Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for the ‘Kentucky’ Category

Departure on May 26, 2009 from Yorktown, VA

Thank you to those of you who made donations to support Multiple Sclerosis as I rode across the country this summer. I have ridden in 12 MS 150 Bike Tours since 2000 and this marked my 13th ride to support MS.

The trip was a success as I completed over 4,263 miles from Yorktown, VA to Portland, OR and then down the coast to San Francisco, CA between May 26, 2009 and August 19, 2009 (86 days). I met lots of amazing people along the way and pedaled through 13 states and saw lots of beautiful scenery. I feel like I’ve now seen some of the United States, but I still would like to see more!

I have many memories from the trip and I would love to share them all, but that would be impossible. The easiest way is to skim through my lengthy blog over the past 86 days as I kept a daily journal for all that happened and all those people we met along the way.

The first few states were pretty ‘familiar’ as far as scenery goes – I hadn’t been to Kentucky before, but western Kentucky was quite similar to Virginia with lots of horse farms and open fields and such. Eastern Kentucky was a little more poverty-stricken and lots of trash on the sides of the roads, poor road conditions with holes that you had to be really careful not to hit! I picked up a staple from the road in eastern Kentucky and wound up with my first flat tire of the trip. We only briefly saw Illinois (I think we spent 2 days biking through southern Illinois), but we met some really fun people, namely two motorcyclists who invited us to their home to camp outside, grill, and play in the lake. Also, we saw Superman in Metropolis, IL which was off-route and not planned. As it happened, we had bike problems that day and had to hitch-hike 70 miles to a bike shop to get a new chain for George’s bike. Missouri was humid as anything and had lots of hills as we were crossing in the Ozarks.

About 40 miles outside of Springfield, Missouri, my shifter cable broke and I wound up hitching 40 miles to a bike shop to get a tune-up and get that fixed. I also had seen civilization for the first time since I started the trip – Springfield was the largest city I’d come to since I left the Northern VA area in May. We pedaled through Missouri in 6 days and then reached Kansas where we switched our sleeping and biking habits and started sleeping during the day at fire stations, libraries, and churches so that we could bike during the night to avoid the 115 degree heat and humidity. It worked fairly well, except that I biked the entire state of Kansas carrying a viral infection, only to find out my second day in Colorado.

Just 70 miles east of Pueblo, Colorado in a tiny hamlet called Arlington, I found myself extremely sick and unable to continue pedaling. I stopped and told the guys I was with I wouldn’t be going any further. This was my last opportunity to find someone who could help me – there were approximately three houses and a few trees for shade. I stopped, rested, and when I wasn’t feeling better, I walked to a house to see if someone was home who could drive me to a doctor. A nice man, by the name of C.D. Anderson said he’d give me a ride to Ordway, CO (25 miles west). We rode there and the clinic said I needed to get to a hospital, but the next closest one was in Pueblo. He gave me a ride further, another 45 miles or so to the hospital where I got sick again and admitted myself to the Emergency Room. There I spent the next five and a half hours on a bed in the ER receiving saline and anti-nausea medicine. I slept on and off but it was nearly impossible since it was the ER and there were plenty of people there making noise. By 6:30pm or so, I was released from the hospital and told they couldn’t keep me – however, I was so lucky to have distant relatives come and rescue me and take me home with them to Westcliffe to spend some days recuperating.

A few days later, thanks to the generosity of a complete stranger (Cindi) from Westcliffe, I had a car to borrow and found myself driving to Denver to visit a friend from college. I unfortunately got sick again and at this point was very frustrated and didn’t know what was wrong. This was the only point in my trip where I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to continue if the virus didn’t get out of my system. I slept and rested for another day or two and then went whitewater rafting (already had reservations made) and then drove to Estes Park to see the beautiful Rocky Mountains and take photos.

Riding dirt bikes with Chase in Colorado.

I finally got on my bike again almost two weeks after getting sick and started to pedal by myself for a couple days to meet up with Chase, my biking partner for the second half of the trip. I found myself spending a couple unplanned days in Salida, Colorado where I met Mike, who showed me around town, and then guided me up my first 14er, Mt. Elbert. It was incredible being on the highest mountain in Colorado and one of the highest in the lower 48 states! Afterwards, I climbed 26 miles up and over the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass which was at 11,312 feet! At the top of the pass, I was greeted by Chase who randomly found me and I rode down the other side of the mountain and then hitched back to Pitkin where he and his family had rented a cabin for a few days. A few days were spent in Pitkin and Ohio City, Colorado with Chase’s family before we hit the road again July 14^th.

The adventures really picked up once Chase and I met and started riding together – we found ourselves first riding a short-cut from Telluride, CO to Moab, UT in two days and meeting a really nice woman by the name of Lauren. As it turns out, she invited us to have dinner with her (grilled steak and peppers along with pickled asparagus) and sleep in her camper van just outside of Paradox, CO. We then met Wayne, who gave us a lift from La Sal Junction to Moab and then into Arches National Park, where we wound up touring the park for four hours together. It was a great time and nice since Wayne hadn’t had an opportunity to see the park before so we all benefited! After Moab, we rode down to Monticello (I had to pick up mail) and then onward to Hite, UT (Lake Powell). This was one of the worst days (from Blanding, UT to Hite, UT) as the heat was on and the 88 mile stretch of no services didn’t help. We had to each carry 1.5 gallons of water and pedaled all day to get to Hite where we both felt like collapsing.

Long story short, we ended up catching a ride with Jack and his 7-year old (they were from the L.A. area) from Lake Powell in Utah all the way up to the Yellowstone National Park in the northwest corner of Wyoming! We were basically on their family vacation for 3 days and it was amazing. We had such a great time! Once we parted from Jack and David, we left to go to West Yellowstone where we ran into 5 guys that Chase last biked with in Missouri! Who knew we’d end up on the Transamerican Route in Montana weeks later and run into them! They were 5 guys who graduated this year from JMU and were doing the full Transamerican Route.

So a few more mile of pedaling we rode through Montana to Missoula where I bumped into my best friend’s ex-husband in a bike shop, saw my last chiropractor of the trip (6^th one), got my second flat tire, and did my last long uphill climb of 46 miles over Lolo Pass into Idaho! Just into Idaho, we met a great family from Frederick, Maryland who invited us to eat dinner with them and camp with them. We checked out some hot springs in Idaho before sluggishly reaching Washington where Chase wound up with another flat tire. Thanks again to nice people, we camped with a couple from British Columbia at a campground in Washington, camped on someone’s front porch in Walla Walla, Washington, and found ourselves chased out of a campground after we spotted three large snakes. Needless to say, we camped on the side of the road that night only 6 miles from the campground and exhausted we were after covering 106 miles in the blazing heat with some headwinds too!

Arrival in Oregon!

Finally into Oregon, we were getting exciting for reaching Portland. But it wasn’t over yet! We hit horribly strong headwinds in the Columbia River Gorge (apparently the windsurfing capital of the world), yet no one forewarned us of this! We battled the headwinds for a good 100 miles or so (on and off with the intensity), but once we were within 150 miles of Portland, the winds were really terrible! Chase wasn’t liking it and nor was I. We agreed to hitch-hike the last 90 miles into Portland so we wouldn’t pedal away for 2 more days to get there and instead could enjoy seeing Portland before having to continue down the coast (or in Chase’s case, before he had to fly home).

On August 9^th, we reached the Pacific Coast at Cannon Beach, Oregon. I had 3,570 miles at this point. Our last evening of the ride (coast to coast), we had to camp in a city park as all the campgrounds were full and the motels/hotels were all booked up. So to make our story more fun, we were awoken at 5:55am by two police officers saying “Police Department” multiple times outside the tent. We had camped illegally and they came to ask us to leave and well to check out whether or there were any warrants on either of us. We checked out okay and packed up and went on our way. We hitched back to Portland and spent a few more days there with Alina and Josh (high school friends).

The last leg of the trip consisted of me biking down the coast by myself from Nescowin, OR to San Francisco, CA. It was somewhere around 690 miles that I covered from August 11^th to August 19^th with no rest days. I met a lot of really nice people along the way and rode with several groups of riders as well. I met four motorcyclists from Victoria in British Columbia in Bandon, OR and then met again in Brookings, OR the next day, 100 miles later. It was fun to see the same faces again on several occasions and we really had a great time exchanging stories and hanging out at the campsites.

Arrival in San Francisco, CA - End Destination!

At last, I reached San Francisco on August 19^th around 6pm after riding 72 miles my last day. The ride was pretty easy with a few hills, but nothing major, and the sun was out for the majority of the day – only once I got into the bay area did the fog really begin to surround you. From August 19^th until August 25^th, I spent the time in San Francisco sampling some of the most delicious ethnic food while hanging out with one of my best friends — Iman, who flew out to meet me! We departed on August 25^th on a train back across the country which was just an amazing experience filled with meeting many more people, hanging out with Thane and Brenda from Sioux Falls and playing cards, and joking around with the Amtrak staff. Arrival into DC was mixed – the trip was officially over and I would have to re-acclimate to life back home with a full-time job and deal with the other surprises in life.

Thanks to all of you who helped me out along the way or supported me in one way or another to make this trip happen. The messages of appreciation and congratulations really meant a lot to me when I finished and I’m very grateful to the friends, family, and co-workers who encouraged me, supported me, and helped me make this a reality. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Thanks to you all!

Just a few random thoughts… I keep forgetting to actually mention or write down. I always think of stuff when I’m riding and forget later on in the day.

Virginia:

• lots of rolling hills
• nice scenery and houses
• lots of horses and cows
• friendly people, however, the drivers aren’t as respectful of cyclists as elsewhere
• cowtails are easy to find in southern / southwestern VA (a candy called Cowtails)
• the Appalachian Mountains are pretty significant when you cross them on a bike. I think we have done the hardest climbs possibly for this entire trip. We’ll see though:)
• lots of dead snakes

Kentucky:

• there are lots of dogs in eastern Kentucky
• the poverty level in eastern Kentucky is incredible
• the roads are in bad shape – in particular in the eastern part. There are lots of huge gaping holes in the sides of roads and no guard rails
• they use ripple strips on the sides of all the roads in Kentucky. You know, like on the side of I-66, those ripple things are on all the roads in Kentucky. It’s useful, I guess, but sucks if you’re a cyclist and the road is really busy and you want to ride on the shoulder and there’s no “ripple-free” space.
• it’s also very similar to Virginia and scenic in the western part of Kentucky. More horses and cows in that part and fewer dogs.
• it seems in the eastern part of Kentucky, people have dogs as “guard animals” whereas in the western part, dogs are more like family members and pets.
• motorists seem to be a little more patient with cyclists and slow down more than those in Virginia.

Illinois:

• there are some rolling hills here, also straight roads. We drafted for 18 miles on a straight road – it had a few curves and a few bumps in the road, but otherwise it was pretty straight.
• the people seem friendly (from what we saw) – we had great people welcome us to camp at their place, and another great experience was staying at Rachel’s (who Ben from Warm Showers contacted, even though she wasn’t a member). We only spent 2 or so days in Illinois so it’s hard to say what the rest of Illinois might be like, but my opinion and impression was good. I would go back.
• lots of corn fields
• the drivers aren’t as courteous with cyclists on the road. They sometimes honk at you if you’re biking slowly up a hill.
• one day, I think I smelled stinky skunks on 5 different occasions.

Missouri:

• people seem friendly, but I have yet to have an amazing experience with anyone in particular from Missouri. I think one of the most friendly people thus far was Chuck (from Indiana) who I met the other night. Otherwise, I haven’t had much contact with the folk from Missouri. Although my latest chiropractor seemed really cool and friendly along with his staff in the office. They were all interested in my bike trip and asking lots of questions.
• there are a few dogs here, but not nearly as many as in Kentucky.
• the heat is the worst part of Missouri.
• it’s a scenic state with rolling hills, lots of farmland and horses and cows out in the pastures.
• in Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri I’ve noticed there are lots of what appear to be wild orange lilies growing on the side of the roads. I see them everywhere.
• lots of dead turtles here, fewer dead snakes, and fewer dog chases!

I have never in my life seen so much road kill until this trip. I should have tried to keep track, but then again, I think I would have gone insane… there is so much!

I saw a dead armadillo today on the side of the road – I think the first armadillo I’ve seen in real life outside of a zoo, and it had to be dead :/

Animals spotted on this trip thus far:

• Armadillo
• Chipmunk
• Mice
• Squirrels (duh!)
• Birds everywhere (duh!)
• Deer (almost ran into one at night when biking back from the library)
• Snakes
• Lizards
• Horses
• Cows
• Chickens
• Goats
• Llamas
• Fox
• Turtles
• Dogs (everywhere)
• Cats (several houses with multiple cats hanging out – like 14+)
• Bunnies/Rabbits
• and more that I’m probably forgetting

Speaking of which, there’s a cat just on the paved path in front of the courthouse right now. Looks like he’s grooming himself. I’d go pet him, but then again, I don’t want him becoming attached and coming and curling up inside my tent all night. He’s curious and cute looking – black and white

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