Friday, August 4, 2000

Today we rode to Booneville, KY from Irvine, KY, a distance of 40 miles. The route followed various streams. The route would gently climb up a valley until the valley became too narrow and then the route would climb steeply until the top of the hill was reached. Then the route would drop into the next valley along side another stream. At the junction of another stream the route would again follow this new creek up to the top of the hill and then follow another stream into the next valley. At times we would be going 35 miles an hour and a short time later we would again be climbing from 4.5 to 10 miles per hour.

The valleys were narrow and flat. The hills covered with trees. I did not see any buildings in the bottom of the valley. All the buildings were on the edge of the valleys. I speculate that the valley bottom floods from time to time so it is used only for farmland. We came upon an old bridge that crossed one of the streams that was falling apart.

We also saw some creeping fines that almost completely covered trees, poles, bushes and the ground. In places you could not see the trees, just this creeping vine.

Then the lighting and thunder began and the rain began. It was very light rain to begin with, and then got harder. We were climbing a hill and I saw some trees that hung over the road. We stopped because the trees deflected most of the rain. We stayed sort of dry. Finally the rain stopped and we continued on our way. Later we caught up with the rain and again took cover beside the road. This time we were under a ledge caused went the soft lower stone caved in leaving the hard upper stone to make a small shelter. After the rain stopped for the second time we continued on to Booneville, where the sun came out to dry our clothes.

After we had been at the motel for a couple of hours, another bicycle rider arrived. His name is Paul and he is from England. We ate supper with him and after supper we want over our maps of Virginia. Paul is flying from Washington Dulles airport when he returns to England. He was looking for a better route to get from the adventure cycling maps to the airport. We had a very enjoyable time with Paul.