One of the major reasons why I wanted to bring my family to this region of the USA was so they could experience the warmth and kindness of the people in the area. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced and is entirely different than the fake-ish “Minnesota Nice”. It is impossible to describe and has to be experienced. I didn’t realize most of interactions with locals would happen in the Louisville KY / southern Indiana / Nashville area when we set out but it’s where the family was able to see and experience the locals. The rest of the areas we visited, like Nashville, the Mammoth Caves National Park area, and, Louisville were a lot of fun and we want to go back.
First, I’ll write about the non-people part of this area.
Louisville is a fun place and well located! Louisville Slugger Museum was fantastic. The sights and smells were identical to all the different furniture factories I’ve visited in the area. It was neat to see all the bats used by all the famous baseball players and I’m sure it would have meant even more if I followed sports or understood baseball. Some of the best BBQ we had was in the Louisville area. Mission BBQ stands out as having some of the best BBQ, and, it’s a chain! We had no idea a chain could make good food! The caves / caverns around Louisville were super neat too, one of the caverns had a boat ride and that was a lot of fun!
We were told there was bad weather coming the morning we left Louisville, even the hotel we were staying in had linemen from the power companies staying in the hotel in anticipation of the need to restore storm damaged power lines. We didn’t think much of it and made our way to Mammoth Caves / Nashville. During the drive we encountered severe, like bad, weather. Trees started being disassembled and blown on the interstate. Fortunately, we were fine and made it to our destination. Nearby folks weren’t so lucky as four people died due to the storm and storm damage. The trend of “bad things happen to the people around us in the areas we visit” has continued :(.
Mammoth Cave National Park was OK. It is giant but it’s dead. There aren’t a whole lot for formations. On the bright side, the tour was self guided so we just wandered around and had a lot of fun! Next to Mammoth Cave was Diamond Cave and that was spectacular and the formations were incredible. We learned about the cavern wars and had a wonderful time in the cavern; 10/10.
Nashville was awesome. We didn’t realize music started so soon in the morning or that Miriam liked listening to live music. It was fun to walk the streets of downtown Nashville and listen to the various bands play, Miriam danced a bit, and she was super excited to see women guitarists and drummers. One of the bars was serving Mellow Mushroom pizza by the slice so I had a chance to share the Mellow Mushroom love with those who hadn’t experienced it! Nashville was also a quirky place. One of the more memorable meals on the entire trip was hot chicken slathered in some chinese five spice sauce served on a boa bun, and, I’m pretty sure Nashville is the only place on the planet where the instructor for a science demonstration at the childrens museum will given an unsolicited guitar outro as all the children leave.
As for the people – they are very kind. Folks who stop to chat seem to be curious and genuine. We went to the Star Valley Strawberry Festival and had an awesome time. I struck up a conversation with some of the organizers and learned a lot about the area. There are lots of children and families in the area so the community invests in family amenities like the largest outdoor children’s playground I’ve ever seen, and, a lot of folks make pretty decent wages in the Louisville area while living out in the sticks. One of the organizers ended up buying me a shirt and we had we all had a great time chatting.
The genuineness is very different than the “Minnesota Nice” which is rather superficial, and, often quite empty. Many folks were curious why Minnesotans would be wandering around their neck of the woods and most folks were happy to share their thoughts and history in the area.
Probably the oddest thing about the area is the shear number of businesses and signs declaring their faith or beliefs. It was wild to see the portapotty company with “In God We Trust” next to their logo. It was also around Nashville where we burned out on BBQ. We had fabulous BBQ throughout the trip but it was time to eat other foods. It turns out, it is possible to eat too much BBQ.
Overall, we loved the Upland South. We’d love to go back!
Enjoy the photos
