Paducah to the LBL

Broadway, downtown Paducah

Promises, promises – how many times have I visited a place in easy distance, sworn to come back and failed to follow through? It happens too often.

However, Paducah got ignored for longer than most, and years more than it deserved. Many years ago, we had a fine trip through the city on a cold Saturday, enjoying a great burger at Shandies and a walk along the floodwall murals. With my recent Kentucky travels stretching deeper into the Jackson Purchase, a Paducah visit was only a matter of time, and the Ohio River town was the perfect distance for a holiday weekend. Just as importantly, Paducah draws a crowd in good weather, but it can handle a crowd befitting a town of 25,000.

Its famed market house museum is a low-slung building with cobblestone blocks on either side, restaurants and ice cream parlors packed for the holiday. Built in 1905, it stands on the same footprint as two previous market houses, the first constructed by Paducah’s founder, William Clark (post-Lewis and Clark, he bought the acreage at where the Tennessee River joined the Ohio River, renaming the existing village as Paducah).

Floodwall murals

Many blocks around downtown hummed with visitors. Beyond the floodwall, the Tennessee calmly met the Ohio, rivers joining at the edge of a jagged island. Wild forests of Illinois clung to the northern bank.

Paducah claims a vice president – Alben Barkley, the longtime Ky. Senator who joined Harry Truman’s ticket in 1948. His image adorns the floodwall, and many buildings in the region bear his name. Floodwall murals are public art at its pinnacle. The paintings trace Paducah’s history back to the Indian tribes who resided here and constructed nearby burial mounds and had their own settlements in the area for far longer than the city’s history. When we visited Paducah on a wintry Saturday in 2013, we had the floodwall murals to ourselves. Even in the heat, dozens of people read the placards and took in a little knowledge about the river town’s rich history. Horse-drawn carriages circled downtown’s historic blocks, while a guide in period dress pointed out landmarks.

I didn’t roam far in the heat. There were a dozen restaurants with shaded patios on the streets around Broadway, but there was only one place that would suffice. Shandies just feels old inside - Metal railings in the multi-tiered dining room, stained glass and dark ambience will do that. The menu is diverse, one where picking your entrée means another half-dozen delectable meals must wait for future visits.

Where rivers meet

The bar is situated o above the main dining floor. A row of patio tables snakes around the building, sat unoccupied as the sun beat down on them. Sadly, the whipped rutabaga side dish sold out too quick for my order. The Moroccan chicken, topped with a honey chutney and goat cheese, did the trick.

Then I was ready to wander. Along with the requisite boutiques of a district eyeing tourists, restaurants were thick. Every time I wondered how Paducah could support a high number of bakeries and ice cream stores, I noticed none lacked crowds. A fair number of empty storefronts also linger, and that is the Paducah too few weekenders see.

Go beyond these upkept blocks, and the town vibrancy trips up. There are occasionally brick early 20th century homes with plywood for windows. The nuclear facility that gave Paducah its 1950s Atomic City nickname has closed shop as well.  But you can see where renewal efforts are proceeding, especially further west on Broadway.

From downtown, I could not reach the Dry Ground Brewing Company on foot. Paducah's first craft brewery was was part of a major redevelopment further west on Broadway, past many blocks of stylish old housing.

Market house

The former Coke bottling plant housing the brewery and other businesses was built on this site after Paducah’s infamous 1937 flood. After the plant owner was ushered out of the flooded zone and vowed to start again on dry ground, giving the brewery its name decades later. This Saturday the renovated bottling plant was crowded with people escaping the heat. A temporary putt-putt course and a barbecue truck replaced the parking lot. Inside, a Harry Potter trivia contest brought more than 100 people into the taproom.

Even with the tables in the main room full, there was ample space at the bar and in additional rooms around the building. This was a showroom for a brewery, not an afterthought that became claustrophobic with just a few patrons. They lined the walls of side rooms with long benches, built long areas into smaller rooms and still had space for room with cornhole boards. I picked one of the more inventive styles on their menu, a Belgian rye IPA. The beer provided a balance of all three attributes. I chased it with a chamomile wheat, a more bitter wheat than I typically pick but with a bold herbal profile. I should note that if their beers don’t appetize, they host another dozen or more guest taps from across the Midwest and Mid-South.

From Paducah, the slow road home ran directly through Land Between the Lakes. After passing the Kentucky Dam, I was alone. The two lakes were rolling with boats, more than I had ever seen on either Barkley Lake or Kentucky Lake. I took a few scenic drives along Kentucky Lake. What were once open vistas had been blocked as trees grew into the view. But the air cooled 10-15 degrees from the mingling of forest air and lake breeze. Wind through car windows felt great.

I stopped at Moss Creek, a rocky beach peppered with swimmers and sun canopies shielding picnic tables. For all the crowded day-use areas, few cars followed the Trace that ran the length of the LBL peninsula. With all the cemeteries that dot the landscape, I questioned the necessity of emptying out all the small settlements for the formation of the national recreation area.

LBL can change rapidly. The aging bridge to the Kentucky mainland had been imploded in April, and only the bridge pylons remained next to its soaring modern replacement.

In the prairie, winter coats had been shed, and the herd had been infiltrated by little red dogs, the bounding bison calves that enliven the relaxing herd. During my last visit, the cows were pregnant, and now at least six red little dogs moved among the herd. Since some darted around and others lounged with their parents, an accurate count was hard to find. The bison grazed a few hundred yards from the cattle grating, leading to a jam of cars. They picked a slop shaded by a sun-dappled grove, a perfect spot to graze and lessen the heat’s impact.

I can’t let spring and early summer pass without seeing the little red dogs. Whether they prance or they lounge, the bison calves’ ruddy coats diverge from the deep browns upon the huge creatures they will become. At a few hundred pounds, they are dwarfed by the herd’s adults, a welcome break in the scenery, even if their red coats will shift to brown before their first birthdays.

Bison don’t care who sees them laze and graze. Once the trees fill out, visitor only see elk if they want to be seen. I watched other cars, likely first-timers, scan the fields and walls of trees for elk and come up empty. At this point, I know where the elk roam, and I know how well they hide.

Last time, I got lucky that a group of elk crossed the prairie. This time, they stayed in the woods. With all the trees leafed out, the elk could be anywhere and no one could see. I stopped a few times to scan the foliage with my camera’s long lens, hoping for a lucky view, but to no avail.

After three passes on the prairie road and two stops to scan the trees with the long lens, I feared I might go without on this trip. Then came a car jam on a hill where elk frequented, and had no clue what to expect. The spot was correct, so I had hope.

Since the last pass, a lone elk had emerged from the trees, chewing on leaves while displayed its white rump and a few ragged pieces of its winter coat. The chewed away, confident that the rest of the herd might be a few feet away and none of us would ever spy them.

As I photographed the elk, it paused for 10 seconds and stared directly at the camera. The clicks from the shutter might have drawn its attention. Despite a few blurry shots, the lens provided an undeniable connection with this big ungulate. With its underbite, the elk almost seemed to smile at me, before unloading a big yawn and returning to chew branches. I don’t venture to the bison and elk prairie for reward, just touches of nature hard to find in the Southeast. However, I can only find reward in the lean, would-be smile of an elk.

This camera hound turned to smile at me.