When you CAN'T ride your bike, ask someone to drive you!

Day 28: Winchester to Grayson, KY

We got off to a great start, let me just say that from the get-go.  Our accommodations helped out with that, however.  We found a country house just past Winchester and politely asked if they would be so kind as to let us set up our tent in their yard.  They didn't say much, showed us to a corner of their yard and we didn't really speak to them ever again.  They kept to themselves and didn't seem the least bit interested or impressed about our journey.  

Eh, you can't win them all.  But we weren't broken up about it or anything.  It was quite kind of them to even allow us to stay (seeing as how the 5 people previous kind of looked at us nervously and pointed us to a city park 4 miles back in the other direction!). 

This is where we set up the tent.

Breakfast was next.  This usually consists of oats and granola in water with sliced fruit and/or raisins on top.  We like to have some yogurt (or dairy, really) in our diets too so we found the nearest grocery store and purchased some, as well as some granola bars, bread, etc.

Les to Aaron: "Ok, look excited about yogurt!"

Aaron looks up and does this pose.  BY THE WAY!  Check out how much peaches are in that advertisement!  We have never seen peaches below $1.69/lb.!  Booyah!

Then we got riding.  Same old story, same old beautiful Kentucky country.

Coon-skin hats anybody??

In case you are interested:

Daniel Boone (November 2 [O.S. October 22] 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone. (  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Boone )

And here is where today's ride gets interesting.  We were making great time, as I said earlier, because we were up with the sun and half-way through our first ride of the days (35-40 miles) by noon.  That is making great time for us because we usually get a later start, slug up the road and break (if we get one at all!) at about 2pm.  So we rolled up to the "Fuzzy Duck" coffee shop.  Cute, quaint, and run by a bunch of friendly ladies.  It was a nice place and they had wifi (where we posted Day 27 from), so we grabbed coffee (aaron) and a blended beverage (les) and made sandwiches and settled in.  

An outside shot.

Behold! Peanut Butter and Jelly AND peaches sandwiches!

Our break went great and we felt well rested and ready to attack our second ride and pull into Grayson by about 6pm...until... (watch the video!)

If you could not watch the video, what happened was Aaron got a routine flat tire.  No big deal, these happen all of the time.  He quickly patched it and rolled over to a gas station to add some more pressure.  But never trust a fuzzy duck!  

The 75 cent air machine filled Aaron's tires to their capacity (or so he thought) and we rolled out...until...

POP!!!!!!

Something felt funny about my back tire, and I knew this feeling from my old bike when the tube gets filled with far too much pressure and starts to pop out of the side of the tire.  It doesn't take long before you simply have to sit back and watch the fireworks (the tire exploding).  I knew it when I felt it, got off, stood back and went deaf.  

"uugghh..."  I thought.  Les threw me our last spare tube and I switched it out.  5 minutes later my back tire was ready to go and then, from out of nowhere, my front tire exploded!

The culprit??  The fuzzy duck, probably, or a faulty gauge on the air machine I used at the gas station.  My tires are supposed to go up to 85 psi, and I usually sit them around 70, just to avoid ever blowing them up, and apparently I had them way over their maximum.

All Aaron's stuff scattered, a couple blown tires, and Les' idea (see his thumb) when we realized we didn't have any more spare tubes!

The closest bike shop in this town was more than 10 miles away, and back in the other direction!  When hitchhiking temporarily didn't work, we had no other choice than to send Les back for tubes.  (sorry les!).  

By the time he left it was 3pm, and it would take him about two hours to ride to the shop, buy tubes and then come back.  Then Aaron would have to set up his tires and pack up, which would set us up to leave, AGAIN, by about 5:15ish...which would have put us in Grayson at about 8:15-8:30.  Arriving this late was certainly not ideal (mainly because we had a host, Daniel, a voice teacher at Kentucky Christian University, waiting for us and we didn't want to be rude).  

So Les rode back and I, Aaron, prayed and was to ask folks if they were heading East (toward Grayson).  Before I knew it a man pulled up in front of my stuff, looked me in the eye and gave me a head nod and went inside the convenience store.  I didn't think much of this, other than that I was planning on asking him if "east" was his direction when he came out.  When he did come he said, "Well boy, today ain't your day now is it?"

"No, haha, sure isn't..."

We chatted for a bit and before I knew it he offered to drive us to Grayson because he was headed for Charleston (same direction)!  He was a nice fellow and was more than happy to help out because, in his words, "plenty of people have helped me out in my day, so I just try to give back whenever I can."  We've seen a lot of this "pay it forward" mentality out on the road, and it's always nice when it surprises you with a ride or a meal, or a nice place to sleep for the night!

When you can't ride your bike (no tubes!), ask someone to drive you!