We planned to wake up again at 4:45 am but slept in until almost 7 am. Our bodies needed the extra sleep to recover from yesterdays (almost) century day.
We ate a quick breakfast and were back on the road. Today's mission: crush miles. We had four major climbs through the Appalachian Mountains for the day.
Shortly into the morning ride we met Jerry and rode with him for a couple hours. Jerry, at age 62, is biking across the country with his two younger brothers. They had started their journey in Astoria, Oregon, right on the coast of the Pacific. The Oregon ocean cliffs he talked about sounded out of this world. Jerry had the itch for adventure. At age 60 through hiked the entire Appalachian Trail (2100 miles hiking, Georgia to Maine!).
Jerry and Joe.
We continued to bike through community after community that was loudly and proudly pro-coal. The "If you don't like coal, then don't use electricity" and "Stop the war on coal" bumper stickers / billboards / yard signs were a little different than the Campuses Beyond Coal flyer's I had seen covering campus back at the University of Minnesota.
I stopped on the summit of the our second to last pass to snap some pictures and catch my breathe. A red Dodge Neon pulled up with a young husband and wife with three youngings in the back seat.
"I hope ya got yer pistol up under your shirt."
(Me laughing) "No, no need for that."
"No son, for real. You ever seen 'Deliverance'? These here folks up here will kill ya. Get moving!"
Just another welcome to Kentucky moment.
9 down, 1 to go.
Lesson #84: Dogs protect their ground. Don't try to negotiate. Get out.
Jack had a stroke of brilliance and grabbed two plastic whistles from General Dollar. Boy did they come in handy. We dodged probably 20 dogs on the afternoon ride alone. And when I say dogs I mean unchained, rural dogs, that chase you chomping at the air, hoping to get you or your bike. The whistles were highly effective.
We stopped at the last grocery store on our route for the day and grabbed dinner. We had about 12 miles to our campsite. We stopped a few miles before the campsite, on a steep turn, to snap a picture of the "Welcome to Virginia" sign.
Lesson #85: (In Kentucky) T-shirts optional.
An older Ford F-150 pulled up and out hopped a shirtless middle age man. He grabbed a cold beer from the back of his cooler, popped the cap off, and asked "What the hell are ya doing"? Quick chit chat and Scooba invited us to come pitch a tent and grab hot showers at his place a few miles down the road. People are kind.
Scooba was a Navy veteran who served in the first Gulf War and a retired coal miner. He described the 80 hour work weeks down in the mines he used to routinely put in before the economy tanked. Sounded absolutely grueling. He pointed to his missing tooth and said he was living in this trailer, that he usually rented out, outside of Breaks Interstate State Park because he was being hunted by someone and couldn't go home. He had been living here for the past six weeks. We pulled into his gravel driveway and he graciously grabbed a jug of fresh water from the convenience store across the street. Scooba talked about his dream to turn the shed next to the trailer into a bikers only hostile with showers, bunk beds, and bike tools. He set us up in his spacious three man tent and Jack and I ate our dinner, showered, and called it an early night. As we were nodding off a Jeep (not Scoobas truck) pulled around back, literally side swiped the corner of our tent, and stopped. I got a nervous pit in my stomach. Who is this? Why are they here? What's going on? Scooba hoped out of the driver's seat, handed us a $20, said "Enjoy lunch tomorrow. I've got some business I got to got take care. Goodnight" and drove off.
We need to fight less. And use less drugs to numb our pain.
With our third big day in a row of climbing tomorrow we retired early and fell asleep to the sounds of cicadas and the stream flowing behind the tent.
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