Day 16, 6/20/77
We left Buckhorn wet. Our clothes, the tent and even the sleeping bags were wet. Our gear seemed to be holding up, however. The bikes, tent, stove and even the cheap $16 sleeping bags were serving us well. We thought we would be nice to our sleeping bags and put them all in the next dryer we found. So, after a tough climb into Booneville (a lot of towns are named after Daniel in Kentucky), over a couple of steep walking mountains, our bags dried while we had lunch. About the time everything was ready, a severe thunderstorm hit. We were dry, but trapped in the laundromat. We discussed hitching, riding in the rain, spending the night in Booneville—finally riding off in a light drizzle.
After about 10 miles, we got off to hitch. We didn’t want to fight the rain and the mountains, too. A fruit truck picked us up. The men were very nice, but we had to ride in the back with the bikes. It was very dark and very bumpy. I was tired, and perhaps sleepy. There were also some fumes. In any event, I fell asleep and for a few minutes slept very soundly. I also dreamt, but was unable to remember the dream.
Finally the ride was over. They had driven out of their way to take us right to US 421, which leads to Berea. But it was hard to get back into the riding mood. I was groggy and slightly nauseous, and Inanna and I felt distant from each other. “I need to ride for a little while to get back into the swing of things”, I said, meaning maybe a mile, but we rode ten miles, all the way to McKee. Inanna was frustrated, tired, discouraged, confused—should we ride on in the rain? Camp here? Hitch to Berea? Why had we ridden the last ten miles?
We finally got groceries, cleaned up in a grimy gas station bathroom, and rode back a half mile to a ball park to camp. It had finally stopped drizzling, and we camped behind the left-centerfield wall, right at the end of a cement shuffleboard court, on grass. We called the shuffleboard court our “porch”, and we watched 2 ½ baseball games through the chain-link fence while we set up camp and had dinner. The lights of the ballfield made us think the sun wasn’t yet down. We finally got to bed at ten and slept well.