Day 17, Kentucky Here We Come.

This is the same river that you saw in yesterday's entry. it snakes it's was through several counties, and we ran into it on at least three occasions.

The dead branch in the upper right hand corner of the picture is actually the center piece of this shot. I don't know how the rest of that junk got in there.

This guy is my Hero. He always seems to be taking some sort of risk, no mater how mundane the situation seems to be.

You see that? We had to climb that, and many more like it all day.

It's hard to see, but this is steep. the two people in the picture are actually walking the bikes.

This morning at the gorge.

A coal train was just getting ready to pull out when we crossed under it today.

Leigh in the front, Margaret, then Lisa. I'm getting pretty good at shooting while riding, wouldn't you say?

This is the Rainbow Dairy Bar. This is where we met up with Leigh and Margaret again. This place make the worlds best Hawaiian Flurry. I swear, I had one, and it was the best.

Road kill. There was a lot of them today. Wait a minute, that's Lisa, she must have pushed it a little too hard.

Finally, we are in Kentucky. Now we can play with the dogs.

The morning we left Breaks Interstate Park. It turned out to be a good morning.


Day 17, Breaks Interstate Park to Melvin. 45.3 miles.

Before I start, let me tell you that this was by far our hardest day. I don’t know what it was. Maybe we rested too much, or the sun might have gotten to us on the climbs. But it was a killer. We did three major climbs today. Two of them were over 3 miles and averaged about a 10% grade. We fell way short of our goal to reach Pipa Passes, still about 25 miles away. Although the weather did calm down somewhat, we were still in the questionable zone as far as afternoon thunder showers go.

We left the Interstate Park at about 9:00AM., after a hearty breakfast, and the threat of rain had passed. It was actually quite nice. The fog in the early morning was so thick, visibility once again was a major concern. By now it had cleared pretty much, and the temperature was quite comfortable. We didn’t even have to wear our jackets. After a short climb, we descended the next several miles down into the valley on the other side. We rode past small communities with names I can’t even remember, and dogs that would come rushing out every so often, but none was of any real threat so far. We are in Kentucky now, And it was evident by the change in the condition of the roads. Even the people here were a little different. This is the heart of coal country, where the lower class of our American society resides. Not all of them mind you, but the working class is predominantly employed by the coal minds. While we were taking a break at a gas station, Lisa pointed out that you can tell the people in these parts are poor. I asked her, “How do you know that?” She pointed at the fuel pumps. There were four of them. The final sale on these were any where from $2.00 to $6.00. I got to wondering, and told her that may be they just needed gas for the lawn mower. It’s hard for me to imagine that people are that bad off in this great country of ours. But it’s true. If not for this bicycle adventure, I would not have realized it so vividly.

As we rode on, we noticed trash everywhere along the side of the road. Even in yards, like people just didn’t care. I could have paid for my meals with the amount of bottles and cans laying around. Only one problem, they don’t have a recycling program here. Thus the litter every where. It is sad to see such beautiful country being treated this way. Even the streams were polluted. We passed one drive way, where it looked like the owner had dumped a couple of 50 gallon drums of trash, and left it. Pure speculation on our part mind you. There is probably a perfectly good reason why this was done. But since we only have three months to complete this journey, I didn’t bother to find out.

We met up with Leigh and Margaret from Alaska at a small road side snack stand. They were having their lunch. Since Lisa and I ate earlier, we opt. for some desert instead. I think Lisa got a chocolate flurry, and I got the Hawaiian. It hit the spot. I’m almost certain that they make um better here than on Molokai. After catching up on events, we teamed up with the two, and continued on. I figured maybe we could out number the dogs or something.

Once we began the climbs, reality set in. This was tough, It seems that some of these hills were steep, and would never end. A 10% grade rises 10 feet for every 100 feet traveled. These were at least that. I held up my water bottle on it’s side using it as a level, and aligned my eye along side it to a spot on the road further up the hill. I figured at my eye level, it is about five feet, and where I could see on the road, was about fifty feet. I know this because I shoot archery, and after a while, you get a pretty good sense of distance. Now, imagine over three miles of that on narrow, and winding mountain roads in the hot sun. Now, times that by two in a row, add rain coming down the other side, gusty side winds, with severe thunder and lightning in the evening while camping next to a gas station in an open field with no bathroom and no place to buy food for over a mile. You factor in the weird sounds coming from the streams and forest around us, and the fact that we found out that the guy that gave us permission to camp here in the first place didn’t even own the property. The real owner who lives next door was kind enough to let us stay once we found out the truth.

This is exactly the situation we are in right now. No wireless internet or cell phone signal. And now it just started raining real hard. The thunder and lightning is really bad. If I live through this, I’m going to thank The Lord and count my blessings twice. Good night everybody, I’m going to put on my I-pod and try to blank out. This is all too overwhelming for me.
PS: It’s morning now, but I just had to tell you guys. To add insult to injury, about 2 o’clock in the morning, a large dog came by and started barking real loud. For what seemed like hours. He was then joined by his buddy, and they both kept us up most of the night. Only when the heavy rains came did they quiet down, but started up again when it stopped. I don’t know if we’re going to make it today.