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| Planet Kentucky |
The remainder of the great state of Virginia went rather smoothly...I did a short day out of Troutville to the Lee's house in Radford...Dr. Thad Lee and his wife (soon to be Dr.) Sarah have been hosting TransAm cyclists for more then 20 years...They are wonderful folks and another shining example of Virginian Hospitality...I Called Thad at his office – per the answering machines instruction at their home – and we had a short conversation about my current trip and status...He gave me directions to their house and I asked him when I could expect him, thinking that surly the house would be locked...Much to my amazement – and I don't know why I was so amazed – he instructed me that the back door was unlocked and to let myself in, grab a shower and something to eat...In short, to make myself at home! Now thats true southern hospitality!
The following day I decided to skip the Damascus section of the trail and run Highway 11 instead...The whole issue being more rain and Mt. Rogers...Mt. Rogers is the tallest peak in VA, some 5,500 feet above sea level...The Appalachian Trail goes over Mt. Rogers and I know from experience that if it's raining in the valley, then the peak is fogged in and wet...And as there are no views up there on the road – all the stellar views are in the High Lands behind Rogers – I decided to skip it...
Now, there are two different Appalachian mountain chains on the East coast...The Blue Ridge, which are quite young and the old Appalachians of eastern Kentucky...The old Appalachians were old when the Blue Ridge was being formed...Virginia rock is only about a half billion years old whereas the Kentucky mountains were that old already as the Blue Ridge were being formed...So the ridges of Kentucky have a much different feel to them then the Blue Ridge do...But Kentucky is, in and of it's self, it's own little world...
Kentucky has a reputation amongst cross country cyclists as having a serious dog problem...The dogs in KY will, at times, hurt themselves going after cyclists...And to them it isn't just fun and games...They will flat out bite you if they get close...True to form, I have had – exponentially – more dog issues in Kentucky then I have had the entire trip...To compound this issue, their owners will sit on their porch and watch the dog go after you without saying a word...This is illustrated most clearly during my very first afternoon in the state...Coming out of a little town called Ash Camp, I had my first dog encounter...Two of them came after me...Some hick had the audacity to stand on his porch and tell me that “It's your fault, bud!” I was dumbfounded by the absolute level of stupidity required to believe such a thing! I am on a legal vehicle on a public access, yet in this morons eyes it was “my fault” that the dogs were coming after me...Fortunately, I entered KY with a bottle of dog repelled and had to use it 3 or 4 times in the first few days I was in the state...
To compound the problem even further, eastern KY is extremely poor...Words cannot entirely describe the amount of poverty...Many of the homes I saw for many days were nothing more then shacks hobbled together by what ever materials they could get their hands on, or dilapidated mobile homes that should have been scrapped years ago...I found out from a couple that invited me up to their home in Buckhorn for a shower one night...Pat and Vita, who are life long Kentuckians...Pat works for the Congressman who's district encompasses much of the eastern side of the state and he told me that there are very few building codes in KY...The mentality is “It's my land and I'll do it the way I want to!” Eastern Kentucky's primary – and seemingly 'only' – industry is coal...It's everywhere...It litters the roads...It's burned by the locals instead of wood during the winter...Seams of it can be seen as one rides along the road...And it's, for the most part, the only employer in the state...There are generations of families that have mined coal...They do it, their father did it, their grandfather did it and their great grandfather did it...I would see seams of coal along the road where it was very obvious that the locals were mining it for heating fuel in the winter...It's all about coal in eastern KY...
Kentucky is also – to my dismay – the driest state in the union...And I mean dry like the Sahara desert...You can't find a drop of liquor, beer or wine for sale anywhere! Of the 24 counties I rolled through in the state, all but 4 of them were dry...There was one shinning point for the beer and whiskey lover in KY, however...Bardstown...Bardstown is not only a wet county, it is also the home of the Heaven Hill Distilling company that offers a free tour and tasting right on the trail...I mean, what is a respecting lover of good whiskey to do when you roll up on a sign the size of a billboard telling you this opportunity is only 200 yards away? Well, naturally I stopped...I left rubber marks where I came to a screeching halt...It was quite a good tour, I learned a lot about the evolution of Bourbon as a distinctive American drink...And a $320 bottle of single barrel bourbon is some damn fine stuff! The price, interestingly, has nothing to do with the whiskey proper...It's all hand bottled and hand labeled...Thats why it's $320 a bottle...
Bourbon was discovered by accident, literally...Originally, corn liquor was – and is -- a clear liquid, just like good ole moon shine -- that was Kentucky's first real export...The whiskey made there was then shipped down river to a thirsty market in New Orleans...One of these distillers was a man by the name of Elijah Craig...One day he had a barn fire, it didn't do much damage but it did char his whiskey barrels...Being a frugal man he chose to use them any way and and loaded his whiskey into the charred barrels...During the 6 month trek to New Orleans a transformation took place and the expected clear liquid that discharged from the barrels was an amber color with a wonderful aroma...Bourbon had been born! This amber liquid was clamored for by the thirsty New Orleans population and Kentucky would become the home of bourbon distilling from that point on...With such a deep history with whiskey I am absolutely perplexed as to why so much of the state is dry! But, alas! Such is the power of the morality of the Baptist bible belt!
See, there seem to be only one denomination in Kentucky, Baptists...There are two types, the first is called “freewill”, meaning that they 'swing from the chandeliers' – as my Dad would say – the other is 'Old Regular'...I asked one day what an Old Regular Baptist was and was told they had a number of strange rules...Like the women had to wear long dresses and couldn't cut their hair...Sounds more like a cult to me...But once I was told of some of these things, they all of the sudden stood out boldly to me, at least the women did...But it is because of the baptists is the reason Kentucky is so arid!
But as the days passed the mountains of the old Appalachian's gave way to rolling hills and the coal littered roads gave way to tobacco littered roads...Now I am about 10 miles from the Ohio river and in the morning I start heading due south on the last leg of this epic journey...In about 2 weeks I expect to be done...It hasn't set in yet...I have been on the road for 7 months...Long enough for this trip to have become a life style...It's time to start thinking about how I am going to decompress from this...Kentucky is my 22nd state and when I am done I will have 25 states under my belt...Theres a lot going on in my mind now...My next post will be somewhere in Missin-Hippie – Mississippi...The long road home is almost over...
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