Falls of the Ohio

One of the best things about living in Louisville is that you are so close to so many wonderful places, both natural and man-made. Louisville exists where it does because of a major obstacle in the Ohio River: waterfalls over a very large and impressive fossil bed. The limestone bed that makes up much of the area around Louisville and southern Indiana is littered with fossils. At this particular location, the beds are close enough to the surface to effect the river and make it incredibly shallow. When Louisville was founded, a portage existed around these cascades. Supplies and cargo coming downstream from Cincinnati and Pittsburgh were offloaded in Louisville and brought around to waiting ships in Portland (now a large neighborhood on the western edge of Louisville). The cargo would be restowed and sent on its way to the Mississippi River.

Today, the Falls of the Ohio is a wonderful place to visit. Strolling around the fossil beds transports you back in time to when this entire part of the United States was covered by an inland sea. Coral reefs teemed in the shallow waters. These corals comprise a bulk of the beds today. I love going to the Falls and walking around, trying ot discover some interesting piece of coral, a broken bit of brachiopod, or simply enjoying the forests that edge the river.

Areas like these make me appreciate how much Kentucky has to offer. There are mountains in the east, plains in the middle, and lowland marshes in the west. The rolling hills around Lexington have some of the most beautiful horse farms in the world. The buttony Knobs that form a horseshoe around the eastern, southern, and western edges of horse country are the heart of Bourbon making. The largest cave system in the world, Mammoth Cave, sits within a three hour drive of almost all Kentuckians. The list goes on and on. I love being a tourist in my own state!