Our earliest start yet – on the road just after 7am to try and beat the predicted heat later in the day. A quick 12 mile dash chasing Rudy and Heidi through the country lanes and then, suddenly, we’d arrived at the Ohio River and it was time to say “goodbye Kentucky – hello Illinois”!…
It’s Memorial Day in America, a public holiday, so the roads are quiet. The Stars and Stripes are everywhere as the country remembers its war dead. Sitting in a cafe in Sebree this morning over breakfast I was reading the Evansville Courier which had an article about a local lad killed in Vietnam in 1968…
By Terry Still feeling a tad peeved for being charged full whack for a pitch when the State Park folk knew the showers didn’t work, they didn’t help themselves the next morning when two $8 breakfasts suddenly came to $25 (coffee and tea were extra!). What with that, and with Paul having a thick head,…
Small town America may have its problems, but the sense of community remains strong – certainly in Howardstown. It’s also noisy, but that’s not down to the people, but the birds – one of the most lively dawn choruses I’ve heard in years, rivalling the frog chorus the night before. By the time we’d packed…
By Terry As we went to settle up for last night’s home-cooked gourmet nosh, the motel owner met us in her jim-jams and refused to take any money for the best meal I’ve eaten in weeks! I think she liked to cook for people who appreciated her food. After cycling round the tree in the…
What a difference a day makes! When morning comes, Berea has survived the storm relatively unscathed and the skies have cleared. It means, as ever, we have to move on. It’s a strange feeling since it’s likely we may not see any of our new found cycling friends for a while, or perhaps ever again….
‘Did you hear the ‘yip-yip’ of that coyote last night?’ was the question being asked over loaded hash browns, egg biscuits and coffee at the Hometown Cafe this morning. That, and who got elected as what in the town’s elections. I think that once us cyclists had gone and the excitement of the results had…
In the Appalachians Old King Coal still rules, although his reign is under threat. You only need to look in the valleys to see the impact a decline in mining brings. But huge trains still rumble through local towns with trucks full of the black gold, while coal lorries thunder up the roads to more…
Today we left Lookout and headed into the valleys of the dogs. Kentucky has a reputation for mean ones with a taste for passing cyclists and we were all a little apprehensive, particularly after John took a call from a fellow TransAmerican further up the trail who had problems with them around Hindman, our destination….
We were awoken at an ungodly hour to the sound of laughter and chatting … the keenos of the Adventure Cycling group were up and at it early. Too early for us… for logistical reasons we were only doing about 45 miles today, so we were having a lazy day after yesterday’s miserable cold slog….