Day 12

Mileage: 106
Total mileage: 921

Tonight I'm living the life of luxury! But we'll start with this morning first.

I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over Herrington lake and hit the road fairly early, stopping in Harrodsburg for breakfast at a nice little diner called the Olde Bus Station, owned by a friend of my host, Monica, from last night. As I ate and looked at my maps, I noticed an icon that Mike from MS pointed out to me a few days ago. It's a bike with a triangle over it, means special accommodations for cyclists, and there was one in White Mills, just over a hundred miles away. I decided to shoot for it, and boy was it worth it.

Today's road was composed mostly of rollers: short hills that you can chain together without gearing down, if you get enough momentum on the downhills. It would have been very easy riding, except it was very hot and humid today as well. Even the dogs didn't seem to want to chase today. I had no fewer than three dogs who, seeing me coming, slowly meandered out to the street, gave me a weary bark like 'There I did my job, you happy? ' before going back to their shade under a tree.

The other tricky bit was road conditions. The safest I felt today was during a two mile stretch on a major highway, because at least there was some shoulder. 98% of my riding today was on two lane no shoulder country roads and Kentucky drivers are terrifying.

A message to all the Kentucky drivers who will never read this: I understand you don't want me taking up the right quarter of your lane. I do hear you honking and trust me, I don't want me to be slogging up a no-shoulder hill at 7mph any more than you want me there. But if you decide to take the opposite lane and gun it around a blind corner or over a low visibility hill, that's on you. Just wait for me to find you an opening and wave you past next time.

Glad I got that out of my system. Not everyone on the road is rude and reckless. In fact, this evening I saw a pair of young (6-8ish) Amish kids driving a horse and buggy in the same road I was on, going to opposite way. I wanted to get a picture but my phone was wet, so I couldn't navigate to the camera fast enough.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we had a big storm today. Around 4 this afternoon some cloud cover broke the heat and by 5 it was pouring. Besides the salt from my head getting rained down into my eyes, it was quite pleasant and I didn't mind at all. It kept raining until shortly before I got to the fire station tonight where I'm staying.

Dan, a volunteer firefighter here let me into the firehouse where they house cyclists and showed me around the place. I got to take a hot shower (! ! ) and let all my stuff dry out. No mosquitos tonight either which is huge. Dan also brought a couple of beers over, so I'm eating a subway sandwich and cookies while drinking a beer and typing this right now. Life is good!

I'm going to shoot for high mileage again tomorrow, so I've gotta get some sleep. . G'night!