Day 17/18 Berea to Danville, Danville to Hodgensville

So we have deterred from our TransAm route a bit and are posting from Lebanon, KY where we hope to eat a delicious burger n' fries from Big Jim's before we head out.

Yesterday we left Berea on a stomach full of sugary nutritionless continental breakfast. Continental has never been so inaccurately used. We were rewarded however by some less rigorous terrain (still hilly), trees, and friendly horses and cows. We stopped for some sandwiches at the saddest little grocery that we have seen so far. The window glass was broken and dirty. The inside was a bit dungeonlike with about 3 ft square of shelf space for every can of potted meat. The lady made us some much needed sandwiches with love, really good lettuce and tomato, and Miracle Whip (which seems to be a favorite here). The shop was apparently also the playground for her cute red-haired son and his babysitter, an ageless Kentuckian, maybe her husband, brother, or father.

We moved on through these curling roads without too much traffic, successfully navigated (with some locals help) several 'unsigned' turns, which is always a bit intimidating. Lots of tree canopies and creeks, a saved turtle, and some dogs that sounded like they were choking on their own spit as they ran after us. We must smell delicious.

At Bryantsville, we made the decision to leave our beloved TransAm map, and go off course to Danville (pop. 15,000) that contains the only bike shop for the next 6 days or so.

We expected our time in Danville to be brief. I was looking for some handlebar attachments to change my grip, but it turned into a rebirth of my bicycle thanks to the shop owner Ernst. We had lunch while he started working some magic at the Hub Coffeehouse, where we were photographed as locals by a lady from Southern Living, spoke to one of the waiters there and found out he intends to relocate to Manhattan in the fall for school at Union Theological Seminary, hopefully he looks us up.

Back at Danville Bike and Footwear, Ernst had taken complete inventory of my bike, whose name is Agnes, and slowly but surely, tightened things that were about to fall off, added toe clips, the handlebar attachements, a new front wheel (with pointers that the back soon needed replacing), realigned the brakes, adjusted the derailer, and most excitingly switched out the front part of the drive train, so that it's no longer a double, but a triple, so I now, most excitingly, have 20 working gears, as opposed to 13! Wahoo! And Matyr Andy can use his lowest gears as well, so he doesn't force himself to "sympathy" ride anymore.

Ernst and his eldest son (who is currently gardening in Monet's Giverny) had done the TransAm(ish) route over a 6 year period. Having taken a few weeks each summer to complete it on a Tandem bike, while his son was 10-16, he knew what we were up against and felt compassion even with a full house of bikes to be worked on. We so appreciate his help. His service was pretty superior than what he had previously encountered in the, um, Richmond bike shops.

His helper Travis was also a pretty interesting fellow. He had recently been run off the road on his bike and was recooperating by helping out at this shop. He plays banjo and fiddle and bikes around to various music festivals about. We want to look up his NYC friends' band, Powder Keg.

Needless to say, it was about 5pm when we got out of the bike shop, so Danville ended up being our resting place for the night. Still a 45 mile day.

We scurried over to the Pioneer Playhouse Campground (a funky little dinner/theater/campground, where apparently John Travolta got his start at about age 15.) We ate at the empty Red Rooster (rooster everything) and the fried okra hit the spot!

It was supposed to thunderstorm, but it never did rain, just lots of thunder and lightning. We slept well, got up and have ridden through Perryville and now to Lebanon. Our goal for tonight is Hodgensvillle.