Day 18, Deep in K-9 country.

These are elk we saw along our route today. I think they were tame, they saw us and never even batted an eye.

I don't know how big these things get, but this one was almost as big as a horse.

We stopped here to use the rest room. It's a quaint little craft shop with all kinds of interesting things to do in there. We were the only ones in there, and the owner was more than happy to talk story.

An eye for an eye. She took one of me, and I took one of her.

This wall of shale was cut to make way for the Interstate. There are layers on coal in some of these. You could actually see them embedded in the walls.

The Adventure Cycling van passed us and pulled over to the side of the road to say hi. We were thrilled. These are the very guys that made the maps we are using for our trip.

Lisa talking with Dave of Adventure Cycling Association.

From the road, we could see the giant shovel loading a dump truck with coal to be transported to the rail cars for transportation to the factory.

This is a coal truck. If you see them, get out of the way, they have a schedule to meet.

Traveling on the Interstate, we try to stay as far to the right as possible.

Not too many new or big houses in these parts. This one must belong to a mine owner or somebody with money. Most folks here live in simple box type houses. Many of them one or two rooms.


Day 18, Melvin to Hazard, Ky. 52.25 miles.

So far, we have traveled a total of 703.6 miles. More than half of it in the mountains. I never dreamed Virginia would be so tough. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I never thought I would suffer as much as I did on a few of those long, relentless climbs. Those of you who never spent much time in your anaerobic zone, can not appreciate the depth in which the depleted muscles cry out for oxygen, and the burning of lactate acid invading the blood, robbing your ability to perform optimally under excruciating situations. Did any of you under stand that? Good, cause I didn't. Any way, it was tough, and i must say, Lisa is also tough. She may not be me, but she's tough.

This morning we got on the road a little earlier than usual. Partly because we didn't get much rest from all that was going on the previous night, and the fact that we just wanted to get the hell out of that place. There is nothing there, we couldn't even find a place to have breakfast. We had to go to a convenience store and by stuff to eat. We left Leigh and Margaret in hopes of meeting them later at Hazard, our destination for the evening.......... The rain started coming down again, and it was getting cold. It rained and it rained and it rained. I was soaked and wet from my toes to my nose. I thought I would never dry out. I put on my leg warmers, arm warmers, and wind breaker. It helped, and once we started the climbs, things started heating up real quick. The dogs were sparse today. I counted only about ten or twelve of them. mmostly little buggers that couldn't really keep up since we seem to meet these creature on the down hill run. The only ones that really scared me, was a black, medium sized dog that never barked till it was practically at my heals. i never even got the chance to reach for my pepper spray. But he turned out to be harmless. The other one was a dog named snowball. He came out of a yard that was full of trash, with the owners yelling his name at the top of their lungs. I wasn't sure if they were calling him to come back, or telling him to go get um. I wasn't hanging around to find out. Most of you know I'm fast, but when it comes to dogs, I'm faster.

We hit one of the steepest climbs in the morning right as the rain was starting to settle down. I would say this one had a grade of about 12%. (On one other blog I was reading, a gentleman said it was in the 18 to 25% grade. I'm sure there are more than one way of calculating difficulty of grade, but I was always told that a one to one, is 100%.) Lisa and I stopped twice on this near two mile climb. Both times to rest, and you know what. I was perspiring profusely. Faster than I could take in fluids. Good thing this was the only real bad climb today. The descents were mostly gradual and long. Following rivers and streams. Most of them so polluted, you wouldn't even want to go near them. There is just so much trash laying all over the place, that it is depressing. I just don't think people around here care. It's really sad. I asked Lisa if we were in the heart of the poorest part of our country. And she said yes. She also said that gradually we will see improvement as we get out of the Appellations and closer to the civilized part of Kentucky. I'm assuming the dogs are more civil also. At least that's what I hope.

Once out of the valleys, we entered I-80 again. What a rush! If you've never ridden you bicycle during rush hour on a busy freeway, then don't do it. It'll scare the skin right off of you. We stayed on I-80 for about 5 or 6 miles. I hugged the shoulder the whole way. A couple of times these large coal trucks would come zooming by just inches from the while line of the shoulder and created huge pressure waves that nearly blasted me off the pavement. i think they get a kick out of that. What else do you do when you get bored? Finally we made it into Hazard. This place is like a city compared to those little communities we just came out of. There is even a Walmart here. The first thing we did was stop at Arby's and ate the number 5 combo with fries.

Tonight we are at the Guest House Hotel where there is wifi. Thanks everybody, I wish I could show you all more pictures, I have hundreds of them, but that'll have to wait. Aloha, Ted.