Day 18/19 til Falls of Rough

Day 18
We did make it to Hodgenville, after a good 2 hour downpour, which, although, really beautiful to watch the rain coming over the fields and cool us down a bit, did eventually prune us up a good bit and we were happy to dry out.

We stopped at the first friendly place in Hodgenville, the Cozy Cafe, which the owner had created by simply transforming the front room of her house and porch into a cafe. We ate some baklava, had warm joe, and talked to her and her daughter and grandbabies and great-grand jack-russell/chiwawa (sp?) puppies on their porch for a bit, before we somewhat grumpily biked off in search of shelter for the night.

We were debating between motelling it and finding the county park that offered camping to cyclists, as we road past statues of Honest Abe as a child and president (Hodgenville is where he was born and raised for a bit, and they are definitely, and justifiably proud of this fact). The decision was almost decided for us when we scoped out the park and Donald, the park's super, drove up to us in his truck and told us to head over to the pavilion area as severe storms were supposed to occur that night and we'd be a bit more protected there. This turned out to be great advice, as the storms were severe, but protected under this large pavilion, we were able to keep our tent open and watch the storms all night.

We showered in the park's pool restrooms, which were sort of like spickets above your heads and the shower curtain was an enormous piece of plywood that you just sort of propped up against the stall, before enjoying some local pork tenderloin (soo freakin good) and frozen vegetables (so freakin necessary) at the local grill. Our dinner was topped off by deep-fried pb and j sandwich with cool whip, and although Andy may think this sacriledge, I actually wasn't too impressed with the dessert.

Day 19 Saturday
Slept well enough with the storms and then were back off to the Cozy Cafe for checkers, conversation, and coffee (it was the only thing open early and the lady was really nice).

We headed to Rough River Dam State Park. A long day of biking along Route 84 with lots of corn fields, golden-orange hay fields, hills and flats. It was a pretty gorgeous day for riding, although the storm clouds kept faking us out, and I felt like my knees were "feeling the approaching storm" all day long, a bit to my chagrin. I also kept having the sense that we had entered some sort of kingdom and were now biking up some long threshold to the palace doors. This was the first day I noticed how big the sky had gotten.

Lucy and Alea Lucas (mom and daughter) greeted us at Hardin Springs (about halfway) at their Double L grocery/hostel with a couple of free popsicles (what I knew as a kid to be 'chilli-willies') which was perfect, and then were super hospitable and eager to talk to us. They had recently purchased a school that closed down and although working full time eslewhere and running this store, are trying to get something going with this great building. Andy suggested artist-residencies/colony or something of this nature as Lucy seemed to be very interested in bringing more art to the area. So if any artists are interested in getting away to beautiful country (although if you are vegetarian this may be a more difficult undertaking- stock lots of frozen veggie burgers) contact us or her 270-862-5129.

Ok. Getting long-winded and running out of alloted lib. time.

We got to Falls of Rough, exhausted, mentally fatigued with our brains running only on meat pretty much and not a lot of nutrients, but happy (esp. as we had gained an hour and entered Central Time....w0ohoo), took a brief dip in the dammed up lake, and then ate the buffet meal at the lodge (all vegetarian yay!), fell asleep in their big comfy chairs in front of a Tina, Cher and Oprah interview, did laundry, realized we had set our tent on an ant hill, and quickly took shaking action. I think the locals thought we were insane as we moved our tent all around the campsite. It was supposed to rain but didn't and we slept very very well.