Ahhh. The most wonderful time of year.
For some, this is the case. Yay!
For others, me included, it’s an eight-week pass to ride the Struggle Bus until January 1 rolls around and I can breathe again. Hear the hiss of the air brakes, wait for the grumpier-than-I-am driver to pop open that squeaky, double-jointed door and I plop onto the wet, icy pavement with all the elegance of a drunken giraffe into a fresh new year.
I think it’s the commercialism of it all that’s soured me. This, and the obligation and expectations and “don’t be a sourpuss.” And noise and chaos. And crowds. Oh. My. Word. The crowds.
All I want is a soft, fuzzy blanket, a semi-cooperative cat to cuddle, a good book, and my couch.
But, the Bus it is. I do this for those who enjoy this time of year. I mean, if Bruce Willis—I mean John McClane) and the Grinch and even Scrooge found a way to make the holidays work, I can surely be a semi-team player.
Dig deep, get it done. We’ll eventually reach the bus stop and I can breathe again.
(I am trying to be positive. I just… wow. The crowds. And the noise—can you tell I just got home from being “out there where the people are?”)
The Hubs had the week off during Thanksgiving and the weather was such that he couldn’t golf, so another way to spend the time was in order.
And, of course, this time of year, the only thing happening has to do with this time of year. We opted for something quite different. I’d seen friends post photos of their time at Lights Under Louisville in years past. They were all smiling—I think on purpose, not because they were digging deep.
This should be fun. I love caves. The Hubs loves Christmas…
So, I packed a stash of snacks, and we took off early one morning for Kentucky with a carefully planned entry slot to avoid crowds and time to try a local BBQ joint and get home before dark-thirty. We cued a cool time-traveling audiobook and drove two-and-a-half hours to Louisville Mega Cavern.
In my head, “cavern” meant “cave,” and no, I didn’t pay very close attention to the website. I was expecting a natural wonder, and I kept wondering why they’d string lights and let people drive their vehicles through this thing because I thought stalactites and stalagmites were protected or something.
But that’s not what this place is.
It’s a defunct, man-made mine.
So it makes more sense, but now, I’m not so interested.
We park, wait for a couple of semi-trucks to leave the area, and meander to the entrance. We navigate a super long hallway/tunnel with sparse posters declaring this place was a working mine at one point. Not too much else in the way of information.
Inside, the tunnel opens to a massive space, room enough for many vehicles and tall ceilings. We pass a street cleaner spraying purple stuff all over the ground (to keep down the dust, we’d find out later—lots of dust), spot the pickup truck with the open-aired trams that will take us through the “Experience,” and go into the gift shop/ropes course/zip-line/mine for gems area and check in.
Tourist trap vibes drip from the walls.
We’re super early, so we opt to go back up top for fresh air and sunshine, walk around. While we’re lazing in the parking area, another semi, this one a carrier loaded down with what looks to be oxygen tanks or other types of gas cylinders. The truck's many placards scream “flammable.”
The driver pauses, rolls down the passenger window, and leans over. She asks, “Do you work here?”
For a split second, I’m torn on how to answer. I blame Little Miss Muse. She despises waiting and gets herself and me in trouble during moments of downtime.
I want to say yes. So I can discuss with this woman why she’s here at this mine with all those canisters. I want to say yes, so I can tell her where to go, but “accidentally” send her into the drive-through light show and wouldn’t that be interesting?
But I say no, and she rolls her window back up and the truck groans as it pulls up out of the recessed parking lot.
What are they doing here? So many semis.
Anyway, we head back into the mine to board our little tram car. We take a seat in the very back. The twenty-something guide tells us the rules. “Arms and legs in the vehicle. Hang onto your phones. It’ll get bumpy, stay seated.” I look down. There are no seatbelts so it can’t possibly get that bumpy. The kid gets in the pickup and we take off.
I’m gonna skip the rundown of the “experience” and just let you know the website says seven million points of light are on display throughout the cavern. I’ll tell you a couple of the displays were impressive. I’m gonna tell you the Hubs’ face lit up when he spotted the dad-joke and holiday pun signs hanging from the ceiling.
I’d advise you to go with a child under the age of ten (or a Christmas/Disney-obsessed child at heart), and it’ll be an acceptable way to blow twenty-five bucks and a half hour.
But don’t go with someone like me. Scrooge-ish, Grinchy types are gonna be on that Struggle Bus. Front row, Baby! And we’ll need an inhaler to combat all that dust. Because I’d tell you that it looks like Big Lots after-holiday-clearance aisle threw up in that cave. Cavern. Mine. Whatever.
I had to dig deep and channel my inner Bruce Willis (I mean John McClane) and imagine a totally different way to enjoy this experience and avoid dissociation.
We finish the tour and arrive back at the gift shop/ropes course/zip-line/mine for gems area and visit the restrooms before heading back up top.
Right outside the women’s was a giant information plaque. About the Cold War. Nuclear bomb threats. I stood there and read the whole thing, looking for why they’d bother to hang such an extensive info dump and never even mention this mine. Or Kentucky.
So I asked a different twenty-something at the desk what the point was, and I was shocked when her face lit up and she knew the answer.
“Oh, yeah. This place would’ve been the fallout shelter should the bomb have dropped.”
Well, where was this tidbit at the beginning of the tour?
“Arms and legs in the vehicle. Hang onto your phones. It’ll get bumpy, please stay seated. In the event of a nuclear blast, the tour will conclude immediately. Please exit the vehicle in an orderly fashion, and kindly help us disassemble the displays to make room for hunkerin’ down.”
And then my brain went, “Ooooh… that’s what all those semis were doing up top.” Loading in hunkerin’ down supplies. Extra food.
Extra medical equipment.
Extra oxygen….
Ooooh. I so should’ve told that driver that I work here.
This opens a whole new plot line of “What Would John McClane Do?” I mean Bruce Willis. Christmas in the bomb shelter. Music and everything.
See? Now, I’m interested.
