Kentucky is Awesome Again

So we left from my Aunts house and biked about 70 miles south to get back toward Lexington.  Our plan was to hit as many bourbon distilleries as we could before shooting west towards St. Louis.  The next few days would be a beautiful ride.  There were a ton of horse farms all over Kentucky with huge plantations and a bunch of old money.  We made it right outside of Lexington and stayed at the Kentucky Horse Park camping grounds, the absolute largest campground I've ever been to by far.  It had a pool, tennis courts, a huge bathhouse, the works.  We got in really late so we set up and passed out pretty quickly so we could get out early to go to Louisville that night.

We left the park toward the distilleries the next morning. We only had time to make one, the Buffalo Trace distillery, which turned out to be really good whiskey.  They used to be Ancient Age before getting bought out and upgraded.  So we got some free whiskey and decided to hurry and get to Frankfort, the capitol of Kentucky, to eat lunch.  We stopped by the best place we probably could have, Rick's White Light.  Rick has to be one of the coolest characters we've met so far.  This guy has been a chef for presidents, movie stars, a bunch of big people for a long time, but now owns a small corner burger joint that seats less than 20.  

Rick was outrageous.  We stayed and bullshitted with him for about 3 hours about politics, race, law, and a bunch of other shit.  He got sued by a copyright infringement lawyer for selling "Derby Pie," which the lawyer convinced the courts was an owned name when it actually has been around since Rick started cooking.  It is most definitely public domain, but Rick's lawyer really sucked and lost the case.  And then the lawyer told Rick he owed him about $12,000 for legal fees, so Rick was pretty screwed.  The most amazing part was his ability to laugh about it and to come up with a plan to get the money.  He has a styrofoam cup in the restaurant that says "Rick's Legal Fund" and he figures if someone gives him $7 each day in the cup, he can pay them off in like 30 years or something.  It's been working, the lady that sat next to me gave him his $7 for that day.  She also gave him a bottle of wine, which he poured for us a little bit later.  What a solid guy.  If anyone is ever in Frankfort, it is by far the best place to be, though it is a little hard to find.  Look for the sign that says "Ladies Welcome."  

So we leave Rick to close up and head on to Louisville with no plan of where to stay.  There really weren't any campgrounds close to where we were but we were pretty sure there was ultimate in town so we called King Kharl assuming that he would know most people in Louisville...  He told us where to go to find summer league games that night close to the river.  I left the girls to go find ultimate by the river, but didn't know exactly where it was at.  So it get to the river and start riding down the road as I pass soccer field after soccer field with no ultimate and am starting to lose hope.  It was getting late, after all.  I decided to ride until my odometer said 80 miles and then I would turn around and figure something else out.  My odometer reached 80.08 when I saw the first 7 on the line and it was like beacon of hope.

Their summer league was pretty good size with 12 teams and a cool director named Lumis (might be spelled wrong...) who I talked to at first about a spot to crash.  He offered his, although we ended up staying with another player after a full night of drinking and debauchery.  All you can eat pizza and all you can drink beer plus a facemelting band for $10 in Louisville on Wednesday nights, by the way.  We partied there for a while and met up with our future host, Evan, who was a very chill guy.  He was so chill that he convinced us to stay another day in town so he could show us around all the parks and the cool parts of town.  We ended up lounging by the pool for a while after working out a bit and then checking out the town, which was one of those towns like Austin or Fayetteville that just seems out of its element compared to the rest of the towns in that state.  It was a funky little place that was big on local business and had a nice little nightlife scene.  So we went out again that night and met up with Lumis again to have a few beers and a bite.  Thanks again Lumis and Evan!!!  Yall made Louisville very worth the trip!  We geared up to leave Louisville the next morning to take off for the plains of southern Illinois and Indiana on our way to St. Louis.     

Poultry Days

So Jess drops off us the next day to catch our ride, and we make him pretty late for work in the process (sorry again!). The Asheville players who came down were really cool to pack us in pretty tight for the ride up to Versailles. They also convinced that I want to do a lot of hanging out in Asheville. It sounds like a Fayetteville-like area in North Carolina, except the mountains are bigger. So we arrive in Versailles at my first Poultry Days, which I had no clue was also a town festival with carnival rides and food and delicious chicken dinners on Saturday night after games. Bowers and I rode some rides that almost got the better of our stomachs, but we managed to not ralph on each other... yet... The camping was pretty good, too. It only rained the first night, and for some reason I was in Scott Brown's tent which we fucked up right before going to bed and so got a little wet. The second night I made it to my tent, and it didn't even rain that night, but I still woke up wet and in a puddle... that's so strange...

I got to play with UPS, I think for the first time ever, which was very cool. I already miss playing with every person on that team... except for Scott Brown. Ha, yust yoking, but he is a broken like he's on the mark lookin ass!!! That kiddie pool fucked that kid up! I'll see you in Tulsa though, I just bet... Thank you, Jon, for picking me up. I got that $30 for you somewhere, I think it fell out of my pocket on the ride or something...

So the tourney came to an end and we snagged a ride back to Highland Heights from a scrumptralescent (and I only use that name for very few folks) dude named Kevin, who happened to grow up about 5 minutes from my aunt's house. He has been away for a while in the service, but lives right above San Diego now and came back to visit his family and go to Poultry Days. It turns out he actually went to grade school with another cousin of mine (once or twiced removed) who I haven't had the chance to meet yet. Thanks for not only the ride, but for the shoes, too. They are perfect retro, purple and blue, Oasis tennis shoes. I swear I had a smaller version when I was a kid. Until now I've only had the bike cleats, which are getting pretty roughed up, so the shoes really saved my ass!

We made it back to my aunt's house and had a great taco night and promptly passed out only to wake up too late to get where were gonna go today. So, were gonna chill one more night before taking off to the bourbon trail tomorrow. I at least had time to catch up on my blog today, which has been a long time coming. I need to get a lot of pictures on this thing so I gotta quit writing, but keep checking and hopefully I wont wait a week before posting. Peace!

Kentucky!!!!!

Finally, out of Virginia and the tallest part of the Appalachians. Our first day in Kentucky was beautiful, and because we were off the map again, going towards Poultry Days, there were no outrageous hills to deal with. In fact, we went downhill most of the day, coming off of the bigger mountains. Virginia, bad. Kentucky, good. There were a lot scenic overlooks at the beginning of the day and rolling hills and fields the rest of it. We followed a river for most of the ride, which was also pretty relaxing.

We made it about 65 miles down the road to Prestonburg. Not too much going on there really. We stopped by the Dairy Cheer and had a burger because the sign said Smashburger which sounded too good turn down, and I had to take a picture for Jacob. I didn't even know he had his own burger... We stayed in a hotel again that night because Iris had a lot more work to do; she stayed up most of the night to do it which made it a tough ride the next day.

So we left the next morning for Morehead, which sounded like an awesome place to me. Turns out it was. Morehead College is there and it has a really beautiful, and surprisingly large, campus. We heard about a sweet bar there called the Road Runner from a lot of different folks so went to check it out. We were even more excited to learn that they had endless cups of beer for $8. That's why we were really depressed to find out that they closed over the summer because all of the students are out of town and the town pretty much dies.

Regardless, we met a guy on the street named Nate who was also on a bike so seemed like a good fella to talk to. Turns out he was. He offered to let us come up to his apartment and shower off and everything. Good work Iris!!! And thanks a ton Nasty Nate. We also met a couple of girls who lived across the hallway, Amy and Jane, who were really cool and let me cook dinner and breakfast and opened up their apartment to us. They had a test the next day, but still took us out and picked us up in between study sessions. They were amazing to hang out with. Thanks for everything girls, I hope you rocked that anatomy test!!!

So we left (begrudgingly) from Morehead the next day on the route to Cynthiana, a town about an hour south of my aunt's house in Highland Heights, which is right below Cincinnati. That ride was about 75 miles, so we were pretty happy about to get there and drink some huge beers at a Mexican restaurant for cheap. That's where my aunt came and picked us and the bikes up to go chill in Highland heights for the night. Thanks for all your help Ainee!!! We then called around to get a ride to Poultry Days from Cincinatti and Heather new some folks from Asheville, North Carolina, who were coming through the next day for the tourney. So our night was set, and after a great rendition of Piano Man by the whole team, happy to finally be traveling while not pedaling, we got some sleep and prepared for the tournament.

But not before playing some old school Bubble Bobble with my cousin Jess, something I haven't done in an least 10 years. Fucking Awesome. And thanks for the ride, too, sorry to make you late for work cousin!

Kentucky bound.

So we leave Abingdon for the pass, called The Butt, and the roads are pretty normal except for right before the mountain there is a huge 6-7 mile downhill that we coasted to the bottom of. We actually stopped and had to make sure we were going the right way because we were told it was going to get pretty rough before the actual pass. It actually wasn't bad at all. It might have been the mountain we had already done, or just a couple more days of conditioning, but we were over the pass before we knew it. The direction change cost us about 10-15 miles, but shaved off about 1500 feet and a 3.5 mile 8-9 grade hill. That's pretty much as steep as you get.


We were finally on the other side of the mountains, so we thought. There were actually a few great downhills on the way to Elkhorn City, our first city on the map in Kentucky, but they were paired with some steep ass uphills as well. They weren't as long as earlier, but short and steep can be worse, especially when your going slow at the end of the day. As we get closer to the state line, the hill keeps going up and up and we are dog tired. We finally make it to the top where there is a campground at the state line called Breaks Interstate Park. What a beautiful place, even despite the fact we had to go uphill for about another mile after getting to the park itself. We met some other folks doing the same trail at the entrance to the campgrounds and they had a SAG wagon, which is when one of the bikers drives all the equipment and stuff from stop to stop. That would be nice, no gear on the bike and a ride to whatever you want... but it still seemed like cheating.

This last day in Virginia had to be one of my favorite rides. The locusts out here are in full throttle, and going into some of the valleys the noise they were making was deafening. They are pretty hard to avoid hitting on downhills, too, when your going 30 mph or so. And they hurt, really bad. I caught a small bug in the eye earlier and thankfully bought a pair of sunglasses for this stretch. I would hit 2 or 3 at a time sometimes. I caught one dead on ole righty and actually had to stop to recover... Shoulda worn a cup.

Holy Frijoles!!!

We left the hotel with a route change that ended up cutting out a bunch of unnecessary miles and unnecessary mountains on our way to Poultry Days. I really wanted to make that tournament because I'd never been before and I heard so much about it. It was a 60 mile day and we decided to go get some Mexican food that night. The night before, at the hotel, there was a Mexican place but it closed down too early for us to go, but we still had Marg's on the mind all day long.

We finally show up to Abingdon and find the Mexican place, which was closed on Sundays... So we found another one (Marg's on the mind) about three miles away. The margaritas were great after dinner and drinking biking was the last thing we wanted to do. By this time it was getting dark and the pass over the next set of mountains was really close to town and the campground was still 10 miles down the road toward the pass. I wouldn't have minded going to the campground in hindsight, it was almost a straight drop downhill the whole way, but we didn't know that at the time and heard that it might be a rough ride to the campground. So Iris begins asking around for a yard or some other nearby place to camp and all of the people lived even farther than the campground so that was out. She eventually asks the Mexicans and they let us camp in the back of the restaurant, where there is a little field by the parking lot.

The cops that came by that night to check us out were really cool, and actually weren't trying to mess with us at all. They were looking for three men who were supposedly in the area, and Iris and Heather really didn't fit that description. They did tell us, however, that this was the first time they'd ever seen someone in a tent in the middle of town and that they would keep an eye us later, which put my mind at ease after discovering there three suspects running around
Abingdon.

Almost to Kentucky!!!!

A Night with the Mayor

Leaving from the caverns towards Christiansburg was awful. It was steeper than the entire mountain range we crossed, but only for a mile or two. I would say it was an 8 grade, which, for those who don't know, is steep as shit. But it was early enough for us to make it up and still make a 70 mile day out of it. We had originally planned on camping again, there was a KOA right outside of Wytheville, but we shot straight past it and down a hill for about 2 miles before realizing that we that we did pass it. We were tired, but we opted to go another 10 miles into town rather than go back uphill. It ended up working out.

So we get to the edge of town where there are a bunch of hotels and stuff and Iris and Heather planned on checking all of them out to see if we could a discounted rate and I decided to go into town and see if there was anything going on. It was Friday night and the town was sizable so I had my hopes up. I asked around and got directions to the only bar in town, the Turn One Bar, on the other side of town, and wanted to go check it out. On my way to the bar, I passed an outdoor concert in the middle of town. I rode up to two 16 (18) year old girls taking money at the entrance to check it out. They said it was a beach band from Myrtle and that they had $1 beers inside, which pretty much sold me. So I went on in and beers ended up being $3, but after around the 80 miles that I put in, i didn't mind too much.

So, I was standing in the beer line when an older guy in a great looking American flag shirt came up and asked where I was from and what the final destination was and all that and we talked a while about our plans in town and everything. This guy was really nice and told us to talk to the beer servers, most of whom worked for the recreation center in town, and they could tell us where to get free showers and a place to camp for free as well. So I got my beer and chatted with this really cute hippie girl for a while and got directions to the showers and campgrounds. The guy in the shirt came back up and made sure we knew where everything was and at the end of our conversation said, "Well I happen to be the mayor of this town, welcome to Wytheville!" I was kind of taken aback, but let him know that he was the best mayor I'd ever met and thanks for everything he did.

So Iris and Heather end up making it to the concert a little later and I introduce them to mayor and before I know it Trent (that's his name), being impressed with Iris' charity venture, invites us to stay over at his house that night and even says he'll give us a sober ride later that night! Not being able to turn that down, we get directions from him and make plans to go to the only bar in town that night. We end up hitching a ride there from the Budweiser guy who was serving beers at the venue, and he says he can fit the bikes and beer in the back of the beer truck. Our night is set with one sweet ride in the back of a beer truck to Turn One.

So we get to the bar and Bud guy buys us all Jager shots, maybe one too many, and there is a great punk band playing when we walk in. They covered some good songs and I was definitely headbanging for a good part of the night. So we make it to last call and call Trent to come get us and the bikes, which is good because I tried to get on the bike and ride and failed miserably. I probably wouldn't have made it out of the parking lot much less into town. On the way back to his place we get pulled over by a local cop, who thought that he might have stolen our bikes that night. He told her, "I sure did, along with bikers that came on them!" Being the mayor, nothing came of it, and we arrived safely at his house just in time for the girls to take showers and me to safely pass out on the couch after a short stint on the bathroom floor... thanks for putting on my pants girls!!!

So Trent gives us a ride in town the next day to the library so the girls can do some more work. At this point, both Iris and Heather have a bunch of computer shit due, and haven't had a lot of time to work on it yet. So we decide to get a hotel in town with wireless so they can work and I can chill in a hot tub and a pool. Add to that Waffle House right across the street. Awesome.