Days 11 - 13: Kentucky Mixed Plate - The Ups and Downs of Appalachia

As it turns out Rosetta and Larry made me too much breakfast. "You like biscuits and gravy?" I'd never had that delicacy before. The gravy was homemade and honestly i did my best with it. It was wise that i took a no-thank-you portion, as Ma would call it, and didn't put the gravy directly on the biscuits like you're supposed to. I delicately dipped a few bites of biscuit in. But what really curtailed my gravy consumption was learning that it was made of bacon fat. From that moment on, I looked at the gravy differently and thought, "I can't do it." I can live without green veggies every day and organic everything and the multi-cultural food haven that is Los Angeles, but the gravy just didn't seem like a good-day's-cycling recipe. I had already eaten a rasher of bacon, it seemed (however much a rasher is), and eggs and toast and oatmeal and OJ. Larry and Rosetta thought i was just too funny, not being able to eat more. Rosetta prepared me two biscuits with the rest of the bacon for the road (but no gravy, thankfully). I can't say for sure, but i strongly believe that Day 11 of this trip marks the most bacon i have ever eaten in a single day in my life, by three-fold at least.

How awesome are these people? Experiences like this one - actually going into a stranger's home and eating breakfast with them and saying thank you and goodbye - are ones that i knew i'd have on this trip but couldn't imagining myself doing it. And asking if i could use their shower!

I left Council knowing that after crossing the state line into Kentucky (28 miles from that point), I'd have FIVE big hills to climb, a couple well over 3,000 feet. It was over 90 miles to Hindman KY where I was going to camp on the grounds of the Knott County Historical Society. I called ahead and spoke to a David there when i was just over the Kentucky state line, saying i probably wouldn't get there until evening, considering the amount of climbs ahead of me. David's pitch about what the campsite offered i replayed over and over in my head that day in order to get me through it: a shower, laundry service, internet access, and a big ice cream sundae. This is a campsite? Sold!

Somehow i expected more fanfare as i crossed my first state line since entering Virginia over a week before. Not a marching band or anything, but something. I took a few pictures of the signs, including one announcing entry into VA since there wasn't one when I crossed the Potomac. A couple differences between VA and KY were readily apparent. First, a great thing about both the trans am route (which I picked up on day four after Jinx's) and the earlier Adventure Cycling Assoc route I started on, the Atlantic coast route (which I began in DC and stayed on for 2.5 days before getting off-route to Jinx) is that while in the state of VA they mirror the routes of state-sponsored bike routes 76 and 1, and these are extremely well-signed. In Kentucky you're on your own. Fair enough. It doesn't all have to be spoon-fed. But I missed those signs reassuring me that I was on the right track. Second, I may have mentioned earlier about Kentucky being THE state on cross-country cyclists' blogs where dogs chase your ads. I hadn't been in KY for more than 8 miles before it started. One after another in certain neighborhoods. Relentless. Not just big scary German Shepherds but smaller Scrappy Doo types as well. Sometimes in pairs, sometimes one on each side of the street. You look at their faces and they're loving it. They get right in front of the bike. A woman I met the other day told me that one vicious cur bit off the pom pom from the heel of her sock. Luckily so far I have managed to escape unscathed due to a car coming, outrunning them or the invisible fence affect which is for territorial dogs who stop when you reach the boundary of their property.

Something else too. It may have just been the route but what seemed apparent to me immediately in KY vs VA was poverty. Farms looked about as crop-yielding as an empty Little House on the Prairie set. Way more abandoned trailers and houses. Convenience stores had less food available, if they were open at all. More confederate flags waving. A few neo-Nazi banners. People are less friendly, outwardly - I mean at stores and public places, on the road (definitely more random unneccessary honking and yelling stupid shit out of the windows of extra loud and noxious pickups), worse food service (and worse food!). (I'm in a "nicer" part of KY as I write this and I still think Virginians to be plain old nicer.) Dentistry seemed worse. There, I said it! But I don't mean it to come out with city-folk arch prejudice, laughing at people I assume to be less educated or fortunate than I am. As an outside observer, I see the effects of the difference of how much one state might spend on education, health care and other services for low-income people. Another difference is that in VA is saw a lot of racial integration, black and white people working together, out together, at the gas station together. In KY I've seen barely any people of color at all.

I don't mean to denigrate Kentucky and elevate Virginia to the hilt. It's all subjective, all my piddly observations. I'm just reinforcing that I don't have an agenda.

Many road signs are riddled with bullet holes in Appalachia. Yippie! And most people, particularly in the poorer Appalchian areas, hang signs on their property saying "Posted: No Tresspassing". Now many of the properties adorned with these inviting signs are places you'd never find yourself wanting to be visiting. But what I've concluded is that what the signs are actually indicating is: there is a gun on that property. Probably several. And the person who put up that sign is not afraid to use it. The signs and the angry dogs mean the same business. "I own this, this is mine, this is all that is mine, and I will defend what's mine. That is my right." Got it. I won't visit. But in looking at this up close, in its own cultural context, I feel I can comprehend why people "cling" to their guns.

Unexpectedly, however, in KY my iPhone works better. Go figure.

Back to the road. One major annoyance is that the flies buzzing around the hills don't seem to have enough to snack on with all the road pizza delivery. As I am pedaling up a hill, sometimes for as much as 45 minutes a shot, what seems like a single fly will swarm my face for a long distance, circling and circling, alternately landing on my nose and neck, humming in my ears, crashing into my lip, as if to say: "You're as good as dead, bud." Or: "This one's moving so slowly I can start eating him now!"

But I'm alive. Alive! The last hill before it's more or less rolling hills to Hindman is just past Pippa Passes. The hottest part of the day is over and it's particularly peaceful there. I call David as soon as I cross into Hindman and be gives me directions. Now I gotta come clean here. The Knott County Historical Society is located up the graveliest, steepest hill ever. For the first time since I started the ride I got off and pushed Whitey up the hill - which after 96 miles was incredibly difficult. It's a bike, I know, but it's laden with weight and I'm wearing cycling cleats, not eastctp walk in under normal circumstances. David, who greeted me with a glass of sweet tea (with lemon and a sprig of something - mint?), informed me that a Swiss guy rode his up the hill so I wasn't the most athletic. But at 96 miles I got props as 3rd most athletic. I'll take it!

This place is cyclist heaven. Shower (though the water naturally smelled like sulfur), tent's already there, I ordered food which got delivered (green beans again!), he took my dirty clothes and washed them immediately, literally waited on me hand and foot, and gabbed my ear off, since I was unable to be an equal participant. And the sundae became the second item I couldn't finish of the day after those biscuits and gravy. Yes, that was the same day, unbelieveably. David's an interesting fellow. He's had a million jobs, including being onstage in his youth. He was kind enough to point out that the KKK was around and they hated blacks first, then Jews, then gays. Oh great. I feel so well-represented. Later on, without thinking and unapologetically (just to let you know the cultural norms down here) David mentioned someone trying to "Jew him down." Ick.

I retired to my tent fending off the many cats on the property who were having an ongoing alpha battle and, while on the phone with Nat, was accosted by a spooky flittering sound from outside the tent. It was a 2-3 inch winged roach of some sort who, David informed me in the mañana, is having its mating season. Thanks, Roachie, for trying but I'm celibate on this trip. *sound of Danny furiously zipping out the intruder from the tent*

More hills and more dogs the next day. I decided it was time to get pepper spray. I had tried briefly and lamely the day before at a few places along the way. I saw a sign for Wal-Mart and thought: now here's a cultural experience I've yet to have. Yes it's true. I am no longer a Wal-Mart virgin. Figured if they got guns, they got pepper spray. I approached the lady at the front of the store with the unfortunate name of Haggie Mae. After some misunderstanding about what I was after, due to my mispronunciation (down in Hazard KY it's called "paper spry"), I was sent to the sporting goods section which nearly a mile walk down the aisles. I felt like a sweaty alien in my tight-fitting superhero costume with helmet tuck under my arm. I stopped at the gun counter. No paper spry. But since I'm here...maybe ah maht be innerested in purchasing mah first firearm? ...

I moved on toward Booneville as vulnerable as a declawed cat. The route on Day 12 was meant to be easier and it was in that it was only going to be 65 miles. The climbs on Day 12 were not as high or long; they just happened to be steep and very close together. One after another. And most occurred on more major highways than on previous days. The roads themselves are in decent shape and have wide shoulders. But the shoulders all have rumble strips which make for teeth-clatteringly unpleasant riding. The outer part of the shoulders are land mines of coal chunks, broken beer bottles and rotten creature corpses. So I had to ride within the narrow bike tire-sized space between the white line of the shoulder and the rumble strips. Oh, and it was a-blazin' at 91 degrees.

David had kindly called ahead for me to Linda's Victorian Rose B and B. The last 2 nights of camping were great and all but I needed a bed tonight. For some reason, maybe it's because it bears Daniel Boone's name and because there was a b and b, I thought that Booneville was a "real place". But the main drag was empty and not under construction like ive seen some other places. I called Linda for directions as soon as I got into town. Her place was one more hill (fuck$&@&"!!) away and she offered to pick me up. I admit I was tempted but declined. Now Linda is one of the absolutely awesomest people I've met so far. Her b and b is on a bit of land, and the whole place - both garden and the house - is chock full of "Victorian" themed knick-knacks. You'll see the pictures eventually. Linda is my mom's age but is stuck cutting the grass herself because no one wants to work, she says. The room was dark and cool. Linda took me into town to grab some food. Green beans and some other gray food items. Great night sleep. In the morning Linda made me a great brekky including 3 different homemade preserves. I took a couple pics of her and she took one of me with the mannequin in her garden. "She can be your date. She's good cuz she won't talk much." I also talked about guns with Linda. She has a 380 with hollow points among others. People don't fuck with Linda. On the way out she told me to tell my mom that I'm a good kid.

In the interest of catching up, I'm not going to get into Day 13. Assume it was somewhat uneventful. Short. From Booneville to Berea to a crappy Super 8 by the side of the 75 Interstate.