Category: Diversions

Diversions

On Kingdom’s new coaster: ‘clutching my safety harness extra tight during that 100-foot drop’

Kentucky Kingdom opens Saturday, and this year’s big attraction is the new $8 million “Storm Chaser” steel roller coaster — the amusement park’s fifth coaster. Business First‘s Marty Finley survived a test ride yesterday, reporting: “While I’m not scared of roller coasters, I have never been an enthusiast and found myself clutching my safety harness extra tight during that 100-foot drop.”

Watch this point-of-view video (but maybe not on an empty stomach!):

To be sure, the new coaster isn’t the only fresh feature this year. (Courier-Journal). So, what’ll it cost to get inside for day tickets?

  • Adults: $44.95 general admission
  • Children: $39.95 (less than 48 inches tall)
  • Seniors: $39.95 (those 55 or older)

With those prices, a season pass at $59.95 is a steal.

Related: The park’s history, starting with its original 1987 opening, has seen coaster-like ups and downs, too.

Diversions

Where is one of the Speed Museum’s most famous residents?

She’s on an out-of-town trip, according to The Courier-JournalJ. From the Speed’s website:

Anthony van Dyck
Flemish, 1599 ‑ 1641
Portrait of a Woman, about 1635
Oil on canvas
29 1/2 ×23 inches (74.9 × 58.4 cm)
Museum purchase, Preston Pope Satterwhite Fund

 

About the painting’s donor

In an important milestone for the Speed in 1941, Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite gave the museum his collection of 15th- and 16th-century French and Italian Decorative Arts tapestries and furniture.

Satterwhite was born in 1867 Great Neck, N.Y., but lived in Louisville until he was 25, when he moved to New York to complete his medical internship and residency, according to the Encyclopedia of Louisville. He became a successful surgeon and well-known art collector. His ancestors, the Breckinridges and Prestons, were early settlers in Kentucky. Satterwhite died in New York in 1948.

Satterwhite monument
Temple of Love

He and his wife are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in one of the most elaborate memorials there. Erected in 1928 of pink Italian marble, the “Temple of Love” is a copy of Marie Antoinette’s ornate structure in her Petite Trianon garden at the Palace of Versailles in Paris.

Here’s a Find A Grave photo of Satterwhite and his wife, Florence in front of their 1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 at their estate in Great Neck.

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