Jill's Bike Log 6/21

6/21 Mon- Destination, Louisville, KY. (Biked 28 miles; total 474). Packed up camp and on the road by 8:30. Drove to Tell City to begin biking. This is the only day on the trip that we don’t have a SAG driver. Mal was asleep in the van so I decided to start as the SAG driver. Trevor and Bryce road 26 miles on winding, back country roads. Bryce drove and Trevor sagged while Mal and I rode the next leg. We had our first vicious dog encounter. Two dogs charged out at Mal, so she stopped in the road. My mother bear instincts came out so I charged in front of Mal to ward off the dogs. Fortunately they were just barkers. Down the road a few miles, another dog came towards us. The owner who was working in the yard assured us he wouldn’t bite. He looked like a geriatric, obese, yellow lab. As he came loping towards us, I thought he was going to have a coronary as he was gasping and grunting in his efforts to move forward.

We followed the Ohio River, but started to get on county roads with limited signage. We took a wrong turn and started heading down a gravel road. After about 4 miles, decided it couldn’t be the correct route. Beck-tracked and found the boys parked on the side of the road waiting for us. They forewarned us that we had two very steep hills to climb up. Mal was pumped for biking, so headed out. They weren’t kidding that the hills were steep… I was in my granny gear and could barely pedal forward and my with my heavy breathing I sounded like a freight train. It felt more taxing than any of the hills we climbed in Missouri. I don’t know where Mallory got the energy, but she blew ahead of me. At the top of the mountain, I was wiped out and not looking forward to a steep downhill grade. (I’m still somewhat of a wimp going fast down steep down hills). Mal decided to continue riding, and Bryce and Trevor joined her. The three of them road to together for the next 15 miles, at which time Mal got into the van and Bryce and Trevor biked the last 7 miles. As I was loading Mal’s bike onto the van, a little mutt came up to us whose tongue was hanging out from panting. It looked like he had a healing wound on his hind quarters. He was a friendly little guy. We had no available bowls to give him water, so we improvised and used Mal’s crock. He lapped up a bunch of water and seemed satisfied and took off back down the road.

We headed to the Louisville airport to pick up my sister Karen to be our SAG driver for the next two weeks. She drove a one way rental car from Ithaca, NY with my 16 year old niece Tessa and her boyfriend Mat. We headed back to the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church where she dropped off Mat and Tessa. The church opened up to us, use of their former meeting house adjacent to the new church they built. We laid out our beds in the room they called the “wedding chapel.” We were all set as it was air conditioned, and had a shower and kitchen for us to use. We walked across the street to eat supper. We shared tappas entrées at a place called Mojitos Tappas. Tasty…Went back to our sleeping quarters for the evening and played a rousing game of “Catch Phrase,” which was new to everyone except Bryce, Mal and I.