Kiki Bikes Across America

Thursday, June 5th: Lookout, KY to Hindman, KY

Things are all blurring very fast, so I have to try to remember as much as possible and therefore the long entries – sorry! If you don’t like them, then skim:) We slept in the gym last night and woke up at 7:30 this morning to cold, damp weather. It was nasty out and none of us were ready or prepared for such. We missed our first turn, but luckily only went about a mile extra before we realized it. We got turned around and climbed a long steep hill, then another long and steep hill before lunch. However, only 6 miles into the day and I had my first flat. We were biking alongside a little stream filled with trash and lined with Kentucky dogs EVERYWHERE… I somehow (not by surprise) picked up a sharp staple-like thin wire in my tire. It punctured the tube and I realized it before I had a complete flat. So we took a pit-stop, I repaired my tire and we continued up the mountain. Got to the top, rode down and had to take some short breaks to let our brakes and rims cool off as they were getting rather warm from all the braking we had to do.

Some things I’ve noticed about Kentucky thus far:

• lots of people have tinted car windows
• everyone has a dog or 6 or more
• there are some friendly dogs and also some very unfriendly dogs (I think I saw the meanest dog ever today, but luckily he was chained up!!!)
• there is trash everywhere on the sides of the roads – it’s as if the people here really don’t care how their state looks
• most families seem to have trampolines in their yards – I couldn’t keep up with the count because there were so many.
• you get excited when you enter a small place on the map and they have a gas station with a general store (it’s “hopping” when you see a strip mall or an area with more than a gas station and general store)
• my GPS showed a Kmart was within 0.7 miles of us – that was something I didn’t expect to find or see at all.

This state is definitely different – the worst part is the dogs, I think… I have pepper spray just in case they become a problem, but I’m hoping they won’t!

Anyway, today was a slightly frustrating day – I also had my first spill of the day. I was biking slowly alongside a buliding when I was trying to avoid going thru a puddle – a car was oncoming and I was trying to avoid the car and puddle and my bags clipped this barrier thing and over I went into the puddle. Banged up my knee and had to bandage that up and it’ll probably be sore and stiff in the morning, but we’ll see.

The weather sucked leading up to lunchtime with cold, damp, rainy weather. Then it got really cold around lunchtime and warmed up a bit afterwards. Finally, around 2:30pm it started to brighten up and the sun came out and it cleared up for the rest of the afternoon. So that was a nice little relief – especially since we didn’t have to put up the tents in the rain. We hung out here at the Hindman library for a bit and then went to Arnold’s for dinner and came back around 9pm to set up our tents at dark behind the library. We never found anyone to ask if it was okay, so we’re just hoping it is:)

I think it’s time to hit the sack now though!

We’ve just about covered 650 miles of ground now and soon we’ll be at 1000!