mandag 28. juli 2014

Day 46: Biking Bad Weather

137.8 km

There had been a severe thunderstorm rolling in over Kentucky last night and the frequent flashes through the bedroom curtains bore witness of lightning strikes. After a quick breakfast and saying goodbye to Charlie, Fabrice and I headed down the quiet Kentucky country roads. We had discussed the possibility of shaving off a few kilometers from the original route by taking a bigger, straighter road through the countryside and figured we didn't miss much. 



On the way to New Haven, we stopped by a farm where Abraham Lincoln had spent a few years of his childhood and was where he had his first boyhood recollections. His parents later made the decision of moving to Indiana partly because of the presence of slavery in Kentucky at the time. After a quick stop in New Haven, the clouds really started dumping their payload on us with extremely frequent lightning strikes a little too close for comfort, followed by loud cracks of thunder. Unlike in the Rockies, it wasn't bad at all to bike in this weather, in spite of its forceful nature. The mountain rain was fairly colder than this tempered fluid that poured down over our heads, and didn't necessarily require rain gear, something Fabrice surely took advantage of. I was later to learn that there had been issued several tornado warnings in neighboring areas to the east. 




Upon reaching Bardstown - a very nice small town - Fabrice decided to call it a day while I decided to cover some more ground. Fabrice was headed to New York and will be passing through Washington, D.C. as well. The trip can be followed on www.bikingbad.net. 






After tanking up at a walmart, I headed off in solitude on a hilly US Highway. The rain was on and off the entire rest of the day as I passed through Springfield before ending up in Danville. The combination of intense humidity and the heat made it feel like cycling in a sauna and the sweat left my body as juice squeezed from an orange.I entered the lobby of a motel with my clothes completely soaked, ready for a shower and in dire need of a washing machine. 




Later on in the evening I went out to a supermarket to pick up more food and was lucky enough to catch a staggering view of the storm that had been over my head throughout the day. I watched the massive piece of cloud with very frequent flashes of lightning, generated within the interior of this huge body. 

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