June 8, 2001.
Irvine to Berea, Kentucky. (35 mi.) Mile 835
Sweet
day of riding. We get a brake...and send it back.
Each half of today was very
different. We have left the mountains behind,
and moved into Kentucky's rolling blue grass country. The sun came out
just as our weather radio said it would, meadowlarks sang, bobwhites called,
and Kentucky's numerous colorful butterfly species flitted everywhere. Every
day in eastern Kentucky we have had to squirt a few dogs, but even the dogs were nice to us today.
Except for a few dicey miles in traffic coming into Berea, our ride was as the author of "Bicycling Coast to
Coast" describes this section, "a bicyclist's dream".
1) 
2) 
1) White churches dot the countryside
2) Berea is an arts and crafts tourist center
Ready to enjoy the
day
(note handy
location of doggy pepper spray)
The second half of the
day we explored Berea, a town of
about 10,000 (a One McDonalds Town), with a small college, and claim to fame
as the Folk Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky. This means that there are
numerous shops devoted to selling handicrafts
from southern Appalachia and Kentucky. We propped our bikes against the
historic Boone Tavern, donned tourist duds, and joined crowds of other
tourists going through all the shops. We checked out woven crafts,
furniture, quilts, pottery, fine art, jewelry, cabin crafts, and even if
they knew how to make a good espresso here. Then we went to the post office,
collected and returned the wrong brakes, dealt with congested traffic,
competed with tour buses, and found another motel as a treat to ourselves.
Motels allow us to check
email, send out journal updates, and get pictures from home. Today our grandson
Braden turns 10 months old. He has taken his first tentative solo steps, gone
camping, spent the night in a tent, and taken swimming
lessons. Sounds like he
will be ready for a bicycle soon. Our laptop provides a way for us to be a small
part of this by receiving digital pictures as well as sending them.
Over dinner we asked
ourselves, "which half of the day was better?" Both were good, but
luckily for us, since we have over 3,000 more miles of this, the answer was the
first half. The second half of the day, though interesting, did not give us the
same satisfaction, joy, and intrigue as the first. I guess we would be pretty
foolish to have taken on this challenge if what we enjoyed most was shopping
tourist destinations with crowds of people. So tomorrow, we ride out of town westward
bound again.
Our bikes take a
rest as we check out Berea
