every streetlight reveals a picture

well, i am in a wierd place right now - louisville, kentucky. really it isnt that wierd here, whats wierd are the time zones. becasue now i am heading north straddling the line between the eastern and central timezones. my phone updates automatically but the clock in my truck and on my computer do not. so i get conflicting times and it just messes with me a little bit.

earlier on this trip i read a book about daylight savings time and how it came into effect, amazingly it was only adopted (as we know it) in the 1980's. in the book it also talks about how time zones were established and all that stuff. it was really interesting. it is something i had never really thought about but the manipulation of time is probably one of the largest turning points where humans took over and completely dominated nature and the way we perceive it.

here i am!

before time zones were a thing every town had a central clock that would chime at noon - based on the position of the sun - and the people would adjust their timepieces to be in accordance with the sun at noon where ever they resided. which mean in louisville in would be noon but thirty miles east it would be 12:15 and thirty miles west in would be 11:45. people lived based on the position of the sun. the standardization of time zones was implemented becasue of the emergence of railroads as a way to make scheduling easier.

industry dominating the natural order to provide better service. i think i wrote about it earlier on the trip.

anyway, i have been moving fast. the other day i was in bowling green, ky and it was a nice small town there. i left yesterday and went on to mammoth cave national park. about thirty miles north. mammoth cave is a place i visited as a kid. i have no idea how old of a kid i was but i know that i went there with my mom and dad so it was before they were divorced. it cost a fair amount to actually take cave tours, so i contented myself walking around the park.

and it was real nice. moving fast i have mostly been sitting in my truck or at a coffee shop in large towns or cities. it was awesome to be back out in nature. on the way out to the park i almost celebrated thanksgiving the american way - by killing a turkey. i was cruising along the empty road that lead to the park and a wild turkey (i am pretty sure thats what it was) darted across the road and i slammed on the brakes. then i laughed loud and heartily. i drove slower after that.

once i got to the visitor center, i walked through it and then found myself on a path to the natural entrance to the cave system. it was locked down so i continued

the cave entrance

on the trail system. i walked for about 4 miles throughout the park. i saw a few other smaller entrances to the caves, all of them barred from human entry. i also got to see some underground rivers come out from the caves. the best one was the echo river spring. where the river comes out from the ground there is a lake and you can see whirlpools and such where the water is flowing out from underground.

they had a plaque there about some of the cave water animals. i had seen pictures of these things before, but reading about them so close to where they were had a different effect. animals like the albino kentucky shrimp. an endangered species that doesnt exist anywhere else but in this cave system. or the albino fish that dont have any hardware for eyes. these animals live completely in the dark. they had pictures of these animals and i wondered how it affected them when these pictures were taken. these animals must've died. i mean, they never seen light in their lives and all of a sudden a bright flash of light takes your picture.

anyway. along the trail i saw some dumb white tail deer. they were just feet from the path, but they wouldnt come when i called them. i just wanted to pet them a little bit. i wondered why deer were never domesticated. in another book i read on this trip - i think the history of salt - it had historical accounts of europeans first encountering bovine, cows. the testimony was of a large fearsome animal that the explorers were terrified to approach. now look at cows.

it was a nice brisk day and the hike was very pleasant. i liked seeing the icicle formations on the rocks. this is something i had seen quite a bit on the expressway and always wanted to stop to take a picture but stopping on the expressway is a dumb thing and thats why i dont really like expressway driving. there was one cave that looked like i might be able to get into, but if i were caught there was a $20,000 fine and up to 20 years in federal prison. i weighed the risks and benefits then decided against it.

when i left i headed straight to louisville. i thought about going to frankfort, the capital of kentucky, but it would add about 100 miles to my journey and i wasnt

where the underground river styx emerges

prepared for that. so i got to lousiville and my first experiences were typical. in a larger city the first thing i look for is the main library. i do this because libraries generally have wireless and information on the city. also, there are usually signs to point the way to them. the library was closed, but i sat outside searching the city for a place that i could walk around, like a hawthorne district or something.

i found it, bardstown road. i drove over there, parked somewhere and then walked around. it wasnt too chilly here and i had a nice place to spend the night. i went about twenty blocks up the road and back, just watching the city and killing time. i sat in a bookstore and perused the new titles. i think i want to read the book '1424.' it is about the chinese explorations of the americas 70 years before the europeans. i read through the introduction and it was fascinating.

then i went and sat outside under a light and finished the book i was reading. while sitting there some lady gave me some spare food she had. that was nice. i guess i look homeless enough to warrant it, sitting outside in the cold with a large beard and mostly unkempt. i appreciated the offer and ate the food. when i finished the book i went back to my truck and settled it. the night was raucous around me, but i had ggod wireless where i was parked and the night wasnt nearly as cold as it had been recently. i slept better than i had all week.