Mr. Kawasaki, the legend

Three Rivers, Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi.  There was quite a bit more to today’s adventures than just river crossings.  Let me start back at the beginning, packing up at the KOA.  I rode into Horse Cave, KY; what intellectual giant thought it was a great idea to build a city on top of a cave?  Probably the same geniuses that built a museum on a cavity in the earth in that other Kentucky town that I’ll get to in a minute.  Back to Horse Cave.  Daniel Boone came across the cave and was heard saying, “Damn, this is cool down here.  I could live down here, out of the humidity.”  Some raccoon-hat wearing side-kick heard something to the affect of, “Damn this is cool, let’s build a downtown up from here.”  The downtown is unremarkable from other eastern small towns, a row of brick store fronts, mostly vacant now with “For Lease” or “For Sale” or “Free to anyone stupid enough to try and open a business in this town where the average income is so low they advertise it as 7,000 Chilean Pesos/annual to make it sound impressive (current exchange rate: 700 pesos to the U.S. $)”.  So, I clicked off a few pictures of this hole in the center of the village, a sign advertised that there was once a tennis court down there, after they moved the horses out.  Why would they put horses down there, where the average temperature is livable, while the humans live topside in 95 F (with humidity its the equivalent of steak searing temperature at Morton’s)?

Moving on, I had another leisurely tour through the Kentucky backroads en route the other hole in the ground.  I rolled into Bowling Green, KY, home of the Corvette Assembly plant and National Corvette Museum.  Everything at this exit is Corvette!  I rode to the plant where for $10 you can get a tour, but no pictures allowed—I thought I’d wait until I had a companion, Max or Rachelle, or some adventurous soul to join me—I turned down the opportunity.  I crossed the street to the Corvette Museum.  I’m a fan, not huge, but nonetheless, a big fan of our only sports car.  A great tribute to that American Icon.  This is also the sight of the sink hole that swallowed up Daniel Boone in his new red Corvette convertible.  Little is left of this tragic event, other than a giant hole mostly filled in with mid-life-crisis-fat-white-guy’s Corvettes, Google it.

I got back on the country path toward Kansas, when I started seeing brown signs advertising a Jefferson Davis memorial, much akin to those blasted Wall Drug signs out west.  I thought it was probably a bronze marker telling about how the Confederate President took a dump at some way station.  About six miles from the site I noticed a cell tower, or bridge spar off in the distance.  As I go closer it grew more substantial.  Holy Bat Farts, it was a Washington Monument lookalike, marking the birth place of Jefferson Davis.  I had to stop for this.  This is almost unbelievable in so many aspects, first that this monument exists, the second thing—and you won’t believe this—my tour guide was a big black fellow that was very enthusiastic about the ex-CSA President’s history.  I paid the $3.50 for the history lesson, learned more about Davis than I ever knew, and was glad I made the stop.  While in the parking lot, getting geared up (I was the only vehicle there) first an old Kawasaki showed up, and then a new BMW 1200RT glided in.  Mister BMW was originally from Eugene, OR, but retired to Albuquerque, NM.  Mister Kawasaki was from Tennessee en route Springfield, MO.  Mister Kawasaki had the ability, when he talked which was nonstop, to make you think about upping your dosage of Benzedrine or start drinking Drain-O.  Mister BMW, along with Mister Triumph, stood quietly listening, sharing the excruciating punishment when BMW guy winked at me and said, “Listen, great meeting you, be safe but I have to go vomit, or something to that effect,” and exited.  I stood there as Mr. Kawasaki droned on, and thought about ordering in a drone strike, but saw a slight pause and said my farewells while Mr. Kawasaki was in mid-sentence.

I was sweating, standing in the parking lot in my gear, and having endured Kawasaki’s water-boarding I was glad to have some wind flowing through the jacket.  Somewhere along this path I saw two flat bed trucks go by carrying cut tobacco leaves hanging on brackets, much like you’d see in a drying barn—this was a in-your-face acclamation in the difference between cigarette tobacco and cigar tobacco handling procedures.  Huge difference.  Never in a million years would you see cigar tobacco carelessly treated that way.

It was getting close to the end of my endurance with this humid heat, but I was in the middle of nowhere with no hope of finding a campsite or hotel.  I then crossed the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at their junction and saw on my map that I was nearing an interstate.  I was satisfied with finding a run-down Super 8 in Charleston, MO.  It’s $40/night, home.