If you've ever headed south on I-65 from Louisville, you've seen the The Most Awesome Flea Market in Shepherdsville. Well, just behind that, you'll find a lazy river! According to our shuttle driver, the Awesome Lazy River has been around for about five years. I've been following it on Facebook for a few years, and this week, I finally visited.
Again, this is just off the I-65 exit. Follow the signs, as the GPS wants you to turn before where you really should, and then it's sort of weird when you get in the parking lot. Again, as long as you follow the signs, you're good. They open at 10 AM on Saturdays and Sunday until Labor Day Weekend, after which they close for the season. We arrived right around 10 with sunscreen on and coolers in hand. You'll see a stand where you pay, and they'll give you a wristband with the kind of floats you paid for. (Regardless of float, it's roughly $15 per person.) Then, you step over to pick up your floats. (We did two singles, a quad, and a cooler float. A cooler float fit two good sized bag coolers and was $5.) You then carry then down to the river (not too far), where you can choose to have someone help you get in OR a self service entry. MAKE SURE TO GRAB SOME OF THE PADDLES BEFORE GETTING THE WATER. We got help getting in. We also got some string/rope to tie our floats together. Once we were all in, we got situated and tied in a pod like we wanted...
And that's when I realized.... there is little to no current in this water. (It's the Salt River, by the way.) However, what there was that day with the wind had us going in the opposite direction we were supposed to be doing! UGH! Thank goodness we grabbed those paddles. We ended up having to do much more work than expected to make it to the end. Crazy story... at one point, we noticed people in front of us coming back toward us. They said they had been out there too long and just decided to go back to the starting point!! WHAT?!
Along the way, there are a few spots you can get off the river, along with a few rope swings. Honestly, getting off would've been too much work for me ("lazy"), but it's an option. I read a few reviews on Facebook mentioning the water being dirty, but I never noticed that aside from just a couple pieces of litter and some points where there was some broken up wood.
There are a ton of reviews on Facebook, all of them saying it's about a 2 hour excursion, and it can be less if you paddle. The day we did it, we were on the river for over 4.5 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIKES. My reality did not meet my expectations, but it was okay; I was with some of my best friends and being LAZY (aside from when I was paddling).
When you reach the end, you drop off your rafts and get in a shuttle. We got in an air conditioned (YAY!) van and immediately went back to our starting point. Our shuttle driver was nice, as were all the people with whom we interacted!
Suggestions:
-Bring some snacks. Some people had Subway sandwiches they were chowing down on as they were floating. We just ate a bunch of cans of Pringles.
-Bring a Kroger bag to put your trash in; they'll have garbage bags for you to leave it in at the end. Don't litter!
-Wear water shoes/sandals that wrap around your feet. We had to walk through the end, over lots of rocks, and these were a must!
-If you're in a group, have one person pay (unless everyone is doing individual), and then pay each other back.
-Be careful with valuables. They can store your keys at the front where you pay, but if you bring a phone, BE CAREFUL. A guy swam past us looking for his. I bought a waterproof holder and wore it with my key around my neck for the day.
-Be lazy! Unless you visit on a day like we did, the span of the river really isn't that long, so if you don't need to paddle, don't. (And if you do need to paddle... do.) read more