We’ve heard repeatedly from other full-time RVers that flexibility is key when living on the road. Not everything goes as planned, and that adage held true for us with regard to our visit to Kentucky.
When we originally planned our trip from Denver to Michigan, our schedule revolved entirely around one event: we had tickets to see the race at Talladega. Our only other date of importance was our arrival date in Mackinaw City, Michigan. Everything else we planned revolved around these two events.
Since this was our first major road trip in our new rig, we didn’t feel comfortable winging it as we traveled from place to place. Instead, we laid out a route we wanted to follow that included our necessary and important stops, such as the race or visits with family. Other stops included places we wanted to see along the way. Kentucky, though, was an aberration. While we had reservations in state parks and campgrounds along our route, Kentucky was wide open. We had no plans.
While I was planning our route, I hadn’t paid much attention to exactly when we’d be in Kentucky. Suddenly it dawned on me we’d be there on Derby weekend. Now, neither of us are avid fans of horse racing, but the Kentucky Derby is such an iconic race, and we’d be passing through Louisville the day before the Derby. We agreed, we had to go check it out.
I looked online for a place to camp in or near Louisville, and what I found was far away and overpriced. A parking lot near Churchill Downs, where RVs were packed in like sardines and they couldn’t guarantee a power plug-in, was running close to $100 per night. No way. The nearest spots we were sure we could get into were nearly two hours away. Considering the Derby is an all-day event, and we have a dog (and her old lady bladder) to consider, we couldn’t stay where she would be left alone for upwards of 10 to 12 hours. The more research I did, the more our hopes of seeing the Derby dwindled. Unable to find suitable accommodations, we decided to wing it and hope for the best.
We had decided to get infield tickets if our Derby plans worked out. They were general admission, $20 per adult. I looked into grandstand tickets but they started at about $500 each. No way was I paying that kind of money.
After our visit to Mammoth Cave, we stayed the night in an Army Corps of Engineers state park nearby. There, we struck up a conversation with another couple who had been to the Derby a couple of times previously. Their advice to us was, “Don’t go. It isn’t worth it.” They expanded on that by telling us that you have to arrive first thing to get a decent spot in the infield, that you can’t see the track at all and have to watch the race on TV monitors (if you can find one you can actually see), and that by the time the actual Derby race goes off, everyone is so drunk no one knows or cares what is actually happening.
We took what they had to say into consideration, but were still leaning towards trying to go. We found an RV park within a reasonable distance, and called to see if they would be able to accommodate us. We had to leave a voice mail message, and waited eagerly for a reply..
Then we checked the weather forecast.
Rain. A 100% chance of rain, and lots of it.
That really became the deciding factor on whether or not we’d go see the Kentucky Derby. Sitting out in the open, in a grass field full of drunks where you can’t even see the race just didn’t quite sound like something we’d enjoy, so we decided to press on and continue traveling north. To boot, we hadn’t heard back from the RV park we had called, so at that point we still didn’t have a place to stay.
We did stop in Louisville on our way through, to do some grocery shopping. We hit up Costco and Walmart, which were located fairly close to the interstate. As we were loading our groceries into the RV behind Walmart’s loading docks, a small sedan turned off the street and into the parking lot, followed by one of Louisville’s finest with his emergency lights flashing. At first we thought it was a traffic stop. Then another police car, lights and siren blaring, entered the parking lot. Then another, and another. They all bypassed the sedan and sped around to the front entrance of Walmart. It left us wondering what kind of trouble we had just narrowly escaped.
With groceries on board and robbers in our rearview mirror, we got back on the Interstate and headed north, to Indiana. Just as we got settled in for the night at a nice roadside rest area, it began to rain. It rained and rained, all night and all the next day. It turns out, Louisville got three inches of rain on Derby day. It left us feeling like we had made the right decision, for us at least. On another trip, we’ll stop and tour the iconic racetrack, minus the crazy crowds and rain.
Oh, and the RV park we called? They did finally call us back with a spot – after we had already stopped for the night in Indiana.
On a side note, I grew up close to the Del Mar Racetrack in San Diego, and went to the races there occasionally. The last couple of times I saw a live race, there were horses that sustained injuries requiring them to be put down, two of them while they were still on the track. Between those experiences and my heartbreak over the late, great Barbaro, I lost my appetite for horse racing, so missing the Derby really wasn’t much of a heartbreak for either of us.
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