The photos below are not in order—I’m writing these blog posts on my phone and have limited editing capabilities—plus, by the end of the day my entire body is tired and my brain is pretty fried 🙂
Slept in a bit this morning getting up at 6am. Our goal today is Hindman KY. Looks like some pretty good climbs today as well. Rob and Steven want to see some of the park before we hit the road. I did some bike maintenance this morning—my gears shifted like butter all day yesterday after Steven helped me get them adjusted….I bought him lunch for the help—a gas station hot dog and banana 🙂
Had breakfast at the park inn cafe this morning—eggs, biscuits, gravy, country ham, and potatoes….I may actually gain weight on this trip 🙂 Supposed to be a beautiful day for riding….weather app shows a high of 76 and sunny all day—and now at the end of the day I can verify it was perfect riding weather….the best yet on this trip. The humidity seems to have gone and my cloths stayed dry virtually all day—another first. On all the previous days my cloths would be soaked with sweat after about the first 5 min of riding and they stayed that way all day—couldn’t be any wetter if I jumped into a swimming pool. I forgot how nice it is to ride in dry cloths.
A few miles in today I stopped to mail a postcard at the little post office in Ashcamp and discovered the pen I “borrowed” from the Howard Johnson hotel a few days ago didn’t write. So, for the second time I mailed a postcard with no message on it—sorry June and Tori 🙂 Just as I was about to leave, Junior pulled up and started talking to me. I didn’t think I was ever going to get away from him. He wanted to know what I was doing and asked me what kind of job I had that would allow me to be able to do this—I gave the short answer and just told him I was a teacher and was off this summer. Then he started giving me advice on solar panels and how I should have one strapped to the back of my bike for power. I finally was able to excuse myself and get back on the road.
Stopped at a little gas station/market in Lookout. Ate a bologna sandwich and a fresh tomato they were selling at the front counter. I introduced Stephen to bologna, so we have a plan to stop at another little country market tomorrow where they slice the bologna to the thickness you want and make your custom sandwich.
Climbed a pretty steep grade going toward Virgie and after topping it we went down forever. Rob was riding out front of me and Stephen, which he usually does — being a unicycle rider he is strong as a horse—has ridden across 500 bridges in NY on a unicycle and has a goal of riding over every bridge in NY. Anyway, as I’m going down this long decent down highway 611 I see Rob way down the hill with his bike laid over and he is pulling something out of the road. As I’m getting closer to him it looks like he is plucking a road kill chicken—I was thinking, “man, he can’t be that hungry? Maybe the sun has made him delirious?”
Well, when we get to him he has a dead Hawk that he pulled off the road and was plucking feathers out of it. I told him if he just stuffed it in his bag and boils some water tonight to scald it, that it would be a lot easier to get the feathers off if he was planning to eat it 🙂 He asked me if I wanted a feather and I said no and just kept on riding. I think maybe he is planning to make a war bonnet to wear while riding across Nebraska. Every time I rode up behind him today, I was expecting to see a hawk feather sticking out the back of his helmet. These NY City people are strange 🙂 From now on, I think instead referring to him as Rob in this blog, I’ll just call him Chief Two Feathers—CTF for short 🙂
Later we stopped at The Sunshine Diner (I think they are using the Disney font in their store name:-) for lunch at about 1pm with 33 miles under our belt. I ordered a cheese pizza and Diet Pepsi—$5.87. When I get change I’ve been leaving my pennies behind—not worth the added weight—so left them on the porch outside for someone to find—I may start doing that with nickels as well juts to reduce the weight I’m carrying.
Left the Diner and I stopped to take a picture of a sign with Jesus on it. Steven passed me and so I was riding about 50 yards behind him when I see two dogs start chasing him—he got away and the dogs started back to their house and I was able to pass them before they realized I was there. I decided riding 50 yards or so back may be a good tactic 🙂 Then we hit a huge climb and I wasn’t thinking about dogs anymore…just how to endure the pain and get to the top.
Got over that mountain and a couple more, then caught up to Mat, who had stared out a couple hours ahead of us this morning, about 13 miles from Hindman….he and I leap frogged all the way in. He is on a mountain bike so he passed me going up the climbs then I passed him going down.
Got to Hindman at about 6pm. We are staying at a church in town that allows cyclists to stay for free—hot shower included. When we got here we see the support vehicles for an Adventure Cycling Association fully supported group tour. There are 15 riders in that group—they started out from Yorktown about a month ago. We knew they were ahead of us—didn’t expect to catch them this quick. So, in total there are about 20 cross country cyclists staying in this church tonight. We plan to get up early tomorrow and hit the road before they get up just to skip all the commotion.
A great cycling day!
