Up this morning at 5am. Supposed to be a perfect riding today again with temps between 62 and 81 and it was. I didn’t put up my tent last night and instead just slept in my sleeping bag on top of two picnic tables pulled together under a pavilion. Almost rolled off the tables a couple times so not sure I’m going to do that again. Rob slept in a hammock–that looks cool and I may try that at some point. Found a tick on my foot this morning—hope that was the only one….a nice cool morning once again.
We left the church about 6:45 and rode back up to the Bus Stop diner. They told us yesterday that they opened the doors at 5am for the locals to come in for coffee and we could come in too. They started serving breakfast at 6. They were right—when we got there 7 old timers were there—6 in overalls and 1 in a deputy uniform. They looked at us like we were aliens in our riding clothes 🙂 I had biscuits, gravy, eggs, sausage, hash browns and coffee — $8 🙂
Left the cafe and had a good climb immediately as we started just to wake us up this morning. Had a few dog chases within the first 5 miles but nothing major—these were lazy dogs…kind of disappointing, I was starting to enjoy the chases 🙂
We stopped at the Dollar General Store in McKee at 9:50 with 25 miles down for a snack.—Gatorade, orange juice, and two apples. Steven had been counting and he said we’ve had 17 loose dogs thus far this morning and at least half chased us. We’re half way to our destination for today, which for the “formal” ride is Berea, KY and the morning dew hasn’t even fully burned off yet. We’ve had some steep climbs this morning but they are noticeably shorter—starting to get the mountains behind us. The Ozarks in Missouri will be next.
Left the Dollar General and continued on through Sandgap, Morrill, and to Bighill…nothing eventful, just short steep climbs and a lot of small churches about every couple miles. In fact, I’ve noticed small churches every few miles along the road for the past several days–something I never really noticed riding these roads in a car. Bighill was aptly named, because there was a monster hill climbing to it and an even bigger monster going out of it toward Berea. I was sure I would hit another record going down that thing, but I didn’t. Pulled into Berea, KY around 1:30 or so. The actual route across the country we are following (the 76 route) continues on West from Berea, but this was the end of the line for Stephen. He has to get back to Annapolis and he will come back next year to continue on from Berea for a couple more weeks–hoping to complete the entire trip in the next few years in stages like this.
Stephen had arranged to have a bike shop in Richmond, KY ship his bike back home. Richmond is about 10 miles north of Berea, so we all three rode to Richmond with him to Mike’s Hike and Bike in Richmond. That bike shop is the bomb–meaning OUTSTANDING! When we got there they took Stephens bike to ship, fixed my rear wheel spoke issue (no more tie strap holding it together) and did some major repairs to Rob’s bike all while we waited for June to drive down from Lexington to pick us up.
Once June got there, we drove Rob back to Berea where he is spending the night and then continuing on West in the morning. I’m taking a day off tomorrow here in Lexington. Stephen is staying with us tonight and I will take him to the airport in the morning.
Tomorrow, I plan to do some work around the house, clean and adjust my bike and relax a bit, then Friday morning I’ll be dropped off back in Berea and set-off to complete the remaining 3,500 miles or so to Oregon. I was planning to take two days off at this point, but since I got sick and took a day off that I hadn’t planned and since June and Tori will be flying out to Myrtle Beach tomorrow to see the grandkids, I’ve decided to cut it down to one day off.
A great journey thus far!
