A good day's riding yesterday resulted in a 90 mile trip to Utica in Western Kentucky. The Appalachians are now firmly behind me although there are still plenty of hills to get through for the rest of the state. The last 12 miles into Utica were quite mean in so far as at first glance it looked like a nice flat country lane and I could see myself coasting into town but it turned out to be a rollercoaster set of gradually larger hills all the way to the end. I have crossed the timezone border into "Central Time" now and so am now 6 hours behind the UK.
Utica is a pretty small town with no hotels or fancy shops but I had the chance to stay at my second fire station of the trip. Lots of these small towns can't afford to run full time fire stations and so have volunteer outfits, manned by the locals. Back in Mineral, Virginia on my second night, they had a really fancy station with a gym, several beds, showers and TV room. If I was a local, it would make sense to join up in order to have your own social centre!
The one in Utica wasn't quite as grand although I was allowed to kip inside and even got a mattress which is nicer than pitching a tent up again. At the shop/service station/pizza shop combination building, I grabbed a pizza and bumped into two other cyclists who are doing the same route as me! We exchanged dog stories, Larry tweaked my gears for me and it was nice to have some fellow transam riders to chat to.
The fire station had a washing machine which was much needed and they had a cold shower but there was no light in there and I saw too many spider webs for my liking with my torch so I'll live with being smelly for another day.
The top photo is of some Amish folk who live in this area - there is a large Amish community in the area and so obviously there are less cars and more horses and carts as they don't use electricity (all a bit like that Harrison Ford film, Witness. Anyhow, I'm heading for the border with Illinois today and will hopefully have time to post about today's journey tonight.
2 comments:
Uurgh - spiders. Eeek - dogs. Scary stuff! I would have bought a car, chucked the bike in the back and checked into a hotel by now! Loving this blog Andy...
Welcome to a much "bike friendlier" part of the state. The Amish people are good, salt of the earth, people. There should be more people in this world like them.
Steve H.
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