Day 16: Hazard to Booneville: We've been through Hail and back

May 26, 2006

I didn't hear the storm that obviously came through sometime during the night, and the breakfast wasn't really good enough to warrant two trips, so I used the 2nd trip to get bread and jam to make PB&J for later in the day. I'm tired of carrying around this PB.

Highway 15 at 8:00 was almost as bad as 80 yesterday, but much cooler and manageable. And the trip to Chavies on 28 was great (except "Chavies" sounds like a personal problem to me!). Just a bit of a downhill slope so I could pedal and remember what it's like to ride normal speeds without a load.

Little Chavies provided more entertainment that I thought it would as traffic got backed up waiting for a coal train to creep past and everybody decided to run into the convenience store while they waited. As I ate 2nd breakfast (or 1st brunch maybe), I was adopted by a stray looking one-eyed dog. Hoping to build good karma with the dogs of Kentucky, I tried to share my food, but he wouldn't eat. Some guy came by and seemed to tell me the dog would bite me, but I've never seen a more passive dog. He just wanted to sit by me, and seemed happy just to have sombody rub his droopy ears. I went back into the store to see if he belonged to somebody when I saw he had a flea collar on, and the girl there assured me he had a home but hung out at the store a lot because his owner was there a lot drinking coffee with other locals.

Meanwhile, an older lady came through and told me about how much she loved bicycles and how her grandma had the first "pedal bike" in Chavies and how she used to ride all the time. I think my bike brought back some good memories for her, but it must have looked strange to her since she asked me if it was a "pedal bike" just to be sure.

This must be the bible belt--the ten commandments are even on my bag of chips

Much reading material on the way up the hills--political signs were everywhere

I'm trying to breathe, but there's these darn hills in the way!

Entering Buckhorn around noon, I stopped at a dairy bar/fried food stand that said "Open: Lights On" but the lights were off. A little kid maybe 9 years old got out of a car, and I thought he toled me they weren't open because they didn't have a cake (me to self: but I don't want cake, I want a sandwich) But that they would get one in about 20 minutes and be open then. I must have looked confused, because his mom leaned out of the car and repeated that they didn't have a ka-ye. Oh ... a key ... well, that makes more sense than not having a cake. It wasn't the last time I had trouble with Kentuckian today as a clerk at a store and then a noisy librarian both had to repeat themselves for me. Guess I'm not picking up on Kentuckian very quickly.

Rather than wait the 20 minutes for the ka-ye, I ate lunch from my stash down the road at picnic tables outside Buckhorn's 1907 log church and had a little rest there. Then when I was leaving, I was that the Post Office was sponsored by Pepsi and had to stop at the store next door, which had a cyclist logbook they asked me to sign. Then I saw that Jonathan had signed in just that day. Then Ben and Jonathan both came up behind me in the store and told me the woes of fixing his wheel and other flat tire problems.

Buckhorn post office sponsored by ... PEPSI!

Ben at the log church--a guy at the store gave us his key so we could go in

guys at the Buckhorn store--met back up with Ben and Jonathan here

A guy at the store gave us his key to the church so we could go look around inside before we left town. We rode together for a while up the road (yes, UP), and encountered a storm which drenched us almost as soon as it started. It had been so hot that the rain felt really good, but it was insanely heavy. Then the momentary hail came, which didn't feel as good. Then more rain on and off, then Jonathan's flat, my tyvek tire boot and pump and donation of a tube, a strange little store with odd mountain people (hardly any food and no gas--maybe a front for moonshiners?).

I'm an animal--I just rode through hail!

My fellow hail riders--we're all thoroughly soaked

Then I saw my first turtle--it is a cyclist's duty to stop and rescue the turtles from the road. This guy was just on the edge of the road, but it was so sad--I was too late to help this one :( But just down the road was one that was still save-able, so I gave him a firm talking to and put him out of harm's way.

Ben and Jonathan were trying to make it all the way to Berea to meet their sweethearts, but Booneville was my target. I shouldn't have stood around helping/watching Jonathan fix his flat earlier--it took way more time than I thought, so I only got 30 minutes at the Booneville library before it closed.

I'd been looking forward to the Booneville church pavilion and the promise of not having to put up my tent (and not having to pack a wet tent in the morning), and some alone time to catch up on journalling, but when I pulled in, some of the Duke boys I'd met in Damascus were there. They'd had a very wet night the night before--no tents, just tarps--so I set up my tent and let them have the pavilion.

I hope I wasn't intruding, but I think we had a fun evening. I did one of my freezer-bag meals and had everything cooked, eaten, and cleaned up in about 10 minutes. They spent at least three hours on dinner over a fire--but it was good. I got some Krispy treats for them and dinated my knife to the vegetable chopping process, so I helped them eat the way-too-much food they'd bought before heading off into the heavy mist to find my tent.

Stuart attacks the OJ while we make fun of Daniel's helmet hair

Matt poses with one of the political signs he "adopted"

Farokh and Chris work on dinner--these boys can cook!

Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km)
Total: 702 miles (1,130 km)

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