Kentucky

Day 14, 6/18/77

With that early start we rode before breakfast.  The cool, early summer morning was a nice change from the hot midmornings in which we usually began each day’s cycling.  We could see a good-sized mountain ahead, but Delbert Tackett had told us about an alternate route around it, which turned out to be a very nice road.  We ate breakfast in front of a store, which was closed, hoping to get something good to drink.  Farther down the road we saw a store with a big Mountain Dew sign, and I remembered a delicious Mountain Dew I had drunk after a tennis match at Oceana on a hot summer’s day such as this one.  So I was amazed to find that this store had no Mountain Dew, in spite of the sign! 

The day was quite hot and we could find no good water.  Finally, we did find some from a rusty pipe, and we were suspicious so put iodine tablets in it.  We found a closed gas station and two empty house trailers, and had to climb a very steep hill.  Luckily, it was short and then we could coast down into Pippa Passes, Kentucky.

Pippa is home to a nice college, Alice Lloyd College, and is a quaint little town.  It was an oasis from the Appalachian environment in which we had been immersed, and the difference was striking.  Instead of the junkiness of the narrow roads through the bottoms of the hollows, with small houses right beside the road, trash thrown onto the shoulders, loud cars, empty trailers and closed stores, Pippa was full of pretty shops selling Appalachian crafts.  We again met up with the group of bikers that included Joey, Sue, and Ken, at a place called, amazingly, the Bike Inn.  We had a hot dog dinner and were invited to sleep in the day care center, which is part of the college, along with the nine in the other biking group.  During the night a strong rainstorm came up and the roof sprung a leak—we all had to move around in the day care center to find a dry place to sleep.