What did you do today? We biked. From 7am to 6:30pm, we biked. 108 friggin miles.
And we left Kentucky!
But the big thing that happened today, in our little world: Henry's Adopt-a-versary.
This is Henry's fourth year with Sara, and he's borne nearly three years with Beau "You're Not My Real Dad" Gambold. And in celebration of this little snarf burglar, we're finally releasing all the hidden photoshop images we made of Henry for our wedding website. (Which, like six weeks ago, was this website. The one you're at right now.)
So. Here you go, folks. You're welcome and enjoy.
Did we spend too much time on all these? What kind of question is that??
But back to Day 29, where we woke in luxury at the Sebree Cyclist Hostel, then headed to the Sebree Dairy Bar, where we ordered everything on the menu, scarfed it all down before a 7am start time. Then we biked a hundred miles.
For some people this is no big deal. For instance, there are professional cyclists. There are longtime cycling enthusiasts with lots of spare time and ultra-light bikes and no bags. There are eighteen year olds.
But we've been waiting for a century (a 100-mile ride). Sara rode the NYC Century back in 2018, and up till now it's been her longest ride. When we heard there was a flat-ish, century-length shortcut from Sebree, KY, to Carbondale, IL, at first we balked. Then we decided it was just what we needed.
The ride itself: we took a semi-hilly highway 56 from Sebree more or less to the KY-IL border at the Shawneetown Bridge. Then the highway turned to IL 13, a bigger road but with broader shoulders, almost entirely flat, which we followed for most of the next 60-odd miles. It was like a pre-taste of Kansas, we suppose. We got lunch in a place called Equality, IL. We biked some more. There was a steady crosswind out of the north for much of the day, which one wouldn't rank under the categories of "fun" or "pleasant", but it was fine. We ended up both taping up both our knees, because we're old and it's a long way. Then we kept biking. The landscape changed, somehow both subtly and dramatically. In Marion, there were a bunch of shopping centers, so we took a detour. When we got into Carbondale, we paused briefly outside the geodesic dome that Buckminster Fuller built and lived in through the 60's.
In Carbondale, we had dinner with our Warm Showers host, Jack, who let us stay in his guest bedroom on our coldest night so far. Jack's grandson had just had an accident, and our thoughts are with them. We slept hard that night.
STATS SO FAR
Total miles in Kentucky: 519
Total trip miles: 1127.9
Kentucky Roundup
Kentucky All-Stars:
Brad Boorman from just east of Owensboro
The good folks from the Hindman and Sebree church hostels. Also! David R. Smith, president of the Knott County Historical Society, who usually runs his own much-loved cycling hostel in Hindman — he's out of the game during COVID, but he kindly pointed us in the direction of the Baptist Youth Center there and shared a lot of good trail stories.
Best KY Eats:
Every once in a while, in KY, you'll come across an avocado. Buy that avocado. Then: wait till it's ripe, and buy a small bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Open the avocado; remove the nut. Crush up the Doritos inside the bag, then sprinkle them them over the avo. Eat with a spoon.
The spaghetti carbonara we made ourselves in Hindman. Sorry, KY dairy bars. Carbonara is great.
Other KY Highlights:
Berea — "Where Art's Alive!"
I mean, the costumes in the Hindman hostel though.
Mammoth Caves! (And all the craziness surrounding them.)
This sign, which we saw a lot:
