Category: Kentucky

Kentucky

Day 45, Getting wet in a dry county

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This morning we broke camp in Buckhorn to continue our push into the Appalachians. We could tell right away we were going to have weather issues, as it remained fairly dark while we packed up our stuff.

As we pulled into a gas station to check our map, two dogs took pursuit. As we rolled to a stop and talked to them they immediately calmed down, not quite ready to be pet, but happy to investigate us. Later in the day we had a canine incident of a different sort. I felt a slight bump to the rear of my bike or trailer, while hearing the clink of a chain and some movement out of the corner of my eye. I’m pretty sure it was a chained dog lying in wait who had lunged at my bike.

Eventually the rain caught up to us and after riding about an hour in sprinkling to drizzling rain, we decided to end the day early in Hindman KY. The Hindman historical society has a bed and breakfast geared towards transam cyclists. The one catch is it’s up a 16% grade. We chose to push our bikes up that wet 300 feet. While there we ordered dinner from a local sandwich shop and both got a “Fat Daddy”. Two grilled cheese sandwiches as buns with a burger, fixings and egg in between. I had to help Sarah finish hers. Sarah also got to try genuine Kentucky moonshine for the first time. I think we will sleep good tonight. We’re sleeping outside, but in much more substancial tent than usual. Tomorrow we expect to cross into Virginia, barring any major rains.

Day 46, Appalachian rollercoaster

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It rained pretty hard throughout the night, but no thunder and lightening, at least as far as we knew. The sky was just clearing up as we awoke, so despite getting a little wet yesterday, our luck weatherwise has been extremely good. David the proprietor of the B&B and Hindman historical society treated up to nice continental breakfast, while Pewter and Inky a couple of his cats entertained us. David had stayed up the whole night documenting geneology of the area.

Our spirits were up. We had full stomachs, a good nights rest, and the weather was looking great for an Autumn ride in the Appalachians. We haven’t been able to make the progress we would like as we’ve entered these hills/mountains, so we’ve been a little discouraged. The climbs are not extremely high. The larger ones usually not exceeding much more than 1000 feet so far. They are very steep though and after 2 or 3, you might as well have climbed a high mountain pass. Today we were well motivated because we’d finally be entering our ninth and final state Virginia.

The days ride took it’s toll. We had several of those steep 1000 ft climbs. When we reached the top of the worst one, we had another canine incident. This time from 2 frolicking puppies who wandered down a gravel driveway at the top of the mountain. No barking, no growling, just curious licks and muddy paw prints as they tried to climb our legs.

We finally reached Virginia and Breaks Interstate park around 5:30. The park looked beautiful, but we decided to press on another 11 miles of climbing to Haysi, so tomorrow’s ride might be a little more managable. The one catch with Haysi is the motel is the Hill Top Motel. It’s name is very accurate. We had to ride a mile or two off route to the top of another hill/mountain to get to it. Hopefully we’ll get a great sunrise view in the morning thanks to our hill top location.