Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for June, 2009

Sunday, June 14th: Vienna, IL to Carbondale, IL

We’re heading out this morning leaving Kerri and Tracy’s to head to Carbondale. We had an awesome stay here and will definitely have to stay in touch with them. We’re going to get our bikes tuned-up/cleaned and what not in Carbondale and hopefully catch a movie for a change of things to do/see.

I’ve just uploaded some more photos on facebook as well as picasa (same ones, just on both sites). So whenever you have a chance, check them out. We saw Superman yesterday! Also some photos of Chris and George goofing off at the lake yesterday and the rest of Kentucky photos from a few days ago. We’re now in Illinois for all of 2 – 3 days or so and then we’ll be in Missouri!

Link to the Picasa album

Time to head on out and get the miles in to Carbondale!

Saturday, June 13th – Dixon, KY to Vienna, IL

Today was our most interesting day so far, I think. It started out fine and we had no problems – just warming up and were 18 miles in when the first issue came about. I heard a funny sound with George’s chain and just as I heard it I thought, “I hope he doesn’t break another chain because it’s at least 115 miles till Carbondale where we can get to a bike shop, and we need to all get replacement powerlinks to fix broken chains.” Not even two seconds after this thought and snap, his chain broke. We stopped at this intersection in the middle of nowhere (somewhere between Clay, KY and Marion, KY) at Rt 139 and 120 or something, I think. We tried to see about fixing the chain with some parts George bought that came with a chain tool from Walmart. They wouldn’t work, so we were now stranded without a chain, or parts to fix his chain.

One car stopped to ask if we needed help – but wasn’t really able to help us as they were on to a family function of sorts, but said if we were still stranded in 2-3 hours they’d come back with a trailer to pick us up and our bikes/gear and drive us to Princeton, KY where there was a Walmart to see about buying a new chain. Bicycle shops are few in this area – so Walmart was our best bet. A few minutes later, after being on hold with Walmart to ask if they had a chain for George’s bike (they never came back), I hung up and then flagged down a pick-up truck and asked if they were heading towards Princeton. They said they were and I asked if we could throw our bikes in the back and get a ride as we were stranded. The couple (Stan and Brenda) were very friendly and just out for a Saturday drive. They were from Indiana and said they could give us a ride and off we went. It was about 18 miles or so to Walmart in Princeton. George and I went in to check on chains, but they didn’t have one long enough. Stan and Brenda waited to find out if we were still stranded – we were. The lady at Walmart called a local hardware store to see if they had something; she thought they did and they thought they did. Needless to say, we got there and it was the same piece Walmart sold that George had already bought and didn’t work. Our next idea was to have Stan and Brenda drop us near the interstate to try to find a truck that was going towards Carbondale (where we knew they had 4 bike shops) – but Brenda and Stan decided to drive us further, towrads Paducah, KY where I called ahead to a bike shop to see if they had the chain and powerlinks. They did, so off we went. We arrived just after 1pm at Bike World in Paducah and George got his chain fixed and we then went to grab Mexican food since it was about 2pm and we hadn’t eaten. The chain first broke at 11am, so we were on the go hitching it for 2 hours to the bike shop. Thanks to Brenda and Stan though – otherwise, I have no idea what we would have done.

After eating lunch, we went back to Bike World, because one of the guys there said he’d drive us over the bridge to Illinois (it was a bad bridge to bike on and it was either that or biking on the interstate bridge, which is illegal). So he drove us about 8 miles from the shop and into Illinois and dropped us at this intersection with a gas station (no longer in service) and a small restaurant of sorts. We did a quick pit stop, came out and started chatting with a few motorcylists and before we knew it, we had an invitation to camp out at their place just outside of Vienna, Illinois (which was right on the route from Metropolis to Carbondale). They told us they had a lake with diving board, and that pretty much sold it – plus it was about 20 miles from where we were dropped off. It was already 4pm in the afternoon and Carbondale was about 70 miles or so away, so we had plenty of time to get there. We figured, why not – it’s not every day someone invites you to camp at their place and swim in their lake!

But first, after leaving our drop-off and the motorcyclists Tracy and Kerri, they said we had to go check out the giant Superman statue – so we did, but only after celebrating our first 1,000 miles with an ice cream from Sonic (the drive-in fast-food place). It was tasty and well deserved especially after the day we’d had. After that, we went and saw  the Superman statue and come to find out it was the 31st annual Superman celebration! What are the chances that we wind up in Metropolis, IL on the weekend of the annual Superman celebration? And then to finish our evening arriving at Tracy and Kerri’s for grilled out steaks/hamburgers, baked potatoes, and the boys got to swim and play in the lake! It has definitely been a great day from what seemed like a crappy one with bad luck and no bike shops nearby. It was fun and adventurous and these are the things that I know I’ll remember from this trip.

So we traveled the furthest in distance today, but had our shortest biking day!

GPS Stats: (including the route which was driven by car)
121.0 miles
05:02 moving time
23.9 avg speed
82.3 max speed

Computer Stats:
42.66 miles
3:21:43 moving time
12.6 avg speed
31.5 max speed

Snake count: 0 today
Dog chases: 0 today
Highlights:

1. Repair #5 today
2. Hitch-hiking with bikes 70+ miles – very nice people (Stan and Brenda) from Indiana gave us a ride
3. Invitation to swim and camp at lake near Vienna, IL – met some awesome folks, Carrie and Tracy
4. Got out of Kentucky and into Illinois! 3rd state now!
5. Saw the Superman statue in Metropolis, IL
6. Going to Carbondale, IL tomorrow – about 40-45 miles away, then relaxing a bit, seeing a movie perhaps, getting bike tune-ups and doing laundry on Monday!

Aches/pains: none really, just some very minor back aches at the end of the day – probably from too much car riding and not enough biking, right? Haha! The last four days have been pretty good though – no real back pain at all, so I’m just going to continue taking MSM and fish oil and doing my stretches and hope that continues to improve things!

Friday, June 12th: Fordsville, KY to Dixon, KY

Just a quick update I hope. I’m pretty tired and sitting outside the library in Dixon to update the site. Photos will have to be updated on a rest day and I don’t know when we’ll have another one of those, but probably not for a while, I imagine.

We woke up dry this morning as we slept under the pavilion which was nice. We were able to charge cell phones and my solar panel as well – very big plus! We had hot showers and bathrooms… couldn’t really ask for more. We headed out about 9am and were setting out for Sebree or Dixon, KY today – about 60-70 miles. We saw the first eastbound transamerican cyclists today in Utica pass by so that was kind of neat. They started in Oregon and I imagine probably sometime in late April or so. We grabed lunch at JR’s Market and we all had really good food – I had a hot ham and cheese that I ate remembering how much Jamie likes them. It was tasty! We ran into the guy who set us up at the pavilion last night and loaned us a lamp – he drove by and then turned around to stop in and say hi again and chat for a few minutes. He works in Utica apparently.

We rotated leading every 6 miles today which I think helped make our average speed a bit better overall until our hills came… but it was also nice because 6 miles is a good distance (not too short, not too long). So we rotated throughout the entire ride today switching in our rotation of who led the pack. The terrain wasn’t bad – just the morning seemed a bit more hilly than yesterday for some reason, but the afternoon was rather harmless with very few hills to speak of. After lunch, it was a bit slow though mainly due to eating and all, I think. We pulled into Sebree, KY around 3:45 and stopped at the Dollar General to restock on food/snacks (for me)… I apparently have gone through food like a mad man the past 3 days eating everything in sight! I must have been working hard on the bike, but wow… I went through all my snacks almost. Now I have TOO much and I can definitely feel the extra weight going up hills now. So I decided not to eat out tonight and instead eat some of the food I bought so I have less to carry in the morning!

Tomorrow we’ll be entering Illinois somewhere around 40-55 miles into the day. I believe we’ll be entering as we cross the ferry at Cave of Rocks or something like that. We’ll camp one night and then probably be in Carbondale, IL the following evening (Sunday) and hopefully can get our bikes tuned up Monday morning or so.

Nothing really eventful to write about today – we’re camping at Baker Park just outside of Dixon by about 1 mile – camping under pavilions again to stay dry in case of rain tonight… but I’m hoping it won’t rain! Oh, and we’re over 1,000 miles now! More than 1/4th of the way done!

That’s all for now … more updates when I have internet again in a few days.

GPS Stats:
68.7 miles
32.2 max speed
11.8 avg speed
05:48 moving time

Computer Stats:
70.13 miles
33.0 max speed
12.1 avg speed
05:47:54 moving time
1066.04 miles to date

Snake count: 1
Dog chases: 0

Thursday, June 11th: Lincoln’s Birthplace near Buffalo, KY to Fordsville, KY

Woke up at 2am to a bit of a thunderstorm with lightening, loud thunder, and lots and lots of rain and some heavy winds. We had camped out behind the bathroom at the a little picnic pavilion area at Lincoln’s Birthplace, but camping was prohibited, so we did it behind the bathroom and some trees to kind of hide our presence. It worked. I also was able to charge my solar panel in the janitor’s closet overnight, so I had a fully-charged battery for today. I dozed in and out of sleep during the torrential downpours between 2-7am and about 4:30am I woke up again for good and decided to move all my stuff out of the tent and to the pavilion to try to pack the tent up somewhat dryer and I didn’t want to be caught at 6am in another huge downpour and be rushed to get packed up before the ranger came to open the gate to the picnic area. I knew the park opened at 8am, so figured they’d be around by 7am or so to open the gate. I finished packing up my stuff and organizing the tent and tarp to kind of attempt to dry out a little but draping it over tables under the pavilion. I then just put the tent on a table and crawled inside for an hour until 6am and dozed off for a bit until the alarm went off. I got up and finished packing up the tent, then woke the guys up and by this time the rain was coming down hard again, so they didn’t really want to get up and go out in it.

By 7:30 or so the ranger had come to open the gate and luckily all of my stuff was out back behind the bathrooms and Chris and George’s tents were still up, but not too visible from the entrance. The ranger came, unlocked the gate, and drove off. So we didn’t get caught. The guys finished drying off their tents and tarps and such and packing things away and I boiled some water for oatmeal and we all had some of that before heading out for the day. We left about 9am and the rain had stopped luckily. We biked all morning with overcast skies, but no real rain. We got 32 miles in and then stopped for lunch at this Double L grocer (which looked like a house which was converted into a grocery store). A guy named Arnold was very friendly and made us all sandwiches and we sat down and ate there and then were on our way again. We still had about 40 miles to go. After lunch, we climbed a short, but steep hill and apparently right after the creek and that hill was where we changed time zones. We didn’t realize it immediately, but maybe 45 minutes later we realized we were in a new time zone. My cell phone updated to the new time immediately and we all of a sudden gained an extra hour in the day which is always nice.

We continued on biking and got some ice cream, refilled water, and had 29 more miles from that point. We stopped again about 18 miles from our destination for another refill and popsicle stop for George. He only had 3 ice creams today and 2 popsicles … a bit more than the usual. On our last 15 miles today we passed by a gas station and saw two other transamerican cyclists – two whom we hadn’t run into before… we just saw them in passing so aren’t sure if they were going East to West or the other way. We didn’t see them since, so maybe they’re going the other way.

Just 8 miles outside of Fordsville, we got caught in a nasty downpour of rain with lightening off in the distance and some scattered thunder. We first found a shelter to hang out under until it passed. It passed and so we thought we were in the clear, but about 2-3 miles later, we were hit again with the rain, thunder, and lightening for the last 5-6 miles to Fordsville. So we got to Fordsville pretty wet and cold and stopped at the first place, a little place called Momma’s Kitchen or something to that effect. The people were all really friendly and we sat down, had some hot chocolate and ordered 2 large 14″ pizzas along with 12 breadsticks. In other words, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs – we ate a lot, but still wound up with 5 slices of pizza leftover. One guy there told us about this park about 3 miles up the road where we could camp and use hot showers and there was a pavilion, so we went up there to check it out. It looks like a run-down baseball park now turned into go-kart arena with really old bleechers and an actual nice bathroom with shower (fairly warm too, not super hot, but not cold at all). It was really nice and we hung all of tents, tarps, rain flies, clothing, etc. to dry out a bit. We’re camping out in the pavilion because we here the weather’s only going to get worse, so why be in the rain if we can avoid it?

Tomorrow, we’re continuing on the journey to get out of Kentucky. We have another full day and then probably a half day or so of being in Kentucky. Then we’ll hit Illinois! Another new state:)

Let’s hope we wake up to nicer weather tomorrow!

GPS Stats:
75.9 miles
6:34 moving time
34.2 max speed
11.6 avg speed

Computer Stats:
77.47 miles
6:32 moving time
34.4 max speed
11.8 avg speed

Snake count: 1 today
Dog chases: 1 today

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

Tuesday, June 9th: Berea, KY to Lincoln Homestead State Park, KY

We headed out from staying at Brittany and John’s (our couchsurfer hosts) around 8am or so…and made a stop at Walmart on the way out of town. I wanted to pick up a 6 foot by 8 foot tarp just in case because we’d heard about potential rain this week. So far, no sight of the rain and I’m hoping it stays that way.

We set our goals higher and planned to aim for a 70-75 mile day which in reality was 76 miles. The terrain was luckily a lot better than the past days – less hilly and more small rolling hills. The day was really hot though – super hot. I don’t have a clue how hot it was, but it felt really hot and we didn’t get going on the bikes until about 9am or so and finished by reaching our destination at 6:30pm or so.

We didn’t really take many breaks at all today – just a few short breaks but nothing more than 5, maybe 10 minute breaks and we stopped for about an hour or a little more for lunch (after 45 miles) at this diner on the corner of Hwy 33 in Burgin, KY. The first 45 miles or so went really fast, I thought – the terrain wasn’t bad and the roads were fairly smooth for the most part. The last 30 miles were a little sluggish, but also not horribly bad either. We were all a bit drained from the heat, I think, but we refueled at this general store in Rose Hill to buy more powerade and that lasted us the last 20 miles or so.

After arriving to the park, we were greeted by some other cyclists who said we could join them and camp with them under the pavilion. They started from Yorktown as well but one day later, May 27th and they’re aiming to get to Florence, Oregon by August 1st or so. It’s three guys: Jay (18), Ben (18), and Sam (16) [http://www.transam09.blogspot.com] and two are brothers; one is a cousin. They’re all pretty ambitious and hope to average 70 miles/day throughout the trip…however, they have dropped a lot of weight and are only carrying 2 panniers each as opposed to our load of 4 panniers or more per person.

Just after we were greeted by the other cyclists, George and Chris bumped bags on the road pedaling back up the hill towards the pavilion. Chris went down on the road and landed hard on his wrist and unfortunately it isn’t feeling so great – he’s not sure if he may have fractured or broken something, so depending on how he feels tomorrow, he may bike or hitch a ride to Springfield or another town/city nearby that would have the facilities to do an x-ray. Hopefully it’ll feel better and he won’t have to do that though. But we’ll see in the morning.

Just about 8:30 or so, another cyclist showed up on a recumbent bike – he’s biking from Athens, GA to Springfield, Illinois solo. He and the three guys apparently met yesterday in Berea where they camped behind a church.

Anyway, so we’re camping out at this pavilion in Lincoln Homestead State Park – and we set up tents underneath so we don’t have to worry about packing up wet tents from the dew in the morning.

GPS Stats:
75.7 miles
35.1 max speed
10.7 avg speed
7:05 moving time

Computer Stats:
76.88 miles
35.5 max speed
10.9 avg speed
7:01:37 moving time

Snake count: 0
Dog chases: 2

Just uploaded some photos to my picasa account – the link is: http://picasaweb.google.com/transamericanride09/ if you’d like to check them out.

Hopefully I’ll have a better method for uploading photos in the future, but for now, this’ll have to do.

Also, the GPS tracks are coming along – Torey’s been working really hard getting the mapping/GPS tracking to all work well. There are still some kinks, but he’s working on it when he has time and he’ll upload the rest of my tracks from June 5th, 6th, and 7th and hopefully the next time I have internet access, I can continue uploading tracks and it’ll work and I won’t have to bug him to upload them for me.

But we’re now 771 miles into the journey and continuing on tomorrow leaving from Berea, KY. We’ve finished 2 of 10 mapsets and are making good progress, I think.

Stay tuned – I’m trying to update daily, and upload the blog entries when I have internet.

Monday, June 8th: Berea, KY

Today is our first rest day and we’re staying with couchsurfers Brittany and John – they’re really cool and took us in on a last minute request two days prior to our arrival. We’re super lucky to be staying with them for two nights as it lets us catch up on stuff and relax a bit and not have to camp out and cook from our stoves.

We slept in this morning till about 9:15 or so and got up and they had gotten donuts for us so we had those and George made himself an omelet. I reorganized stuff and took off my aerobars to mail home – they weren’t working out anymore for me. The handlebar bag with my SLR was too heavy and was sagging constantly and really annoying. So the aerobars are gone and now it’s just my handlebar bag on the front with GPS and computer. So I redid my handlebar stuff and now I think it’ll stay better – just have to be careful of my brake cables and try to reposition the handlebar bag so it fits a little better, but I’m hoping that’s an easy fix.

I washed clothes and hung them to dry, washed up dishes in the kitchen and got ready to head to Walmart with the guys around 12:30. We restocked on the essentials/basic stuff to have on hand – pasta/rice, oatmeal, poptarts, fruit snacks…. that sort of thing. I also had to get more sunscreen as I have already gone through a bottle of SPF 50 in the past 13 days! After Walmart, we grabbed some Burger King – the guys are bit fans of BK. Then I  headed to the chiropractor at 3pm.

This was definitely a different chiropractic experience and a good one at that. I haven’t had a bad experience yet with any chiropractor – they’ve all been different. He really worked some interesting methods which I’d never heard of before — he was able to pinpoint problem areas in my body with certain muscles or joints and then fix them accordingly. I’m hoping this’ll help me on the ride. He thinks I jammed my ankle when I toppled over on my bike a couple days ago and as a result that caused pain to my upper hip/back of my hamstring muscle, which in the past two days was pretty sore at certain times of the day and when climbing hills sometimes noticeable as well. So here’s to hoping that was yet another successful chiropractic visit:)

Anyway, off to explore a little and grab some dinner soon, I think. The nice thing about having biked over 750 miles west is that it is lighter later in the day/evening here. It was definitely noticeable last night as we were walking back after ice cream and it was almost 9pm and still light out. We should be hitting a new time zone in about 2-3 days Chris thinks. And hopefully be out of Kentucky and into Illinois in about 3-4 days. We’ve just finished our second map set and have 8 more to go!!!

Back to biking tomorrow…

June 7th – Booneville, KY to Berea, KY

Got a late start today – I didn’t want to wake up when the GPS alarm went off, so turned it off and rolled back over and to sleep again. I finally woke up when Chris asked if I was awake – the guys probably woke up 5 minutes or so before me. I got up and we started packing, we all had oatmeal for breakfast and that was pretty tasty. The couple from Holland left probably around 8:30 or so, we didn’t leave until almost 10am, a pretty late start. We let our tents dry out though in the morning sun and my solar panel got the sun it needed to become fully charged! Then we rolled out and were on our way. The day was a bit slow with some hills, and some really short, but steep ones – not so fun at all. We were all pretty tired of hills and exhausted and I finally started to feel like I was fatigued from all the hill climbing. It has taken 13 days for me to feel this way which I think is pretty good… we’re now over 750 miles into the trip, and our bodies are getting used to the grueling days of biking for 5-6 hours a day. It’s pretty intense but it’s nice to see we’re finally making some real progress and halfway across Kentucky already!

I think today was one of the most tiresome days, probably half due to the fact that we were all looking forward to our rest day in Berea tomorrow and we just wanted to be there. At least that’s how I felt a bit – I just wanted to be relaxing and able to sleep in. Luckily, I was able to contact a few couchsurfers before leaving Hindman yesterday and asked them to send a text message if it was possible to stay with them. I heard back from 3 out of 4 people I emailed and had good responses. We wound up accepting an offer to stay with Brittany and John Stolz here in Berea. They are a really nice couple and super friendly and welcoming and we’re going to just stay here, run a few errands and hopefully do a lot of relaxing.

A few highlights from today:

• Chris ran over a LIVE black snake. The snake wasn’t happy and got in the position to lash out and bite – George rode past just after Chris. I was luckily a little further back and saw that it was a snake and it was about to attack, giving me enough time to move to the far left lane of the road to pass by so it would have little chance of biting me. It was really mad an aggrivated – after all, Chris did run over it (by accident – he didn’t realize it was a snake until it was too late).
• Chris seemed to be the main target today for dog chases – he was chased 3 times and of those three times George and I were able to pass by the same dogs without much of a chase or problem at all. I think the dogs really must like Chris, or maybe because he was the first in line passing by…so the first target!
• Hot showers and yummy food + ice cream x 2 for today (snickers ice cream and then later tonight in Berea we went to Blondie’s for ice cream)
• A futon to sleep on!
• Donuts in the morning:)
• Sleep, rest, relaxation awaits us all!

More about Kentucky:

• There is a lot of poverty in eastern Kentucky – lots of trash, broken down cars, junk yards, etc.
• The roads are in very poor condition with holes, parts of the road missing along the edge. You really have to be careful when biking to pay full attention as otherwise you may find yourself in a bad accident going into a hole or missing part of the road.
• EVERYONE has trampolines – I mean it, everyone. Yes, I wrote about this the other day.
• When people pass cyclists here, they seem more considerate than in Virginia (overall). Some are not so considerate, but I think the majority are more so and give you more space, slow down more, and wait to pass. In Virginia, people are more hectic and can’t wait 5 minutes for you to climb a steep hill, they pass immediately.
• Berea, KY has about 10,000 people – and 1500 or so are students at Berea College, a college that allows free tuition for students, but they must work at minimum of 10 hours a week to get that free tuition. The college also seems to be very environmentally conscience and eco-friendly with the housing and such they provide for students. It seems like a very cool program and practical so that students that are unable to afford tuition can still get an education by working during their college years.
• Berea, KY does not have a movie theatre! Yet, there is a skating rink and a Walmart supercenter…

Computer Stats:
56.89 miles
5:09:41 moving time
11.0 average speed
37.5 max speed

GPS Stats:
56 miles
5:12 moving time
10.7 average speed
36.7 max speed

Snake count: 7 today (1 live and run over by Chris, 6  others dead)
Dog chases: 5

Saturday, June 6th – Hindman, KY to Boonevillle, KY

We woke up about 7:30 or so from camping behind the public library, packed up and then headed to Arnold’s diner for some breakfast. I had blueberry waffles and orange juice, but it wasn’t anything to brag about. I think the waffles were almost like those you can buy frozen and pop in the toaster, except I think the toaster ones are actually better.

The day was a bit tiresome and pretty hilly with about 6-7 really good hills to climb. Some were rather steep too. The weather was better – sunny and hot… the heat we could have done without, but it wasn’t tooooo horrible. We just were drenched in sweat most of the day and having to keep hydrated all day long. The hills are getting monotonous and are far from fun now. I think I’m finally getting to the point where I’m tired of the hills and just want some flat roads that are well-paved! Kansas hopefully will be like that – but probably a bit boring too..and we’ll miss our downhills :/

We stopped about 20 miles into the ride off of Highway 80 in Hazard at a Super Walmart – it turns out we must have navigated slightly wrong because we somehow bypassed the town of Dwarf all together and found ourselves biking on the shoulder of a rather busy highway (not interstate highway though)! It was pretty miserable and hilly in parts, but we stopped and ate at the Subway inside the Walmart. We still had a good 40+ miles to go after lunch which was a bit frustrating, since it felt like an eternity until we would be done. The last 30 miles or so were pretty grueling with some big hills/mountains to climb that took all our energy out of us. We kept on climbing each one after the other and then were running out of water and needed a morale booster so stopped at this little stand/building on the side of the road and got frozen yogurt with flavors (flavorburst, I think it was called). That was really yummy and they refilled our water bottles with ice and water which was really nice.

Finally, sometime around 6:30 or so, I think we rolled into Booneville and found the church that was listed on the ACA maps as allowing camping and what not. We got there and met a couple from Holland that had been there for two nights (they took a rest day there). We chatted a bit and they’re planning to bike to Oregon and then up to Vancouver to visit the guy’s sister.

The three of us headed to a cafe in Booneville for dinner and got food to go- but it wasn’t anything spectacular. I just had a chicken sandwich, fries, and coleslaw – it was okay, but I was still hungry so George and I walked back again and got peanut butter pie with ice cream on top. That was totally worth it!

Sleep came earlier than the nigtht before, this time around 10:30 for me. I was pretty exhausted and had no desire to type on the computer or anything! I just wanted to sleep so curled up inside my tent and conked out immediately.

Computer Stats:
65.88 miles
721.61 total miles
5:46:31 moving time
11.4 average speed
41.0 max speed

GPS Stats:
64.9 miles
5:49 moving time
11.2 average speed
40.1 max speed

Snake count: 2 today
Dog chases: 4