Day 16, A little R & R.

Displaying some off my artistic talent, I was able to capture the essence of what I thought was nothing

Upon deep, spiritual contemplation, I decided that the chicken came before the egg.

after hiking ovfer a half a mile opne way, we waited almost a half hour for the dumb train to come out of the tunnel. It never did.

We rode, then we walked. Tomorrow, we ride again.

This was one of the displays at the visitor center at the Breaks Interstate Park. We tried to get in, but it was locked.

According to the discription, this is an originale muskit. the horn holds the powder, the little cannister holds the primer, the oaked rag holds the lubes, lead bullet heads, the crimper forms the lead bullets, and the shoulder bag holds everything else.

The sign to the left of the still discribes how to make moon shine whiskey. Quite simple as I recall. But easier just to buy the darn thing.

We were standing on the levy that formed this man made lake. Two hiker4s came by just as I was ready to take this shot.

A couple of guests cruising the lake. upon closer inspection, I found that they were fishing.
This is the laundry room at the camp ground that we had to bike to with the risk of getting causght in the thunder showers.

They call this Chimney Rock. It is part of the large gorge fronting our room at the lodge.

Eriie morning and evening mist forms as the temperature of the land heat and cools. It's like a living entity as the fog rolls in and about, creating a visual spectical.

I shot this from our room at the top of the canyon wall.

The scene changes by the minute. I found myself taking a shot every few minutes as the fog created differant moods through out the morning.

I don't know what this bug was. It just looked differant that what we have back home.

These birds were flying in a flock, and hapened to land in front of me on this tree. It was quite far away, so I zoomed it in and cropped the shot.

Another one of the gorges moods, I spent olver a half hour mezmorized by the way the fog played for my visual sensation.


Day 16, Rest Day, Breaks Interstate Park. 3.5 miles, Laundry run.

There is a severe weather warning out for the area. They called for a 70% possibility of flooding and thunder showers starting at noon. Lisa and I weighed the options carefully, and decided it would be a good idea to call it a rest day and give the weather a chance to blow over. Tomorrow looks to be a better day. I was up at 5:30, and decided to catch up on the blog and e-mail. I looked outside, and I couldn’t see 20 feet. The clouds had settled in over night, and it was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Lisa was up at 7:30, she too did some catching up. At this point, we were not quite sure of our plans as of yet. We decided to got to breakfast, and see how things looked. At breakfast, we met Leigh who had walked in to find us. We asked him what their plans were. He said they were moving on in a bit. We then told them about the weather warning, and told them we might stay another day just to be safe. He became concerned about the situation also, and went back to confer with Margaret. Our concern was that once we leave Breaks Interstate Park, there is no real accommodations listed on the Adventure Cycling map. There were camp sites listed, but we didn’t want to have to struggle with setting up our tents in the rain, that would be miserable, not to mention the hazards of riding our bicycles in the rain with all those big rigs zipping by.

We never saw Leigh or Margaret the rest of the day, so I’m not sure if they decided on going ahead or not. After breakfast, we decided to do our laundry. That’s where the 3.5 miles came from. Riding our bikes with out having to pull the trailers was a real treat. It was actually fun. The laundry station is located at the camp site about a mile and a half into the woods. The air was heavy, and we knew we were taking a chance at being away from shelter for that long. Luckily it didn’t rain, and we made it back to the room with out a scratch. In fact, we even stopped by the visitor center to check out some of the history of this place. This area is where the infamous Hatfield and McCoy family feud took place. It all started over a stolen pig, and escalated into a full scale war between the two clans. It lasted over a hundred years, and became one of the bitterest feuds in American history. Today, there is an annual Hatfield and McCoy family reunion in which these two families get together as a token of forgiveness and friendship. What a lesson we can all learn from this. If somebody steals your pig, it’s better to just get another one.

The stormy weather never materialized, in fact, it never rained at all. The skies were cloudy and threatening, but all in all, it would have been safe to push on. The rest day did give us a chance to take in one of the hiking trails called : The Tunnel Look Out. A short hike, a little over a mile from our lodge round trip. The trail took us through thickly forested terrain to an over look with views of : The Towers, and Chimney Rock. There is a tunnel going through the mountain for trains to go through. Pretty neat. There are also these very large birds that soar throughout these valleys. I don’t quite know what they are, but they look like eagles. They have wing spans of at least 4 or 5 feet in length.

Well it’s shower time, and then off to dinner. Tomorrow is a 58 mile run into Pippa Passes, population 297. We are currently right on the boarder of Virginia and Kentucky. I Googled it, and it is way out there. Some of the poorest people in the county live in this area. And this is where the wild dogs of Kentucky start. Hopefully we will make it okay. We have our pepper spray handy, and I might even bring a stick with me. Please continue to keep us in prayer. Aloha, Ted.