Ok, faithful readers, let's return to our tale of high adventure on the roads of Kentucky! Needless to say, I hung out at the motel until 11:00, savoring the luxuries of television and indoor plumbing. Staying in motels always makes it hard to get going again. Without a doubt, the hardest part of the touring experience is getting up in the morning. Every day wears you out physically, which makes you want to sleep until noon. But even more significant, it's mentally hard to get up every day, knowing that you are going to ride a bike all day. Actually, breaking camp and packing up the bike is the thing I dread the most, and I have to consciously force myself to get out of my sleeping bag every morning. Staying in a hotel makes it even harder to get going, but luckily the owners of the motels usually start to pace in front of my door about 10:30, and since HBO puts craptacular programming on in the early mornings, I always manage to find the inner strength to get rolling.
The road out of Berea followed the top of a ridge, which meant that I would be climbing a lot of short, steep hills as I moved west. Still, the knowledge that I had conquered Crappalachia made me look forward to the road for the first time in several days. The landscape was almost entirely farmland, and I had fun doing stupid things like mooing at cows until a farmer heard me. Okay, that wasn't really cool. But hey, the road is kinda flat, so check it out.
After a fairly easy morning of riding, I crested a hill and saw some familiar bicycles -- I had caught the Dutch, thanks mostly to my marathon day into Berea. I sat and chatted with them for a while, and they offered me a peanut butter sandwich while we rested. We hit the road again, and I had about a half-mile head start -- but not for long. I blew right past a hidden turnoff and ended up going a few miles off route before I decided to turn back. It really sucks when that happens, because you worry that maybe the road you're looking for is right around the corner. So I kept going for a while before deciding that I had definitely gone too far. Luckily, I had managed to get lost on the steepest hill in western Kentucky, so that's nice.
I finally got back on the route, after almost missing the turn again because the sign was so overgrown. Thank God the road was downhill, because I was completely spent from my impromptu off-route excursion. But as I rolled along, I noticed that the sky was getting a little cloudy. By the way, rain sucks when you're biking.
I finally found a country store that was open on Sundays (always hard to do in these small towns) and I made a sizable dent in their Gatorade stock. I was a bit worried about the way the clouds were shaping up, so I got going. Maybe I'm just a wimp. What do you guys think of these clouds?
I ended up getting just a bit of rain, but I made it to the campground comfortably. The campground was mostly filled with RVs, but it wasn't too bad. The Dutch had already arrived, though they admitted to missing the same road that I missed -- but they were smart enough to figure it out before going as far as I did. They invited me to dinner, which was excellent, then we all hit the sack.