Day 23: Upton, KY to Rough River Dam State Park, KY (53 miles, 1032 total)

Today was hot, hot, hot with a dash of halt. So it was cold in Virginia, then it started raining, and now Kentucky feels like full-on summer as the temps are soaring into the 90's by mid-morning. We passed a bank sign that read the temperature as being 79 degrees at 8:45 this morning. Ouch. The worst part is that we know that Kansas is going to be hotter! We were actually thankful for the headwind today since it took away some of the heat, not much, but some still counts.

We slept pretty well in the Avery (backyard) Campground last night. Things cooled off enough that I actually did get into my sleeping bag at one point, but not for long. It was warm enough that there wasn't much dew around when we packed things up. That may be the only advantage to this heat.

We biked the 5 miles back to Sonora, KY and stopped in for a forgettable breakfast. Then it was time to get some miles behind us. We hit two big milestones today. First, just west of a town called Eastview, we hit the 1,000 mile mark of the trip. We're in the 4-digits now! Second, we left the Eastern time zone behind us. It will now be Central time for the next few weeks of riding. The time zone change came just after we crested the 2nd steepest hill of this trip so far (or so we decided). I did make it all the way up this one without stopping or walking, but it was long for how steep it was! I don't think I would have been able to do it earlier in the trip. My legs are getting stonger.

As today is Sunday, we passed buggy after buggy of Amish families going off to church. They all smiled and waved at us. Though we did see one older couple, most of the buggies were full of young families with 4 to 6 children all dressed in their Sunday finest. We passed two young boys on foot and they gave me a good-natured hard time for lagging behind Jeff. (Note from Jeff: Very few souls have been heckled by the Amish and have lived to tell about it.) They all seemed like wonderful people. We will miss those homemade goods tonight at dinner!

A little further up the road, Jeff gave me the chance to save my first turtle. I almost didn't make it because, though I parked my bike as fast as I could and ran up the road, the pick-up truck barreling down the road behind me almost beat me to the punch. The second I picked the turtle up, he clamped his shell closed and didn't come out again. We named him Cliff.

About 30 miles into the day, we stopped at a family-owned country store for a cold drink and fresh sandwiches. The family was extremely nice and their young daughter warned us of the hills to come. That just never makes you feel good. Sure enough, it was the steep one she was talking about. Though it is tough going up, it always feels good to put those hills behind you.

I almost forgot, sometime in the morning I had to spray my first dog with the halt. I know I got one before, but this was a very direct hit that sent the thing scampering. Though I was glad to have all skin and bike parts intact, I did feel terrible about spraying it. For those of you that know me and my luck, are you surprised that I ended up getting paid back for it? Turns out my bottle leaks a bit and it dripped down into my handlebar bag and right onto the bandana I was using to wipe the profusion of sweat out of my eyes with. A little further down the road, I wiped my left eye and started burning almost right away. The best part is that I thought the halt was on my gloves so I took them off and then started dousing my left eye/cheek with water. I didn't figure out that it was my bandana until the SECOND time I swiped my left eye. Dog halted once, me halted twice. I think I'll reach a little more slowly for the bottle next time.

We stopped for more cold drinks and ice cream about 43 miles into the day. I saw that the place made milkshakes so I ordered my favorite, a chocolate milkshake. The thing is, I like my chocolate shakes made with chocolate ice cream. Otherwise, it is a vanilla shake with flavor added. I didn't realize I was getting a vanilla shake with chocolate syrup added in or I wouldn't have ordered it. Oh well, at least it was cold to drink, but I didn't like it much.

Rough River Dam State Park was our destination for the day and we got a fabulous tent spot amidst some very coveted shade trees. The first order of business was getting a bit of laundry done, but it turned into an all afternoon activity. First, we didn't have enough quarters for the $1.25 soap, $1.25 wash, and $.75 dry. There, of course, were no change machines around. Then, after trading dollars for quarters from a few people, it turns out there wasn't any soap in the dispenser anyway. Jeff had to walk the "little way up the road" which turned out to be more than 2 miles round trip to the store for soap and drinks (the drink machine wouldn't take dollars either). In the meantime, some KY teens swerved off the road to try to scare him. And we were just commenting earlier about how curteous the drivers around here have been to us.

The laundry was finally finished,
so we took cold showers (and started sweating again as soon as we got back outside). We did some map checking and I am bracing myself for a 75-mile ride tomorrow. I'm sure Jeff will be the one writing the journal tomorrow night.

Darn the luck, here we are in a campground on Sunday but there is no free food to be had. That breaks our 3-Sunday streak of eating like kings because people took pity on us. Instead, for dinner we had open-and-heat pouches of rice and Szechwan Chicken by a brand called Homestyle Express. It wasn't too bad but it did taste a little like canned soup poured over rice. Now it is back to camp chores and bedtime. We want to get an early start on tomorrow's day since we have so long to go and so much heat to deal with.

Item to note:
-In Kentucky, when you see a sign saying "Break in Pavement," what that means is that the road is torn up ahead but they'd rather put up a sign to tell you about it rather than fix the road.

AKB