One of the best places to eat in Slade, KY is Rose's Restaurant, which is located at 1289 Natural Bridge Road. As a wilderness roadhouse, the grub is great, but what we find unusual here is that the ceiling is covered in dollar bills, each of them autographed and inscribed from various customers. Why? We didn't ask.
On Menelaus Road, on the way to the Madison Airport, there is yet another airport, apparently called "The Berea/Richmond Airport" according to one map. Never seen planes come or go here but the planes parked in the weed-filled field change from time to time so evidently they do get some traffic. It's a tiny field next to a barn and farmhouse, with a small half-hangar towards the back.
And while you're out in this neck of the woods, also check out the Hanging Bridge.
This is apparently one of those things that tend to get buried and lost in the shuffle of mountains of government-generated paperwork and bureaucracy - check this out."A very prominent magnetic anomaly measured by MAGSAT over the eastern mid-continent of the United States was inferred to have a source region beneath Kentucky and Tennessee. Prominent aeromagnetic and gravity anomalies are also associated with the inferred source region."Okay, so a huge magnetic anomaly under Kentucky is cool, and is right in line with everything I've been saying about the "Kentucky Vortex", the "Dark and Bloody Ground", and the old William S. Burroughs bit about old evils lurking under the soil. But gravity anomalies specifically under Kentucky? Damn! This is hardcore!
"A crustal model constructed to fit these anomalies interpreted the complex as a large mafic plutonic intrusion of Precambrian age. The complex was named the Kentucky body."How X-Files is that? It's called "The Kentucky Body" and they don't know exactly what it is but they do know it's causing huge magnetic and gravity anomalies?
Located in Clay City, KY, the Red River Museum is a veritable treasure trove of odd antiquated items related to the Powell County area. 
I'm tellin' ya, Kentucky is one spooky place, all across the board, and I maintain that we are all, at any given moment, swimming in a sea of unseen ghosts and otherworldly critters and we just don't know it. 
You know, in the Weird Kentucky book I referred to this as a GWAR car (you know, the insane blood-splattering metal band?).... but now I wonder if it doesn't actually say "GNAR"?
Mr. Holland,
I was very disappointed to see your page on the Creation Museum contain so many inaccuracies. Adam and Eve are presented as being middle brown, not Caucasian, there is no mention of people saddling dinosaurs ( the dino with a saddle on it is for picture taking), and there is absolutely no statement anywhere that says pornography and abortion are a direct result of the earth being millions of years old. Your statement that there are no reputable source citations provided for its claims is a lie. You don't agree with their opinion, that's all. Many, many educated scientists are on staff, but because they hold a different interpretation of evidence than you, they are not qualified or reputable? Your facts are wrong and you misrepresent the museum's position, isn't it funny that you did what you accuse them of doing? I am surprised your editor allowed so many lies into the book. Where is your professionalism?
Pam in CA
This is a great cemetery on the outskirts of Berea, but it's difficult to get to. You have to park by the side of Big Hill Road (which starts out as Prospect Street in Berea) which isn't exactly simple, since it's a winding and hilly country road and the pull-over place isn't obvious the first time you pass it. Once you do manage to pull over to the right spot, you have to hop a fence and then walk some distance to get to the graveyard's location nestled in the hills. It's a fascinating rural graveyard with lots of unusual homemade headstones and odd items left on graves. 
A user recently posted this entry on the Unusual Kentucky message board:I have known about the Unusual Kentucky site for quite some time now and I would like to suggest a place of interest.Click here to continue and read the full post.
Hanging Bridge in Berea, Kentucky, a few miles away from Airport Road, is a genuinely creepy place, especially at around dusk and night.
I've been there myself, on multiple occasions, during the night and day. In the daytime, you don't usually encounter much. The only thing I have experienced during daylight hours are rather odd noises, like footsteps, on the bridge itself, when the air is mostly still, and traffic is nil. The two things that will make your skin crawl during the day, however, are not near Hanging Bridge, but a few miles before it in the forms of two old, abandoned houses.
However, this place tends to get a little more active when daylight expires.
The first time I ever went to Hanging Bridge, I remember seeing a strange, blue light in the woods behind my friend's truck. I did a double take to make sure that there wasn't some far-off man-made light source causing this, and there was not.
I returned again the next night with another friend and had a more intense experience....
Long have I been intrigued by a tiny Jefferson County town, listed only on the most detailed Kentucky maps, known as Penile. 
Forget lawn jockeys, plastic deer and chalk kittycats, concrete polar bears in your yard is what's happenin'. So sayeth I, anyway. And no, don't misunderstand the title of this entry - the polar bear is located in the small Kentucky town known as Penile. 
Georgetown, KY is the final resting place of a most unlikely legend: Pete the Talking Crow, who is said to be buried in a coffin with no grave marker somewhere on the campus of Georgetown College.
This is an article from Elizabethtown's News-Enterprise that I saved a few years back, and used to have featured on the old Unusual Kentucky website back in the day:
"Convicted grave robber dies, is cremated"
By BRIAN WALKER
The death of an elderly Rineyville woman who was convicted of grave violation for swiping items left at the graves of numerous children has brought a small piece of closure to some families.
Lois Bonnell Dupuis, 80, died Sunday at Hardin Memorial Hospital and was cremated.
She was convicted of stealing hundreds of stuffed animals, wreaths, toys and trinkets left on the resting-places of babies and small children by their families and friends.
But Dupuis herself will not have a grave marked with flowers, candles or other gifts left by mourners. The only relative listed on her obituary is a nephew who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence.
"I hate it that someone passed away," said Kevin Young. Items were stolen numerous times from his daughter Alexus Nicole Young's grave. "But maybe there is some peace for us knowing that maybe something won't happen to her grave anymore."
Kevin and Jamie Young have visited their daughter's grave at least once a week since she was stillborn in March 1999. He said they always went to spend time with her, but there was also the added fear they'd find something missing.
He said he and other parents who were victimized began to mark the items left on graves with their names and other information for identification purposes.
"We'll still do that," he said. "Because she's not the only person who has ever done this."
Donna Heaverin, whose daughter Madison Adair Heaverin died after 56 minutes in July 1999, said she feels some relief with Dupuis' passing.
"I'm not glad she died, but now maybe I won't worry so much," she said.
Heaverin said all of Madison's stolen gifts except a wind chime were found in Dupuis' home and returned by authorities.
Dupuis served several stints in jail in the last five years, twice for four months each, for the crime of violating graves, a misdemeanor.
Despite her claims in court that she was not a threat to commit further crimes because of her age and health, Dupuis was also convicted for stealing license plates and vehicle registration decals from stores and car lots in Jefferson County in 2002.
A search of her home by the Hardin County Sheriff's Office in the spring of that year yielded 422 items stolen from graves, mainly from Elizabethtown Memorial Gardens Babyland.
Sheriff's Detective Bob Hornback said at the time that Dupuis was known to frequent other cemeteries and that the house "was quite full of trinkets."
Although she claimed she couldn't get around well, several families visiting cemeteries caught Dupuis running away and fleeing in a van when confronted with stolen items in her hands.
Major Bob Baker with the Sheriff's office said in 2002, despite her age, "she can run like a deer."
Long recognizing the theft problem at Elizabethtown Memorial Gardens, Baker said the sheriff's department spent more than 100 hours watching the cemetery, even setting up surveillance equipment to catch the thief.
It is also unclear when, if ever, Dupuis had a driver's license. Searches of driving records found no record of anyone by her name.
Corbin, KY is home to Sanders Cafe, which was the first Kentucky Fried Chicken establishment, opened by Colonel Harlan Sanders in 1940. It originally functioned as the built-in restaurant for Sanders' motel, which sadly no longer exists, but don't panic: the museum has a meticulously detailed scale model diarama of the entire block as it appeared back in the day. 
The museum (which is registered as an official historic site) is filled with all manner of figurines and busts of Sanders and all variety of bric-a-brac with the Colonel's likeness, no matter how trivial and peripheral (even the original paraphenalia issued to advertise the museum's opening in 1990 is enshrined as if antique). 
The look and feel of Sanders' original restaurant is maintained for the most part, but the effect is somewhat killed by having a completely modern and glitzy KFC serving counter in the midst of it all. 
There's a very strange tradition that pops up in several places around the world, seemingly independently of each other, and that's the quaint surrealist custom known as the "Shoe Tree". According to Wikipedia, "There are currently at least seventy-six such shoe trees in the United States, and an undetermined number elsewhere."
The older you get and the more things change, the more stuff gets complicated. I find I'm gradually turning into one of those old codgers who, when asked directions, tell you "we-e-llll, you go down what used to be called Walnut Street, then take a right at what used to be Grimplemeyer's Florist, and then you'll see the vacant lot where the old Fonebone Building used to be."
Here lies a boy dead to the world
He loved once and was loved once
But now he is dead
This drive-thru pharmacy, shaped like an enormous mortar and pestle, can be found at 1465 Village Drive in Lexington, KY. 
Where: Morris Book Shop, 408 Southland Drive, Lexington, KY 40503. When: Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, tomorrow, June 12th. Call: (859)276-0494.
Our post about the Madison County Middle School caught the eye of reader Christen Allen, who said:We've got a picture of three or four apparitions on the third floor of this building. The pic was taken at 1:03 am. three appear to be men, one a little girl sitting at a desk.The photograph, taken by her friend Tamara Thomas of Richmond, does seem to show something peculiar-looking in the windows, but because of the sharp looking-upward angle of the photograph, I'm not entirely sure that what we're seeing could be people seated in desks. They look more to me like some sort of round-headed dolls or puppets that were placed on or near the windowsill. Hard to say for sure though.
In 1952, a man in Clay City found a strange coin in his hog pen, in part of a field alongside Route 15 - a field that had just recently been plowed for the very first time. The coin was later determined to be from the Bar Kokhba rebellion, in which Simon Bar Kokhba led the Jews to split away from Roman Empire and form a short-lived sovereign state, which was re-conquered by the Romans in the year 135. His name is Aramaic for "Son of a Star" and was intended as a reference to Numbers 24:17, "there shall step forth a star out of Jacob." 
I'm not real big on mere "ghost stories" for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that seemingly everyone has one, and they're usually lacking any useful information. A lady with her arms severed can often be seen at a coin operated phone in Danville making a phone call.
The phantom of a guy grasping a blood-splattered sword may be seen over and over again examining the surroundings from the highest spot of Berger Knob around midnight.
An armed forces uniform pacing about lacking a body in it has now and then been spotted wandering through a Danville vicinity graveyard. A lot of residents claim this ghost may be the soul of a resident who passed on here in Danville many years ago. In any event, this is a hostile ghost that you shouldn't go looking for.
The ghost of a badly burned female is every now and then made out devastating a shoe beside a deserted highway in the vicinity of Danville before dawn.
The ghost of a train driver has been perceived on many instances in Fort Boonesborough State Park right by the ranger station trying to locate a bag.
A woman lacking a head can sometimes be observed being in an uninhabited structure in Danville. No matter what, it's a creepy ghost that should be stayed away from.
Walter Tevis was a good ol' Madison County boy who served in World War II at a young age, attended Model High School (now Model Laboratory School) in Richmond, and went on to college at the University of Kentucky. His two biggest passions were playing pool and writing, and he somehow managed to juggle the two well enough to earn his Masters degree. Tevis spent a great deal of time in the smoky, dirty pool rooms of Richmond, even after becoming a schoolteacher in small towns like Science Hill, Irvine, and Carlisle. Later, he went on to become a professor at UK, and then Ohio University. His pool shark's life of drinking and smoking caught up with him in the end, however, and in his final years he battled alcoholism and lung cancer. He died in New York in 1984.
Ron Whitehead is a gloriously cantankerous and curmudgeonly writer/poet from the old old school, cut from the same cloth as Ambrose Bierce and Jonathan Swift, as well as his Beat-era heroes like Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. For years Ron has been toiling away at his numerous books of poetry and prose, and making countless appearances at readings and other events with his band Southside.
