't stop thinking about it… Wash it down with a fresh baked pastry, and take some to go. Trust us! Well worth the stop.
James B. Beam Distilling Co. – Clermont, KY
The Jim Beam home place on the Bourbon Trail: tours through the rickhouses, tastings, and a dip-your-own-bottle station.
Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs – Louisville, KY
The museum at the gates of Churchill Downs, where general admission gets you two floors of Derby history, a 360-degree race film, and a guided walk out to the twin spires and the track itself.
Speed Art Museum – Louisville, KY
Kentucky's largest art museum, next to the University of Louisville, running from ancient work to contemporary in a sleek, expanded space. We've been to a hundred art museums, but this was a standout.
Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory – KY
The bat factory behind the world's biggest baseball bat leaning out front, where you watch Louisville Sluggers get turned and take home a mini.
Muhammad Ali Center – Louisville, KY
Ali's hometown museum, part boxing history, part conviction and civil rights, built around the Greatest and what he stood for.
KMAC Contemporary Art Museum
A contemporary art and craft museum on Louisville's Museum Row, with rotating shows and a well-stocked maker's shop.
Big Four Bridge – Louisville, KY
An 1895 railroad bridge over the Ohio, left stranded for decades after the trains quit, now a walk-and-bike bridge you reach by a giant spiral ramp. Free, open all hours, and lit in color after dark.
The Ones That Got a Wave, Not a Post
Mammoth Cave gets an asterisk instead of a post. Thanks, Washington. We’ll be back for the full tour when the world’s longest cave is allowed to answer its own front door. Along the way we camped at the Horse Cave KOA and grabbed supper at Cluckers in Shepherdsville, both of which did their jobs admirably.
The detour rolls on into part three, Louisville to Columbus, where Cincinnati asks for two full days and then earns them.