Catchup

Eat that horsee!!!! Technology wins!!!
Purty roads at 7 AM after Mammoth Caves.

Whoa now, don't get too excited.
Guy from Netherlands, heading East. 58 years old. Check out his Dutch setup. Aparently these rigs are ubiquitous over yonder. Talking to him was quite inspiring- Western Express is looking to be real hard, but freaking awesome. We shall see. He's been all over the place. Toured the Netherlands 4 times-- twice with wife, once with son, once with daughter. He says Amsterdam is still the most beautiful city he's been to. I might have to check it oot.

Amish country clouds.

The cicadas are in full force these days. We found hundreds on an Orange Osage tree in Harrodsburg. Lincoln country.

Bourbon capital of the world: ah crap I forget the name. There was a bourbon refinery to the left of this frame.

Mammoth caves were pretty sweet. Touristy as hell, but sweet. And cold too. 54 degrees. You can only go down in a tour, so you don't mess up stuff. The scale was pretty amazing.

I am still alive. I haven't seen a scale in a month, but I think I've lost some weight. Not good. Trying to gain it back at Mammy's Kitchen.

Insanely wierd sunset in Carbondale.
Hiding from the rain in front of JC Penny. We left shortly afterward, and got poured on. Can't stop whistling that song- "Raindrops keep fallin on my head..." You know the one. Crazy storm, Carbondale. There was lightening jumping from the cloud into thin air. Never seen anything like it.

As you may already know, I almost never drink caffeine. However, I felt a little guilty while using 8 travel books at one time at Barnes & Nobles (scoping out the West and SanFran) so I got a grande Americano. I am currently completely freaking out in my head. It took me 10 minutes to find Kerouac's On the Road because I couldn't say my ABC's to K. I kept on getting messed up around F. I'm not kidding. So please excuse any idiocy in this post.

So, stuff that's happened:

• Won a race against a couple kids in an Amish buggy. Smoked em good. Pics soon.





• Ran into 3 girls from Boston area, heading West, they've been sticking with us for a few days, though they'll prolly split soon. Telula, Becca, and I've forgotten the other's name about fifty times now. They might be headed to San Fran, so we may meet again.




• Before Elizabethtown, stayed at Baptist church, courtesy of Bob and Violet. It was absolutely ridiculous. Violet served us a humongous dinner: creamed corn, amazing chicken salad, black eyed peas w/ salsa, ham, salad, canaloupe, ice cream w/ every conceivable topping, brownies, and sweet tea. They do this for every biker that comes through. 31 last week. 200+ last year. Ridonk. Watched the Pianist. Depressing, but good.



• Left Kentucky. Western Kentucky was pretty sweet. There were about 3 days of picturesque rolling farmland. I'll miss it. Despite that fact, we all let out a war-whoop of joy as soon as we rolled off the ferry into Illinois. Woo hoo. We'll be crosst the Mississippi by the end of today.


• Anne caught the itis, something similar to what I got on the WORST RIDE EVER. She's had a lot of real life stuff going on, and she's leaving us today. I've been hanging back with her on a regular basis now, and I'll be sad to see her go. I'm not surprised though- she wasn't determined to get to the west coast, she only wanted to see stuff and have fun. I don't think I would make it if I wasn't so bent on getting to San Fran. We'll see. 2500 more miles, not much time. Ahhhhhhhhhh crappppp....

• Left my iPod in my jersey pocket when I put it in the wash. It's not turning on. $150 down the drain. I suck. Bad.
• Lost my Art to Wear handkercheif shortly after letting it hang in my brake pad and frying it.
• Bike looks more and more hobo-like every day.
• With Anne gone, it looks like I'm almost certainly doing the Western express leg (Pueblo CO, to Sanfran) solo. I've got mixed feelings. I'll probably talk to more people, learn a bit more. But the 1500 miles will probably be a bit harder, more lonely, more dangerous without some riding partners- what with the lack of water and civilization and whatnot. We shall see is all I can say. I just hope to get to the Rockies asap. We've been taking it a bit slower than I hoped we would, and this is the easy stuff.

The caffeine is still freakin me out here. Everybody gone. Must go find others. PS, Carbondale is big. Multistory buildings. Weird.

Fare thee well

Steven

Carbondale

06-27-08