day 15, Days of Thunder.

This is known as the Grand Canyon of the South. At the bottom is the Russell Fork
river. At over 600 feet deep, it is the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi.

Between thunders showers, the heat rising from the bottom caused these eerie clouds to form. Changing every minute. I must have taken over a dozen pictures of this phenomena.

The Russel Fork River at the bottom of the gorge.

At Lovers Leap, I took it to the edge and took this picture. That is straight down, over 300 feet.

I'm pointing to where I had my foot.

Lisa at the over look where she took my picture.

Lisa and her new friend. A box turtle we rescued from the hazards of the road.

This is the poor fella trying to cross the road.

These are those big trucks that come barreling down the highway at break neck speeds.

This is a close up of where we stayed for the night. Room 129, top floor, third room from the left.

This is Liegh and Margaret. Two touring cyclist we met today. They are from Alaska, doing the TransAm route also. They too got cought in the faul weather and are staying here.

This big boy is carrying a full load of coal up the near 10 per cent grade past where we were having lunch.


Day 15, Council to Breaks Interstate Park. 27 miles. Days of Thunder.

Aloha everyone. We made it as far as The Breaks Interstate Park. The climbing was horrendous today. According to the elevation profile on the map, Today’s climb should be the last of the big climbs for a while. We didn’t make it into Kentucky like we had hoped. The rain and threat of thunder made us decide to lodge for the night. We are in coal country now, and will be for the next few days. What this means, is that we will be encountering these huge coal trucks hauling buns up and down these narrow winding mountain roads with no shoulder. Sound dangerous? It is! How ever, we have a plan. When we hear these monsters coming, and you can hear them coming from afar, we will simply get off the road if possible. They are usually real good about giving us space, but around hair pin turns and on coming traffic, they tend to cut it pretty close.

We left the William P. Harris park in Council at about 7:30 this morning. We had a light breakfast and headed into Davenport for breakfast. I had the traditional biscuits and gravy with my meal. The weather looked like it would clear up, so we were in pretty high spirits. Leaving Davenport, we rode along more scenic country roads. It was nice being off the interstate. We made frequent stops to take pictures and to enjoys the shear beauty of this place. I can’t get over how green and thickly forested this entire region is. We saw this little box turtle trying to cross the road. So Lisa stopped and put it on the other side so it wouldn’t get run over like the ones we saw earlier flattened out on the road. There were a few dead snakes we saw, one of them pretty big. A few miles down the road, we stopped at a Subway to pick up something for lunch. It was only 10:00AM, but we weren’t sure if we would run into anything along the way before lunch.

Upon leaving Subway, we found a baby snapping turtle also trying to cross the road. This was cool. Two turtle rescues in one day. And the first time I’ve ever seen and held a real snapping turtle. We put that one across the street also before heading on. To our dismay, the climb turned vertical. It was steep enough to merit the granny ring. I am just guessing, but would say from personal experience, that this was easily a 10 to 12 percent grade. This kept up for over 3 miles. We would stop occasionally to take a breather and wipe the sweat out of our eyes. The humidity was unbearable. I never sweated so much in all my life. Since it was now noon, we decided to break for lunch right next to the guard rail on a steep section of climb. There was shade there, and enough room for those big rigs to pass with out making us feel uncomfortable. We watched as they geared down coming up the hill. By the time they passed us, they were only moving about 10 miles per hour with their full load. Once we were done, we jumped back on the bikes and methodically pumped our way to the top, not realizing that we were only about a quarter of a mile from there. We pulled over at a really neat over look called Lovers Leap. The story goes that two young Indian lovers who were forbidden to marry, took the leap of faith in protest. The over look was such a welcome break from all that climbing. As we were ready to leave. Three motor cycle riders came by and told us that there was a better spot just a couple of hundred feet away, so Lisa and I went over, and they were right. I got the pictures to prove it. While we were there, it started to rain, drizzle at first, then harder, and harder, thunder, lightning, the whole trip. I was getting kind of worried, so I offered a silent word of prayer as we waited for the rain to stop. With in about 15 minutes, it was safe enough to get on the bikes again, so we decided to push on. We reached the top within a few hundred feet, and noticed the weather was threatening again. To our delight, the Breaks Interstate Park entrance was right there to our left. We pulled in, asked the attendant if she know what the weather was going to be like. She didn’t, then we asked how much sto stay at the lodge. She didn’t know that either. Lisa and I had to make a decision as to weather or not to stay here, or push on another 8 mile and camp. No fun if the weather is going to be like this. So we paid the entry fee,$2.00 each, and went in. We made our way to the lodge and inquired about rooms. They told us that the Memorial Day visitors were all gone, and that they had rooms for $50.00 a night with eithernet internet access. We took them up on the offer, and was surprised at how nice these rooms are. We are on the edge of a gorge approximately 600 feet above the valley floor. There is a river down there, and we heard a train blowing it’s whistle earlier. I think we made the right decision, because it’s now pouring and thundering again.

Bye for now, I’m getting hungry. Aloha, Ted.