I woke up to an unbelievable thunderstorm, and spent most of the morning cowering in my tent, listening to lightning strike very close to the campground. I could hear the Dutch in their tent, drinking coffee and telling jokes. Me? I slept as much as I could. The rain finally stopped around 11:15, and I didn't get on the road until after noon. Not the best start to the day, but what the hell. At least the weather cleared up a bit.
I wish they'd build a damn road across this field.
I am constantly amazed at how I can ride through completely flat land on either side of the road, but the actual road I am on bounces up and down more than Pamela Anderson.
The day was again a relatively easy one, but that was marred by my first encounter with real headwinds. Remnants of the morning storm assaulted me from the west and south, gusting over 20 miles per hour as I crawled along in my granny gears. Still, headwinds are vastly preferable to steep climbs, especially for someone like me. Gravity affects me more than wind, and at any rate, wind allows you to find a rhythm, while hills force you to vary your pace. I passed several horse farms, though I understand that the nicest horse farms are in the northern part of Kentucky.
The people in western Kentucky are quite a bit more friendly and sophisticated than the people in the far reaches of Crappalachia, and I'm starting to really enjoy my time in the state. Well, mostly enjoy my time -- I think I had some bad water a few days ago, and that makes certain aspects of my life exciting. Was that too much detail?
So anyway, I roll into Springfield, KY, about halfway to my destination, and I notice that it's 5:00. Thanks to my late start and the magnificent force of the wind, I'm kinda screwed. Springfield's only motel didin't have cable TV, though it did offer discount cholera. I decided to pass on that and I took a shortcut to Stephen Foster State Park, my destination for the night. The shortcut saved me about 11 miles, but it put me on a very heavily trafficked road (without a shoulder, of course). Still, the grades were easy and the constant traffic broke up the wind, so I made good time. I also had my closest brush with death, though, when an eighteen-wheeler blew past me about a foot from my shoulder. When a truck that size roars past a cyclist, it literally pulls you into its wake -- and since the truck is 60 feet long, the wake and the trailer overlap. I estimate that I got withing 4 to 6 inches of the truck before I was able to correct my steering. It scared the ever-loving hell out of me.
I got to the campground -- and the WET town of Bardstown around 7:00, and the Dutch rolled in 15 minutes later. Jan was suspicious at first, thinking that I had caught a ride, but when I showed them the route I took, they understood. They had also taken a shortcut, which took them around Springfield but only saved them 2 or 3 miles. We agreed to meet for drinks after we showered, and I went through my normal routine.
We met up and rode about a mile to the Talbott Tavern, where I bought a few rounds to thank them for the dinner they had shared last night. Then we pedaled to a restaurant, which turned us away. Thus began the Half-Drunken Bike Ride in Search of a Bardstown Restaurant That Stays Open Past Nine on Mondays, or HDBRSBRTSOPNM. We finally found a Bosnian joint that had a Dutch waitress. Lucky me, I sat through an all-Dutch conversation. The Dutch have decided to take a rest day tomorrow, so I said my goodbyes and headed out (after a small hint from Jan that they wanted to be alone).
Guess what, it rained that night.