June 12,
2001. Hodgenville
to Rough River Dam State Park, Kentucky.
(58 mi.) Mile 1036
From
market to market to get out of the heat
I am typing on the laptop in a
campground laundromat again. Today was actually the best riding for me yet,
despite the temperature getting up to about 94 degrees. Scenery earlier in the
trip has been as beautiful, but now I am feeling stronger as well.
As we were rolling through the early morning landscape, with the cooler
temperatures and humidity just lifting, I thought how sad it would be for this
to eventually end.
Amish farm land
We
have been going through countryside where many Amish have their farms. These
are recognizable by the lack of cars and power lines around the simple
farmhouses and barns. We passed by five Amish children using hand tools to
weed a field of
tobacco. The girls were wearing dark dresses and bonnets, the
boys in dark trousers, blue shirts, and broad brimmed hats. All were barefoot.
They stopped to watch us pass, and one little girl waved at us like school
children have everywhere. I rang my bike bell for her, and she smiled back in
the usual response.
The Helms left ahead of us this
morning, as we have still not mastered The Early Start. We'll have to get this
down yet, because the temperature quickly climbed 
into the 80s by 11 am. The
remainder of the day, we leapfrogged with the Helms from one small general
store
1) to another every ten miles or so to escape the heat. This involved
walking into the store hot and sweaty and standing in front of the
refrigerated beverages until we cooled off. Almost every small market got our
business, and each significant intersection had a small market. One of these
had a book in which they asked any TransAmerica bicyclists to sign in, so we
signed in right after Walter, who had passed through yesterday, and looked at
the list of other cyclists who had signed it over the last few
years.
One of the
countless small general stores we have stopped at on this trip. This one was
noted for having some of the flooring held together with duct tape.
Just before our campground
destination at Rough River Dam State Park, we joined Peter and Maren at a restaurant a few miles
away to place a take-out order to be delivered to our campsite later. By the time our chicken
dinner arrived, we were ready for it.
Waiting for the arrival of our chicken dinner.
