We didn't have any more cave tours scheduled and didn't feel like paying the fee to go see Dinosaur World or whatever the tourist trap just outside the park was called, so we loaded up the van and headed back up the road towards Louisville. Which meant...
We were going Back To The Future! (again)
Once again, the movies always exaggerate everything. In order to travel through time, you really only need to go about 68 mph.
We decided to take a detour along the way back. Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, KY, which was about a 15-mile detour from the interstate. There is a
National Historic Site commemmorating this site, which provided an opportunity for another stamp in the National Park passport...and I guess some history and learning opportunities or something as well.
Our friends in the Federal Government put their heads together in order to come up with a catchy, original title for the site and came up with:
The small park had a visitor center which housed an exhibit showing what life would have been like in the Lincoln family cabin, as well as some artifacts such as the Lincoln family Bible. A short walking path led to the "Sinking Spring", where they drew their water from a natural aquifer, and a large monument to President Lincoln.
Some people, upon seeing this monument, would stand in quiet contemplation of the art, and the appropriate tribute to one of our greatest leaders. Others might think of the issue of slavery, the Civil War, and how these might have played out if Lincoln had never been elected President. And still others would think immediately of Rocky and feel the need to do a cheesy re-creation of his dash up the Philly Art Museum steps. I'll let you decide what category we fall into.
Inside the monument was a replica of the cabin in which Lincoln might have been raised. I think it can appropriately be described as "modest".
We lingered a bit. There wasn't a ton to see inside, but the cabin was blessedly air-conditioned, so that alone was worth the slow pace. A ranger was inside and noticed Scotty's Buddy Bison. She insisted on taking our picture with it:
Then she started talking about the cabin, asked us where else we'd been, talked about Mammoth Cave, which cave tours she'd tried, which ones she'd led as a ranger, the rotations between jobs the rangers have at the Kentucky parks...
I'm guessing they don't get a lot of visitors to the Abe Lincoln birthplace, if you catch my drift. It reminded me of Bill Murray's cameo in Get Smart as the agent who never gets to talk with the other agents.
Anyway, the ranger was nice enough, and we were enjoying the cool air, so we didn't hurry out. Eventually we ran out of stuff to talk about, however, and headed back out into the heat.
Yeah.
Upon arriving back in Lousiville, we crashed in our hotel room a bit. Then came the issue of deciding what to do that evening. We'd discussed trying to attend a Louisville Bats baseball game. Dave was wildly enthusiastic about that idea, since BASEBALL IS THE GREATEST THING EVER. And I'll admit here that we didn't do a very good job as parents on this evening. We were indecisive, and ended up stringing him along...basically answering "Maybe" when he brought it up. Truthfully, we didn't really know what we wanted to do.
For dinner, we didn't have any other restaurants researched, and we ended up at the
Louisville Cardinal Hall Of Fame Cafe right across the street, which helpfully gave free appetizers to hotel guests. It was a nice place with Lousiville Cardinals memorabilia everywhere, but the food was decidedly "meh". Not bad, just not memorable. But we got free potato skins, so we had that going for us, which was nice.
By this time, Julie and I were feeling tired and had absolutely no desire to sit and watch baseball in 100-degree heat. Scotty and Sarah weren't wild about the idea, either. And we'd called our friends, Jay and Donna, about getting together for dessert that evening, and they liked that idea better than the baseball game. But we'd strung Dave along through the day that he was pretty sure we were going. So at this point I had to break his heart.
I felt awful for him. He really wanted to go to the game. I apologized profusely. Sometimes parents mess up, too.
We tried to make it up to him by meeting our friends at the
Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen. This was another Road Food recommendation, and there were a few to choose from in the area. We met up with Jay and Donna at a location that was fairly close to Lynn's Paradise Cafe from the day before. Jay and Donna had spent the day at Churchill Downs, the site of the annual Kentucky Derby, and recommended the museum there highly. So I guess we'll have to come back to Louisville and check that out sometime.
This place was fantastic. Just one big dessert kitchen, with display cases full of every kind of cake, ice cream, and pie you can think of. (Cake wasn't listed in the title, but it was available. Although I don't know why anyone would want boring cake when you can have pie. That's not even a contest.)
Being summer in a (sort of) Southern state, I opted for the peach pie. And I can say it was one of the best restaurant pies I've ever eaten. Usually they come out cold and with crunchy fruit, but this one was perfect. I can't remember what anyone else had mostly because I was gobbling up every crumb of my slice.
While we were enjoying our dessert, we took stock of the customers. At one table, 3 Catholic priests in full garb were enjoying coffee. Right next to them were two goths covered in tattoos and piercings. They seemed comfortable in each other's company.
Louisville ended up being one of our favorite places on the trip, and this was one reason why. Priests and goths eat pie in the same place. There are signs everywhere for seminaries and Bible colleges, right next to the signs for bourbon distilleries and tours. The genteel Southern Kentucky Derby crowd walks the same streets as the eccentric patrons of Lynn's Paradise Cafe. It's an urban college town and a funky neighborhood all rolled up into one. And they're good with that.
It's also a good thing we liked it so much, because I think we're going to have to come back and see a Louisville Bats baseball game in order to avoid permanently scarring my son.
Coming Up Next: A long driving day, through which I will struggle to make it sound exciting! Thankfully, there's another DISDad meet in there to break things up.
)
CJ! Thanks for reading along. Come to think of it, I think the ranger also told us that story about the silence in the cave.
:
At least you hadn't left Louisville behind yet since I was last here so I guess I'm actually only a couple of days behind. I see I did miss wishing you a Happy Birthday on here but I'm pretty sure I caught it on FB. (so no need to go check) 
