Louisville to Owensboro (165KM, 882M of elevation, 4 Cat 5 climbs)
Stage 2 takes us from Louisville to Owensboro. One thing about riding around a state is that unlike the grand tours in France, Italy, and Spain where they can go into the Alps, we don't have that luxury in KY. So it will be a race made up of a lot of little climbs instead of any major big climbs. You get a feel for that on this stage which features 4 category 5 climbs.
I wonder if, at West Point or Cecilia, I think, the tour veered more north and hugged the river more along the old route of U.S. 60 if it would be even hillier. That would carry through Cloverport, which for a while was my favorite place in this part of the state.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands, this stage takes us through Whitesville, where my wife preached at the Disciples church on Mother's Day. They tend to do a neat thing there where the children's-oriented portion of the worship bridges directly into the sermon, using the same verses and theme. She preached on Dorcas.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Owensboro is growing well. When I lived there in the early 1990s, all of the vitality felt like it was on the city’s south side. While I was mostly away in the 2000s, things started really picking up downtown—north against the river. And since we moved back in 2008 and started getting over there more frequently in the last 10 years, it’s the east side that has been really percolating. I don’t know that this is actually true, but it feels this way.
ReplyDeleteI just got looked at Wikipedia’s historical-population growth charts for Owensboro, Kentucky and the United States, and it looks like Owensboro’s decades of fast or slow growth align more closely with those of the country at large than the state itself. For example, from 1950 to 1960, the United States' population climbed 18.5 percent; Kentucky’s, 3.2 percent, and Owensboro’s 26.2 percent. From 1970 to 1980, meanwhile, U.S. population grew 11.5 percent; Kentucky’s, 13.7 percent, and Owensboro’s 8.2 percent. Most recently, from 2010 to 2020:
ReplyDelete— USA 7.4 percent
— Kentucky 3.8 percent
— Owensboro 5.1 percent
I wonder what all of that means.
I don't know. But my tourist's felt experience of Owensboro is that I can go a lot of different directions there for a lot of different things, and it doesn't take me long to cycle from one to the other--either on a map or in my head. I can go to botanical gardens, and I can get a hot pretzel with a giant icy fountain soda. I can go to Rash Stadium, and I can go to Target. There are great parks; there's a mall, and there's an interesting downtown coffee shop.
ReplyDeleteOh, also, the Bluegrass museum near the river is terrific. My favorite part is a room with all of these different guitars hanging on the walls, which visitors are welcome to grab and start playing. This is in the free area, too. Anyway, more often than not when I've visited, there have been two or more people playing together who have met at this location, happening into each other there. Really neat place to go.
I am increasingly convinced that the towns of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers form a distinct culture that is different from the Southern Baptist culture of the farmlands, and also different from the progressive culture that we associate with "Blue States."
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ReplyDeleteThe river people are not Baptists, nor are they Progressives. They have a pugnacious independence, which you can see in icons like Pete Rose and Muhammad Ali.
The river culture is very German-American and Catholic, and you can find it in places like Covington Catholic and Evansville. You can certainly feel it in Owensboro -- Rex Chapman is the very picture of pugnacious independence. But not very many German-Americans (or Catholics) made it all the way down to Paducah, which is more like Clarksville than like Louisville.
ReplyDeleteIt's really fitting that Paducah is in the "Jackson Purchase" which reflects the deep populism of our end of the Commonwealth.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right. And this reminds me that I need to finish that book about Cuba where the author spent so much great time at the start talking about how the lack of good ways to cross the river from the rest of Kentucky into the Jackson Purchase led to that region being more related to Tennessee.
ReplyDeleteYes, but while Paducah is more like Tennessee than Owensboro is, Paducah is less like Tennessee than Hopkinsville is.
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