Madison

It’s so hot here.  Wait, I think I said that yesterday.  So it’s hot again today and supposed to be hot tomorrow.  It’s been hot for so long that if we get a cool day we probably won’t know what to do with it.

Rather than try to hike in this heat in a State Park that has waterless waterfalls, we drove into nearby Madison and spent the day in town.  At least we can dive into a store and bask in their air conditioning if necessary.

Not only did Madison put itself on the map with its community-sponsored hydroplane club, it also is at an ideal place on the Ohio River where river traffic can meet railroad traffic.  It’s the northernmost bend in the Ohio River, making it an ideal place for railroad traffic to Indianapolis.  And some enterprising people, recognizing all this, made a fortune investing in railroads and banks and such.  The town boomed in the mid 1800’s and then stagnated as river traffic decreased and railroad lines were built elsewhere.  Many of the old building survived all the changes brought about by modernization and today Madison has a large national historic district.  In addition to the powerboat racing, it has made itself into an artsy tourist destination, with lots of cool architecture thrown in and a well-preserved downtown that has been the set of three movies.

We walked this downtown area for a while, noting some of the locations mentioned in the movie Madison that we saw yesterday.  We also walked the riverfront.  If we were here one more day, we could have seen the Madison Vintage Thunder, a vintage boat race to be held here tomorrow.  Part of the waterfront was blocked off and several boats on trailers were also queuing up for tomorrow’s event.

I’m not sure how these are connected, but the event also includes a show of vintage tractors.  It was fun seeing some beautifully-restored tractors, including one or two that we had worked with when I was a kid on the farm.

We took a tour of the Lanier Mansion, one of the best examples of Greek Revival architecture in the country.  James Lanier was one of those guys that grew rich investing in banking and railroads and built this mansion for his family.  It is now a museum and open for tours.  It was fun getting a glimpse of how the other half lived but we have things today that would have been considered luxuries back then that we take for commonplace.  Such as indoor plumbing.

As I mentioned earlier, it was a hot day and walking down the waterfront and downtown in the mid-afternoon heat had us sweltering.  We stopped at Hinkle Hamburgers, a downtown diner, for a milkshake. Definitely the thing for a hot afternoon.

Time to move on.  We clambered aboard our RV oven and drove towards Louisville, about an hour and a half away, stopping at a city park in Charlestown to make dinner.  It was hot there, hot on the road, and hot when we arrived in Jeffersonville.

We found a parking space next to Big Four Station, the endpoint of the pedestrian bridge that spans the Ohio River. This bridge is lit up at night so we made this a destination for Abigail’s last night with us.  She loves that kind of thing, always has.  I remember in Guangzhou, China, taking her on a riverboat after dark to view the city lights, the delight that she had in seeing all the lights.  It was no different now.  Except now she has her own camera.  She probably took a hundred pictures.

Our overnight place is a Cracker Barrel near the Louisville Airport.  Abigail gets on a plane tomorrow to head for home and we will continue our journey from there.