Kiki Bikes Across America

Wednesday, June 10th: Lincoln Homestead State Park, KY to Lincoln’s Birthplace near Buffalo, KY

I set an alarm for 6:30am this morning and got up – all the rest of the cyclists were long gone; they all woke up at 5am and departed around 6am. They cycle from 6am-11am or so and then take a 3-4 hour break in the middle of the day to avoid the heat, then they bike again from 3pm till 6/7pm. Today they were hoping to get in a 90 mile day.

We ended up leaving the pavilion around 8:40 or so and biked 25 miles to Bartstown to a hospital so that Chris could go to the ER and have an x-ray of his wrist done. We got there about 11am and waited till 2pm when he was finally done and they told him that he didn’t break anything, just that he sprained it. They wrapped it in an ace bandage and told him to take advil. While hanging out in the waiting room I watched a couple episodes of Amazing Race, Season 1 which was good and entertaining. I also took my solar panel in and charged it fully while we waited, just in case the skies weren’t going to be sunny this afternoon. Turns out, they were. About an hour before Chris was finished, I dozed off for maybe 20-30 minutes. And just as Chris was done, a downpour came so we had to bike with rain gear on and everything back the 5 miles we went off route to the hospital. We stopped at Burger King and grabbed some food and then continued on our way.

Lucky for us, the skies cleared for the rest of the afternoon and we didn’t get caught in anymore thunderstorms or rain spells. We decided to aim for Buffalo, an additional 50 miles or so from Bartstown, where we went to the hospital. The terrain wasn’t bad – mainly rolling hills and pretty flat for the most part, but not flat like Kansas will be:) We made decent time and got to Buffalo at 7pm, four hours after leaving Bartstown. We stopped and picked up sandwiches at this gas station and then biked an additional 3 miles to Lincoln’s Birthplace (a park) where we were told had showers, so thought maybe camping too? Either way, the park was closed, but we spotted a pavilion area with a bathroom and we pitched our tents out behind the bathroom out of sight from the road and are camping here tonight – even though the sign says camping is prohibited.

We all took our kitty baths in the sinks in the bathrooms and that was quite refreshing and now we’re at least clean(er) but mainly clean:) And then hopped in our tents for the night. But the best part is there’s a janitor’s closet and inside they have power outlets, so I’m charging my solar panel and the ipod while I type this up. I’ll go unplug them before going to bed just in case someone shows up early in the morning and sees I left them in there to charge.

GPS Stats:
69.7 miles
6:00 hrs moving time
11.6 avg speed
32.5 max speed

Computer Stats:
70.69 miles
5:56:42 moving time
11.8 avg speed
32.5 max speed

Snake count: 3 today
Dog chases: 3 today