Day 14 – Sonora, KY to Whitesville, KY

Welp, we’re on the Ohio River tonight. We don’t cross it until Monday morning, but the landscape has changed and you can almost smell the Mississippi. Tuesday we’ll cross the Big River and be in Missouri. Crazy. The crew is making good progress.

The morning started with a ride in the MCC up I-65 to Sonora. As we were unpacking, a local rider cruised by and asked us about the ride. I think we were more interested in the fact he was riding a fixie. I can count on my one hand the number of recreational (ie: not TransAmerica) cyclists I’ve seen on this ride… to see someone on a fixie in rural KY was pretty awesome. Apparently he had just got it and was getting the hang of it. Good luck, man. I’m definitely jealous of your ride 🙂

All in all the ride was uneventful. It was a beautiful day for riding (high 70’s/low 80’s, some cloud cover, and a light breeze from the west). The landscape is starting to flatten out even more, tho we ran in to a pretty serious climb when we crossed the Rough River. It was one of those “ran out of gears and just start mashing pedals” type of climbs. The map says it’s 300′ in elevation and I think we picked most of that up in a 1/4 mile. That climb definitely got JP’s attention.  😉 But he persevered and made it to the top. He’ll be climbing the Alps before too long.

As we ride the TA route, we get a lot of knowing waves from cars that pass us. While we haven’t seen a bunch of TA riders, it’s clear that the locals along the route have seen their fair share and know what we’re going through. It’s always nice as you’re climbing a hill or sweating bullets to have a little encouragement from passers-by. And sometimes we see signs letting us know there are cyclist-friendly folks around. We ran in to a little shop outside of Eastview KY that had the following sign up.

TA cyclists can get a bite to eat and camp in their yard. Very cool. We spent a few minutes talking to the proprietor who was very interested in our story. Apparently he was having a bluegrass band in tonight and was hopeful some cyclists would be around to enjoy it. Unfortunately we’re about 60 miles downrange from him and can’t make it. Maybe some other westbound folks are there tonight…

JP is still a bit beat up from all the climbing in Western VA and Eastern KY. He ground out 46 miles and called it a day. I pushed through to our end point at Whitesville and hitched a ride in the MCC to the hotel in Owensboro. After we got settled in, Heidi and I cruised around town a bit to get a feeling for the place. We ended up at Breck’s Bike Shop looking for some Chamois Butt’r. (for those that don’t know, Chamois Butt’r and products like it are designed to help lubricate your skin so that long rides in the saddle don’t turn in to a “pain in the ass”. Oh yeah, I went there).

We pulled in to the parking lot at 4:02. Right as we were pulling in, a couple of cars were pulling out. I was afraid that they had just closed, and indeed that was the case. However, upon seeing the MCC emblazoned with all the logos and URL’s, one of the cars backed up. It was one of the Breck’s staff who had just closed the shop for the day. He asked what we needed, and I obliged . He jumped out with a smile and opened the store back up for us. Very, super cool. It’s fantastic to go to an LBS that goes the extra mile like that. If you’re ever in the Owensboro area and need something bike related, stop on by Brecks 🙂 Note: they’re getting a fancy new roof on the building, but I imagine the crane will be gone by the time you get there.

Also in Owensboro, we saw the World’s Largest Sassafras Tree. Yes, that’s a thing. Apparently it was saved from being cut down by a “local woman with a shotgun”. Heidi risked life and limb for the photo below. Seriously, a storm was blowing in and the first photo she took was blurry because she was getting pushed around by the wind.

That’s it for the day. Time to fill the water bottles for tomorrow and hit the sack. We’re taking a bit of a detour tomorrow because we can’t find anywhere even close to the route to spend the night. Our next update will be from Paducah. Yep. Paducah. I’m stoked to finally go to Paducah.

 

Day 13- Rest Day in Cave City, KY

Rest Day! Time to take it easy, recharge, get gear ready for the next 6 days of riding, and generally enjoy spending time together. That’s the plan at least. However, we’re staying in a place called “Cave City” and I’m not really a fan of small spaces or heights. You can probably guess how at least part of this “rest day” went.

We got up early and headed up the road to Mammoth Cave National Park. For those that don’t know, Mammoth Cave is aptly named. It is the largest cave system in the world with over 400 miles of caves currently mapped out. We’ve done some cavern tours in the last few years including Skyline and Luray so I figured we were ready for whatever Mammoth could throw at us. The park has a number of different tours available, and most are available for online reservation the day before. The one tour we wanted (about 60 steps, .75 miles, and 1.5 hours) couldn’t be reserved online for some reason. So we decided to get to the park early and get the tickets for the tour we wanted.

Well, that didn’t work. The tour was sold out 30 minutes before it started, so we had to choose a new tour. I ask about the New Entrance Tour. It was 290 steps, 1 mile and 2 hours long. Definitely more steps but really, we’re all in shape… how hard could it be? I tell the woman at the ticket booth we have a 2 year old in our party and asked if it would be reasonable for him… “oh yeah. People take kids on this tour all the time… I think. At least, I’ve heard they do.”  So I got the tickets and we went to the pavilion to wait for the bus to pick us up for the start of the tour.

We get on the bus and drive about a mile to a trail. There’s about 30 of us in this tour… apparently they’ll take up to 120 on this particular tour. I seriously can’t even imagine this event with 4x the people. We walk down the trail in to an old sink hole. At the bottom there is a steel door built in to the embankment. Not a huge, cavern sized door mind you. A freaking steel door the size of a normal bedroom door. However this door isn’t giving you privacy while you’re warm and snuggly in your soft bed. It’s protecting people from wandering in to a little tiny hole in the ground that leads hundreds of feet in to the darkness.

There are two rangers who work the tours. One leads the tour and tells the group all about the cave and its history. The other ranger stays at the back of the pack and makes sure people don’t fall off the tour, get lost, and parish in the dank, cold, dark pit that we all paid money to enter.

A word about the New Entrance to Mammoth Cave. It’s not a natural entrance. It was created during the Great Kentucky Cave Wars (not kidding, this is a thing we learned about) when folk were competing to lure in the most tourists to their caves. A gentleman named George Morrison bought some land near Mammoth Cave, figured out where the cave went under his land, and then blasted a hole in the ground to get down in to the cave system thereby creating a New Entrance. If I could go back in time and talk to Mr. Morrison, my conversation would with him would be simple:

Please, for the love of all that’s holy, blast a bigger hole in the ground.

The Ranger opens the door, and we are greeted by a flight of metal stairs that goes swiftly down in to a dark, rocky, narrow passageway. This is not the kind of passageway that you think “oh, this is a perfect place for my 2 year old”. This is the kind of passage where if your 2 year old would get within 20 feet, you’d tackle them to the ground to keep them from falling in. But this is a Tour… so we were committed. Heidi picked up Dax, and we all headed down in to the darkness with the rest of the group.

After the first couple “flights” of stairs, Heidi was really struggling with Dax. He wanted to get down and was being a bit difficult. She had all the camera gear and her purse and could barely fit through the passage in parts. Seriously, this passage is so narrow and low in spots that Heidi (at just over 5′) was having problems maneuvering. So I took Dax and continued down the stairs so she could focus on the rest of the stuff.

It’s hard to overstate how steep and wet these stairs were. Also, off to the sides of the stairs you can sometimes get a glimpse of how far down they go… literally 100’s of feet. In a passage so narrow I was having to squeeze through with Dax, we willingly descended in to the darkness. I’ll spare you the details of every twist and turn, but it’s safe to say I had a death grip on Dax and it was a hell of a workout to get to the “bottom.”

Once at the bottom, the cave was actually pretty impressive. Very different formations than the other caverns we’ve been in and obviously part of a very complex system. Also, only about 4′ of the entire tour was actually friendly to 2 year olds. The rest of it, I was a basket case. Thankfully Heidi is way calmer in these situations than I am. She held Dax through the rest of the tour and he did very well. And the other boys had a blast. I think I’m the big wimp of the family.

It was dark in the cave (shocker) and we didn’t bring a very fast lens. Heidi asked at the end “Did you get any pictures?” “A couple,” I said. Turns out, 2. That’s exactly how many I got. Here’s the good one.

Also, there were turkeys all over the park. As they said on a sign at the visitor center, since they’re protected in the Park, they’re not on the menu in the cafe.

JP and Art had a very productive rest day. The new strut was delivered to the dealer early in the morning and they were on their way back to join us by 10:30. Pretty amazing. Plus Art had trip interruption coverage on his warranty so the hotel, transportation, and all their food was paid for while they were dealing with the car. Not bad. So JP will be riding again early tomorrow once we get back underway. w00t.

It turns out we’re pretty close to Nashville. And as it turns out, we know some folks in Nashville. JP pinged SkyDog and Robin to see if they wanted to meet up for dinner. 24 hours later, we were all sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Cave City enjoying good food and good company. Very cool. It’s nice to rally with friends in the middle of an adventure like this. Really helps recharge the batteries.

Well, tomorrow we’re riding early. Well, not that early because we’re staying in the Central Time Zone but are starting the ride in Eastern. It’s made logistics for tomorrow a bit odd. So I should get some sleep in preparation for whatever craziness happens tomorrow. Night.

Day 12 – Bardstown, KY to Sonora, KY

I guess the one thing we’ve learned on this trip is that no matter how much you plan things out, sometimes the universe has different ideas for you.  Last night we were all hoping to get to bed early. JP and I could leave right from the hotel and we figured we could be on the road by 7am. It was raining pretty good when we settled in for the night but we didn’t think much of it. Well, about the time I was nodding off (10:30), all the iPhones went nuts with a weather emergency. This wasn’t a simple severe thunderstorm… nope, it was a proper tornado warning. There was circulation spotted on radar in the storm and it was just a few miles away. On the map below, we were in Bardstown, the red rectangle is where the tornado was.

Anyhoo, the power in the hotel went out a few minutes later and we heard the tornado sirens roaring. So grabbed all the expensive stuff and put it in the bathroom and then took everyone to the fire stairs. There were only a few other families in the stairwell… most were in the 1st floor hall. After about 15 minutes, the storm wound down a bit and the area of concern for Bardstown had drifted southeast. So we went back to our rooms to get some sleep.

Or so we thought. I realized that we had left the vent in the top of the MCC open. It’s in theory storm proof (it’s got a big hood on it to prevent rain from getting in) but I was concerned that 50mph winds might have been more than the vent could handle. So I went outside in the remains of the storm (mostly lightening and heavy rain) to check things out. Sure enough, water had come in the MCC. Worse, it hadn’t really run straight down the vent… rather it went down the walls and had soaked the control panel will all the light and step controls. One of the lights was stuck “on” even when the switch was set to off.

Safe to say I was a bit stressed about damage to the MCC. It’s our lifeline on the road and it’s not the cheapest vehicle in the world. So I flipped the battery disconnect to remove power from the cabin electronics like the lights, fridge, TV, computers, etc. I then turned on the MCC and ran the air conditioner at full throttle for about an hour to dry things out. Really it wasn’t too bad. Nature put on a good light show and I kicked back in one of the rear seats and practiced the banjo we bought a few days ago.

After an hour the switch panel was basically back to normal and I decided to get some Z’s.

I should note that Heidi was stressed that we hadn’t put yesterdays post up after we lost power. She was able to get it edited and posted from our iPad in the middle of the storm. That’s some dedication 🙂

So, thinking that was the craziness for the week, JP and I hit the road in the morning. We left about an hour late b/c I needed to sleep in after my late night AC/banjo bender. It was humid as all get out, but overcast so it was pleasant riding weather. About 15 miles in to the ride we started to see some serious storm damage. Lots of downed trees, sounds of chainsaws, and power trucks roaming around.

We got to a rail crossing and found a stopped train and a line of cars waiting for it to move. About the same time, Heidi and the boys caught up to us in the MCC. After about 10 minutes, the train finally got itself going and out of the way of the intersection. Heidi took the MCC ahead to the first rally point of the day. A few minutes later, she called to say that the road was closed ahead. So JP and I decided to SAG around the closure and pick up on the other side. We all piled in to the MCC and started to work our way around on a detour.

JP goes to call Art, and at the same time Art calls Heidi. Odd. Turns out, Art had his own mechanical today:

[From JP]: The Mercedes-Benz (MB) E350 Wagon was down and out when Art came out of the hotel this morning. Front end sitting way to low to the ground and ratteling when driving. After a tow to Lexington where we saw a crazy castle on the way – we entered the dealership. Art has MB roadside assistance and they towed the car 80 miles for free to the dealership. Dealership is sending a replacement strut overnight w/ a promise that it will be good to go between 10am-1pm next day (Friday). Brilliant! [/JP]

So Heidi drove us to Art, JP jumped out of the MCC and went with Art and the wrecker to go to Lexington.

Heidi dropped me back off on the route and continued on. She stopped at Lincoln’s birthplace with the boys. I made pretty good time on that leg and was able to meet up with them at the monument for a bit.  It was warm and humid by that point of the day, and I think that kept most folks from walking up the stairs to the actual cabin. I was able to snap a number of photos of the whole monument with just the boys in front of it. Dax doesn’t tend to cooperate with picture taking.

After my stop there, I rode to the end of the route. Definitely a hot ride at the end, but the landscape is getting increasingly flat so the heat isn’t too bad. Also, I passed a horse drawn buggy, so it’s nice to know I’m faster than the Amish.

After a shower, we went and bummed around Cave City KY. Even though it seemed a little kitschy, we hit Dinosaur World… basically a big park with replica dinosaurs  all over the place. I was prepared for a bucket of lame, but it was actually impressive. There were a LOT of dinosaurs there and they were all well done. And unlike a number of other roadside attractions, these were very well maintained. Plus I got to put my head inside of a dinosaur mouth. Dax was a bit freaked by it at times, but must have walked over a mile looking at it all.

And just so you know, we survived the dino attack below.

Tomorrow is our official rest day. Time to work on bikes, clean the MCC, and enjoy the caves a bit. Sleepy time.

 

Day 11 – Berea, KY to Bardstown, KY

Day 11 – Bruce has been a monster the past 11 days and took the day off feeling under the weather (see what I did there) and as I woke up and went down to breakfast and walked outside to see what the day had in store – it looked like a scene from Carnivale. Once I got on the road – it rained for the first 10 miles – then it cleared up pretty well. But not before some drama. Somewhere in miles 1-5 I made a wrong turn which put me about 7 miles south of the intended route which may explain what you are about to read.

Wild Pack of Family Dogs

Listen to this Modest Mouse song while you read this 🙂 So we’ve talked a bit about dogs already. Here in Kentucky – many people have dogs to protect their property. Turns out a few have a pack of them to keep cyclists from passing. After about 8 miles in where I had just dropped off my rain gear in my dad’s car, i approached a small uphill and saw a white dog sitting in the road. He started coming toward me, so I yelled stop. He then barked once, and literally 4 other various size dogs appeared. At this time – it was time to turn around. Luckily, Art was not far behind. At this point, 5 dogs were heading quickly towards me as I was retreating. Now I’m like – WTF… how am I going to get by. So I get in the car, hold the bike out the window, and have to freaking driving by the dogs. While we are driving by the property, we find a few more dogs chained up, meaner looking than the others, as well as the other dogs are literally like 2 feet from the car and the bike. We had to continue until we were out of site and only then could I get out of the car and continue the journey.

The rest of the morning was mostly an uneventful rolling hill marathon up to Danville. I stopped at a hunting store and got an 89 cent gatorade, and had some fried chicken for lunch. Continuing on route US150/KY52 the wind had really picked up. I’m talking like 15-25mph winds. I muscled on for another 15 miles to the point that 2 trucks came within about 2 feet of me – while I was 2 feet from the right side of a 12 foot shoulder w/warning bumps. :/ At that point the ridiculousness of things got the better of me and I caught a ride into Bardstown. So about 43 miles today, half of it into a pretty strong headwind.

Tomorrow is a pretty quick 52 mile day then another day of rest before we finish out the last of Kentucky over the weekend.