A wetty, sweaty, day

Today was a day we knew would be long and hard.  Getting from one town to another, amid this pandemic, has become even harder because many of the facilities listed as open on the maps are indeed not.  We found this out yesterday as we tried to plan for today's ride.  Two separate locations, both bed and breakfasts, are now closed.  Our only option was to just ride farther, until we got to Springfield, Kentucky and the Springfield Inn.  

We started extra early today, trying to get out at the break of day.  We got up at 5 and were packed up and ready to go by 6.  This would give us the maximum amount of daylight, and allow us to minimize the afternoon hours that tend to be hotter.  Since we were too early for breakfast service, we ate peanut butter and Naan bread we had purchased a few days ago at Walmart.  Naan tends not to get smashed like normal bread, and is mighty tasty.  Not a full breakfast, but good enough to get us started.  We left our nice room at the Falls River Dam State Park, and headed down the road.  It had rained, supposedly hard last night (I slept though it all) and it was still overcast.  This is good news in that we're not overexposed, but the atmosphere still remains pretty wet.  We put on about 10 miles within the first hour, and came upon a gas station/convenience store/cafe somewhere around Madrid, Kentucky.  We were going to just get the usual crappy take-out stuff, but saw that they did serve breakfast fare.  Jerry and I put our orders in at the counter, then went to sit down.  We had a very nice conversation with a couple of local people who were there.  The older woman was lamenting that the Louisville paper wouldn't put the cause of death in their obituaries, and suspected more people were dying of Covid.  Both she and the gentleman were wearing masks, which we are seeing almost everywhere in Kentucky.  We talked about the trip, where we were headed, etc.  It had been about 15-20 minutes, and nothing as far as food was forth-coming.  Jerry went to check, and the woman at the counter, who had taken our order, and who had no other customers, had not started making anything yet.  Jerry came back and told me and we unanimously opted out as fast as we could.  We had gotten up so early, and we had no intention of blowing this on a slow employee.  We grabbed a couple of pre-made crappy take out sandwiches, finished our O.J. and left.  As we were leaving, I caught the counter woman, on the phone with someone, saying "I'm tired of getting yelled at..."  In other words, we were obviously not the first customers who have experienced this behavior from this crack employee.  We left and agreed: lesson learned, don't stop for breakfast when we want to get out early.

Leaving early from Falls of Rough

In any case, we were making some good progress this morning: we had covered 40 miles in 4 hours, INCLUDING our non-breakfast break, so it was good.  We were going to try to stop at an upcoming spot on the map for lunch, in Sonora, Kentucky.  We rode into and out of Sonora in just a few minutes, as we realized that Sonora looked like a ghost town from the old west.  No, literally, it did.  The downtown buildings looked 1870's vintage, and looked like the local mines had gone dry and everyone left town in mid-sentence.  One shop that I though was ironic stated in the window "vintage collectibles," and in the window was a nasty collection of trash.  The whole town was yuck.  However, the town now borders along the new I-65, and of course there was a Pilot/Flying J, which of course had a - wait for it... Subway.  While I am quickly sickening of the Subway fare, it at least gives us a sandwich option, so we went in.  After sweating through the morning, hitting the air conditioning in this place was like going into the Arctic Circle.  It was absolutely freezing in there!  In any case, we put on our masks, went in and ordered our sandwiches and sat down to eat at leas half.  

What we have observed about Kentucky and masks has been this:  The state is requiring that patrons wear masks as they shop or dine.  And most people are very good about this.  At the Pilot, almost everyone had masks on.  Almost.  I have observed that the dimwit redneck crowd, typically white, male, and anywhere from 20's to 40's, refuses to wear masks.  As we sat down today we saw the poor employees at the Subway tell a couple of these patrons that they had to wear masks.  They even were nice enough to provide them.  These two idiots, who fit my description, defied all requests.  One put the mask on - under his chin.  The other took the mask, held it in his hand, and continued to order.  I felt so bad for the employees, as they were young and not possessing of enough confidence yet to refuse them service.  I just cannot figure out the logic of this redneck crowd.  We see this EVERYWHERE!  At a grocery store later, every patron, except two more young idiots, wore masks.  Those two got into their beat up pickup truck and left. It's a state mandate, people.   Enough about idiots - until later.

So during lunch it finally began to rain.  All morning had been overcast, but while we ate it came down in buckets, for a good 45 minutes.  While some good rain wasn't going to get in our way, we did figure that we'd let the worst pass if we could.  Except that since I was beginning to see my breath in the Pilot/Subway, I would rather wait the rain out outside under the entrance overhang.  We stuck around for a few more minutes and put on raincoats and rode off.  Of course, there's nothing like being prepared to ward off rain.  In about 30 seconds we were taking off the jackets as it seemed cooler to do this, as a coat in these temperatures was like a sticky wet bag around us.  The rain stopped and we continued on our way.  

Jerry had been studying the map, continually, for about the past 48 hours.  He found a shortcut today that was a pretty obvious one.  Adventure Cycling took us off a route, rode around, up and down, and returned us to the same route about 14 miles later.  However, if we just stayed on the route, it would be about 7 miles.  Duh.  On a day like today, we'll take any possible good (not Google) shortcut.  We stayed on route 31E, also called Bardstown Road.  I'm glad we did, as we rode right past Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home at Knob Creek.  His birthplace is actually about 6 miles south, but again, on a day like today, we were not about to backtrack.  In any case, we were able to see where Lincoln moved when he was 2, and remained through his boyhood.  We saw a cabin re-creation, done with the lumber from a boyhood friend's home, but it was on the land that the Lincoln's owned and lived on (until an unfortunate land dispute which Thomas Lincoln eventually lost).  In any case, it was pretty cool to be where our greatest President grew up.  So we then headed up Bardstown Road, going toward New Haven.  Seeing Lincoln's place got me thinking about him, his accomplishments, and how difficult it was to have come from such poverty to become President.  And then I rounded a corner to see a Confederate flag flying over a beat up mobile home, on the same road where Lincoln lived.  I don't know why, but it really got my goat.  To see such a flag, a symbol of insurrection and treason against Lincoln's Union, right down the street, seemed so wrong.  The same mobile home was flying a Trump flag, which I have no problem with, as everyone deserves a political opinion.  But the Confederate flag, right on a road deemed the Lincoln Heritage Scenic Highway, just seemed downright unpatriotic and in poor taste.  For crying out loud, idiot, Kentucky never joined the Confederacy, and was loyal to the Union during the war, so you can't cry "heritage," as there is no Kentucky heritage of Confederacy.  But I'm quite clear the message of this flag was not history at all.  I hope your mobile home rolls over in the next tornado!!

Lincoln's boyhood home, which turned out to be a re-creation, made with lumber from Lincoln's friend's home

The Lincoln Tavern, a historic building having nothing to do with Lincoln, but located on Knob Creek, the Lincoln's former home

We couldn't figure out what these strange black buildings were - they turned out to be warehouses for Maker's Mark in Loretto, KY

As the day wore on, we got wetter and wetter.  I don't think we've sweated this much in any of our days yet.  Every hour or so we stopped for Gatorades, as I'm sure we were losing electrolytes and water quickly.  My shorts and jersey were soaked to the skin.  We stopped again at a grocery store in Loretto, (home to Maker's Mark Whiskey, as we found all the warehouses), and froze again as we went into the air conditioning.  Another drink later, and we were making our way up the road into Springfield.  We found the Springfield Inn and got our room for some well deserved showers and a washing of our clothes in the bathtub.  They were incredibly wet and pretty stinky.

The Springfield Inn I think was a Comfort Inn, but it remains a nice clean place.  We spoke with the manager, who said that bicyclists are a good source of customers in the summer, and we are about the second group all year.  It's been a really hard year for them, as it has been for most hotels.  He was so nice, he offered to take us to downtown Springfield so we could get a good dinner at a place called Mordecai's.  Indeed it was a good meal, something we've been missing, including a good Kentucky Bourbon Ale, enjoyed by me, and a great dinner.  The manager picked us up again (he said he had nothing better to do) and on the way back we talked about the upcoming possible hotel stays.  He agrees with me, despite Jerry's unbridled optimism, that hotels coming up in the southeast KY/southwest VA area are going to be difficult.  I lived and worked in this area years ago, and unless something drastic happened, hotels are not going to be pretty, or abundant.  We will see...

Mordecai's in an unexpectedly lovely downtown Springfield, KY

Today's results:  99.7 miles ridden, 5,478 feet climbed.  Tomorrow we head for Berea, about 70 miles away but at the end of some larger hills.  

Oh and yes, today we entered Eastern Time.  I almost feel like we're home!