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Day 42 – Berea to Booneville

Posted by Alan on Sat, 17th Jul, 2010.
Filed under: Kentucky

Sat 17th July 2010

Chris was asleep early last night and felt better when he woke up. We were heading into the Apallachian mountains today but we only had 60 miles to do so we knew we had a short day ahead and were glad that another 90 miler wasn’t on the cards. It was cloudy when we set off and to the North of us the skies were black and we could hear thunder. That storm got closer and closer and produced some impressive lighting. It then started to rain hard and I dived under a tree to put away all my drying clothes when the rain suddenly stopped again. As if by magic the storm disappeared and it cleared up.

We had a few longer climbs today as an introduction but apart from some short hills the gradients were okay and it was quite a fun days cycling enjoying the scenery while  looking out for the next dog. Some of the roads we were on today were very narrow and twisty with no road markings, hardly the kind of roads I expected to find in the US but very welcome.

My good deed for today was to rescue a tortoise that was upside down in the middle of the road. The poor thing was in the heat of the sun and was waving its legs around trying to right itself (an impossible task).

Places to fill our water bottles were very  scarce today but we found a place about 7 miles outside of destination of Booneville where we met Henry who allowed us to fill our water bottles and gave us both a nice cold can of Pepsi. We chatted to Henry for a while and he told us about the local snakes and warned us about the ticks in the grassy areas.

We arrived in Booneville by about 1:00pm and called Linda who runs the only B&B in town. We then discovered that we’d cycled past her place about 3 miles before the town which was back up a long hill. Not expecting us to cycle back she drove her pick-up to meet us and we put the bikes in the back. After a shower she then drove us back into town to the grocery store. That’s service for you.

We are staying in a nice little house on her property and we’re sharing it with our cycling friend Ed who turned up later in the day having cycled 94 miles today. He told us that the men at the bridge did indeed tell him to go around the detour but he quickly realised we’d put them up to it.

So today has been a good day and we are well fed and rested and looking forward to tomorrow. Chris is feeling better and was probably suffering a touch of heatstroke yesterday.

Daily Mileage – 61.9 miles

Time in Saddle – 5 hrs 36 mins

Total Climbing – 3,629 ft