Frankfort and Ghost Hunting

Frankfort is like a hidden gem, even if it is the state capital of Kentucky. This weekend we spent time wandering around its tidy streets, sidewalks and stores. It was late afternoon on Saturday, in the capital city, but we had the place to ourselves.

This is the drive approaching the state house. The capital moved (and upgraded) a few blocks south in the late '80s, jumping to the other side of the Kentucky River which runs through the heart of Frankfort. This street, Capital Avenue, is lined on either side with mature trees and houses a good deal older than the statehouse at its end.

It's got its own green lawn, reminiscent of the White House's, with pristine landscaping and stonework.

We saw no one else as we walked a full circle around the building. It is surrounded by cozy houses and more of those tree-topped knolls that speckle the Kentucky landscape. I bet these home owners were thankful to gain the state capital as a neighbor, it's like having a beautiful park and 24 hour security for free.

 All I have to truly compare this place to is Columbia's State House. There are always people milling around there - relaxing on the benches, taking artsy photographs, protesting. But Frankfort's State House is like a manicured oasis plopped in the middle of a neighborhood.

Here is the view standing at the top of the state house steps. The downtown heart of Frankfort lies straight ahead. It may not look like it, but it's true! You can see one long building straight ahead and the top corner of a building poking over trees to the left. Those seem to be the highest structures in town - an impressive new convention center and a tall, generic office building.

So we walked our loop around the building, Isaac obligingly coming along. Look closely and you can see in the photo above that I was about to be left behind. It was pretty warm out and we were ready for dinner. We headed north into the city's heart, straight ahead in the picture above, for dinner.

Here's West Broadway Street. It's where the old State House still stands. From what we've seen just driving through, it is one of the most popular roads in the city. This is a good ol' place.

Here's looking the other direction on West Broadway Street. The old capital is unpictured on the right side of the road.

Buddy's Pizza not only had great reviews online, but the owners also have an affinity for yellow labs which made eating dinner here a must.

For a second I was worried we would have trouble getting a seat, being it's prime time on a Saturday night.





























Nope, this is delightful and perfect Frankfort.

The restaurant occupies what looks like two old store fronts, with beautiful old architectural details and spunky, dog-ful decor.

Only one other table was occupied so the wait for our 12" pizza was short and sweet. As I snapped pictures of the interior, one of the workers ducked out of the way, which made me apologize and explain that it was our first visit. She came out later, welcoming us and thanking us for coming. It was the perfect kind of hometown restaurant experience.

As we ate, I watched West Broadway Street outside of the restaurant's windows. It was 8:00pm now and the town still felt quiet and sleepy.

After dinner, we said "bye-bye" to Buddy's and walked down the block. Here's a couple of cute shots along the way.

We grabbed an iced coffee to share at the equally cute Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe. You see, we wanted a little bit of a caffeine kick because we were about to go ghost hunting.

A few weeks back, we visited Buffalo Trace Distilleries here in Frankfort. I mentioned that the place offers several free tours. Last weekend, we were enticed back for a second visit by one of those other tours - the Ghost Tour. It is only given on weekend evenings, just one or two tours per night.

We learned before that Buffalo Trace is the longest continuously operating bourbon distillery. Being over 200 years old, there have been a few deaths on the property, some of which supposedly account for spooky sightings. Several employees claim to have had supernatural experiences, enough that a television show called Ghosthunters visited the property to see for themselves.

The sun was still hanging high in the sky when our tour began at 8:30. First we visited Colonel Blanton's home on the property, which now provides beautiful offices for some lucky workers.

Sitting around the living room downstairs, we became familiar with the two most popular apparitions. The first is Colonel Blanton himself, who poured his heart and life into this distillery, whose name dons glass bourbon bottles. He passed away in an upstairs bedroom inside this house. Several workers claim to have seen a nicely dressed gentleman matching Blanton's description. The other character is a young girl whose identity is unknown. She has been spotted playing within the Blanton's home, and in the gardens outside.

Next we walked into the same large warehouse as on the previous tour, the first of several floors with stacks and stacks of bourbon barrels. As you can imagine, shifting around heavy barrels in a multistory building has its risks, and over the years there have been a few accidents. One day a new supervisor, inexperienced regarding the danger of shifting so many heavy goods at once, ignored the advice of others and ordered some barrels be rearranged. Voices were heard urgently saying "move!" The supervisor and workers became spooked and left the building. Moments later the ceiling above where they had just been standing collapsed. It is said that the voices belonged to two distillery workers who had passed away years before due to a warehouse collapse. They spoke up to save others from the same fate.

I love ghost stories, and I've tried my best to share the jist of what we heard that night. But regarding the spook factor, this tour just didn't have it. It was entertaining, but entering Mammoth Caves was more frightening than this.

Everyone on our ghost tour, including the guide, was wishing for some spooky experience. We took many pictures, trying our best to capture something mysterious, similar to the inexplicable smoky images our guide showed us at the start of the tour.

Here's the eerie stairwell where a little ghost girl sometimes plays hide and seek, and a shadowy passage in Warehouse C. No little girl giggling, no finely dressed gentleman, no nothin'.

Once we arrived home, I looked back through the pictures as I petted my bunny, Cookie. I zoomed in closely, cocked my head, crossed my eyes, all sorts of things to try and find something noteworthy. After a good hour, I shared my findings with Isaac - two photographs.

I snapped the picture above out front of Colonel Blanton's house. If you look near the bottom, you can see a golden floating orb. Firefly.

The picture to the right took a bit more effort. This is the backside of the Blanton home. Can you see anything unusual? I had to zoom.

Here's a trick I learned during my hour of searching through photos. When you're ghosthunting (in pictures), it seems like one big part of it is trying to imagine faces where there aren't any.

Usually this is not a problem for me. I have seen more faces in bread slices and wood grains than I found in these photos.

Can you see it now? Look inside of the window. I had to enlarge it some more.

Boo! Eyeballs! Do you see it!?

Oh well. At the end of the night, our favorite moments were wandering around Frankfort and enjoying the late sunset around 9:30 as we headed home.

And about those ghosts at Buffalo Trace, I'm not a disbeliever. It just seems like any spirits occupying such a beautiful place would be happy and peaceful. The ghost stories we heard featured apparitions who were friendly and happy, even helping out when there is danger. I think as long as the distillery continues to thrive, its famous spirits will always be the liquid kind.

Mammoth Cave

Last weekend was a bit of a switcheroo. Isaac went away to visit a few of his friends and my friend Rachel came to Louisville to see me.

She's the kind of friend you are lucky to find once in your life. We met in middle school and have helped each other through the awkward years since then. Together we are satisfied sharing a piano bench, getting dressed up for Sunday brunch or wandering through an old graveyard. But we especially love adventures. Often we joke that we're not having fun unless there's blood. Because between the two of us, someone usually ends up a little dinged up. This time it was me - I slammed the car trunk lid down on my forearm and pinky. All because I was worried about spilling a glass of water, which I did end up spilling by the way. Luckily the force was perfectly distributed so that my pinky didn't get too bashed up - just one gash and enough bruising to brag about.

Even though we see less of each other now than we did during our school day, we try to make the most of the time we can share. And so Saturday morning we drove two hours south of Louisville, down highway 65 as it cuts through wide spreads of green and tree-covered knolls. Destination: Mammoth Cave.

Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. I like that word "known" because it reminds us that there are still lots that we humans don't know and haven't figured out about what's around us. Each year volunteers continue to explore the far-reaching fingers of Mammoth Cave, mapping out more and more of this unique underground realm.

The park is over 50,000 acres and as you drive through it to reach the central hub (visitor's center, parking lots, even a hotel!) it just feels like driving through the sticks. I managed to avoid squishing a long, dark snake as it lay sunbathing on the road, and a few times we questioned if we were going the right way just because of the sheer nothingness around.

Mammoth Cave is national park, with plenty of hiking trails and kayaking on the surface to keep you occupied besides what lies beneath. In order to view the caves, you must sign up for one of the many tours offered. Our tour was called "Domes and Dripstones", two hours long and starting at the first available time, 8:45. Our early bird spirit paid off too. Each tour has a cap of 120 people, which is quite a bit if you can imagine the sounds of 120 voices and 240 feet shuffling in the cave around you. We grinned when the ranger mentioned that there were only about 50 people in our group.

We met our tour group beneath a roofed shelter where the park ranger shared basic rules like no eating, no smoking, no restrooms in the cave. Then we boarded two hunter green buses for the short drive to the cave entrance.

There are several openings to enter the cave, one within walking distance of the park's hub. Our tour began at "the new entrance", a cement box hunched on the forest floor with a metal door and a single glowing light. I couldn't believe this was the prelude to our underground adventure. It looks like the portal in some fantasy movie leading you to another world.

What came next was one of the most uncomfortable five minutes of my life.

During our two hour drive that mornin, our excitement built about the upcoming adventure. We talked about spelunking, the hobby of cave exploration. Rachel had previously done a spelunking tour with her family somewhere in Canada, and shared that while it was fun, she had no desire to repeat it. Without ever trying it, I second her feelings. Some of the most frightful bits from books and movies I have experienced involve being confined underground. Something about it is so unnatural, so instinctively repulsive. People dream of having wings, of flying high in the air. No one dreams of groping underground in the darkness. At least no one I know.

We walked through the new entrance's metal doorway single file, Rachel first and then me. A descending staircase, with orangish bulbs periodically spaced providing just enough light to cast an eerie hue and deep shadows along the narrow passageway. And then we met the cave crickets. Clinging to the surfaces on all sides of us, alarmingly close, mere inches away, antennae waving their flesh-tingling greetings as we skittered down ever further. I'm not terribly afraid of bugs, but I also didn't foresee having so many creepy crawlies that close to my face.

Of course a cave tour must begin with a descent. After about 20 steps down, the cement tunnel as replaced with undulating waves and wrinkles of sandstone and then limestone. Our path was still narrow, the air cool and damp as our footsteps echoed off of the metal staircase, folding back and forth as it led us down through a dome, a geological formation like an upright tube.

Below on the left is a shot leaning over the stairway's rail and looking down. On the right is a shot looking straight ahead as we continue to descend, at times squeezing between chunks of rock.

Down we went. Even though my senses were tingling, telling me that nothing about this feels natural, I couldn't help but be in wonder. The caves were more vivid than any movie, more impenetrable and beautiful than anything man has made.

After the initial descent, things got more comfortable. The cave crickets only creep around near the surface, and knowing that is all the encouragement needed to keep going down.

The passageways changed as we walked along, smooth then jagged, wide chambers then narrow slips.

Occasionally our group gathered, settling onto benches arranged in some of the larger chambers. The park ranger shared history about the cave itself and man's dealings with it. I'll share just a few of the highlights.

Before coming to Kentucky, I had heard about the bluegrass. But since living here, limestone seems like the more popular subject. It gives the bourbon here its unique Kentuckian taste, and water running through it is what carved out these caves. The soft limestone is a remnant from an era before the dinosaurs, when this land was submerged, the bed of a shallow sea located south of the equator.

Several people explored the caves before it became a national park (a process that began thanks to Teddy in the 1920's but wasn't dedicated until the 1940's). In the late 19th century a doctor kept tuberculosis patients quarantined in the caves, hoping to find a cure amidst the cool, wet and dark climate. One reckless man named George Morrison wandered around beneath the surface with a cigar and handfuls of dynamite, blasting his way through and discovering some of the cave's most popular chambers and features.

Below you can see the difference between the sandstone and limestone. There's the jagged and flaky limestone that's fallen away to reveal the smooth layer of sandstone above.

Looking through these pictures, they don't seem to convey the magnitude of the place. But I hope you can still feel some of its beauty and vastness.

And where there is water, eerily beautiful structures like stalactites and stalagmites form. Before becoming a national park, when the caves (or the land they rest beneath) were owned by private parties, people were already making money off of cave tours. Visitors were allowed to carve their initials into the stone and even break off some piece they fancied to take home as a souvenir.

Below are images from a section of the cave called Frozen Niagara. It resembles a waterfall stuck in time.

This area was one of those discovered by that daring man with sticks of dynamite.

Have you seen enough of the caves yet? We hadn't. We continued snapping pictures as the park ranger bringing up the rear of our group urged us forward. As a woman just ahead mumbled to her husband that "They didn't mention it was just a bunch of rocks on Trip Advisor".

It was stunning. Afterwards, we ate our picnic lunch and glanced over the park brochure, pausing to examine its cave map. We skipped around the tiny printed words searching for the places our park ranger had named during the tour. On our two hour walk through the caves, we felt the vastness of that underground realm. Looking at this map renewed the feeling again, when we realized that our entire tour covered only one tiny bit of the known caves. I put a red box below around the area we explored. We were overwhelmed by our taste of the caves, yet there is so much more down there.

After lunch, we took a hiking trail through the woods to the aptly named Green River which runs through the park. The ranger mentioned before that there are not many creeks in the park; the water drains underground, sliding its way down until it exits the caves and joins the Green River. We stumbled upon one of the places where the cave opens up, spilling its calming trickle of water out towards the river.

It's a special treat to have a magical place like this so close to where we live. I can't wait to visit the caves again with Isaac. I'll definitely bring along my bright green rain coat again to protect me from the cave crickets.