Since last posting we’ve crossed the Ohio River, the southern tip of Illinois, the Mississippi River, and half of Missouri. Today we rest for a day in the middle of the Ozarks.

Here are our bikes lined up on the ferry to cross the Ohio River into Illinois after a rain delayed start from Marion, Kentucky.

These buzzards were hanging out in the adjoining campsite one morning waiting for the sun to heat things up and create some “thermals” to ride aloft to start their daily search for fresh overnight road-kill. And there is plenty to keep these clean-up crews busy!

Here I am at our first sighting of the Mighty Mississippi about twelve miles south of Chester, MO, the town where the originator of Popeye lived and modeled the characters after some of the “river people” he knew. We passed a grain elevator for loading grain onto barges on the river, and pictured is a coal elevator as well.

Bob and Wally both pose with the town’s bronze statue of Popeye. Wally is our ride leader and also happens to be the President of the board for Adventure Cycling Association. Doctor Chuck is shown with the bridge behind him.

At our daily evening map meetings like this one at the Volunteer Fire Department where we stayed in Utica, Kentucky, we discuss the route for the next day. Cook assignments are also announced along with our destination and the venue where we will be staying. We have stayed at lots of churches where we can have access to a kitchen and sleep indoors, a welcome luxury.

At the Eagles Lodge in Chester we met these two intrepid twenty-something’s, Jenny and Lynn, doing the Transam on bikes outfitted with cat-litter-container panniers. The next morning it didn’t take long before they “chicked” us on the first hill. Our strongest rider, Tom, tried to “unchick” them to no avail. They had passed us after starting eleven days after us!

Tom relaxes in “Al’s Place”, a biker hostel in Farmington, MO. This is the nicest bike hostel in the country, a designated historical building that had served as a jail.Bonjour Marie, one of two Canadian ladies on our tour smiling after another long day in the saddle.

There are three others who are blogging about this trip and I invite you to visit their sites for more pictures and stories. Steve Malikowski has some action videos that are really fun to watch and he is an excellent writer. He has video of me scrambling to rescue my tent as it’s being blown away in a fierce thundershower. And yesterday he took video of the two of us bombing down an hill and, oh yeah, a priceless shot of me on foot pushing my load uphill in a complete state of exhaustion. Tracy’s blog is a good day-by-day account, and Bob is a very interesting blogger who has been at it for some time. Here are their sites:

Bob Kissinger’s blog

Steve Malikowski’s Blog

Tracy Stolberg’s Blog

The advance reports of the loose dogs in Kentucky that love to ambush passing cyclists turned out to be true. We were armed with pepper spray and air horns to deter the attacks and we used them. However, the ferocity of the canines was not as bad as the tales would tell. Not surprising, the tales had grown taller as they circulated through the TransAm community.

Yesterday we surpassed the thousand mile mark in Utica, Kentucky. Jenny, Chuck, Charlie and Tom marked the occasion.

The time and energy to blog has been limited to the off days since the days we ride are filled from morning to night. But every day is filled with new sights and new adventure, too much to keep track of sometimes. Kentucky is a beautiful state from the Appalachians in the east to the rolling hills and farm country of the west.

Here is the first coal mine we passed on our first day in the state. Four of us stopped at the driveway while Wally, our ride leader, pulled up a satellite image of the site.

Just over the ridge we could see that entire mountain tops were being removed in strip mining operations. Later we passed three mines that had been shuttered.

After seeing the poverty of the area, the ramshackle trailers that comprised about half of the housing we saw from the road, I will never feel the same way about news from coal country. The people who settled here sold their timber for a song during one generation and then sold their mineral rights for a song in another generation. Untold wealth was extracted from the area and the residents were left with barely enough to build schools.

Western Kentucky is a rolling postcard with mile after mile of beautiful green hills and farms growing corn, soybeans and hay. There are no shoulders on the winding roads so cars (actually they are mostly pick-up trucks) must slow down and wait for an opportunity to pass. But the drivers are patient and they smile and wave when they finally pass. The people we meet are friendly and helpful. I must confess though, that the thick accents make them hard to understand with my compromised hearing.

Here is a sampling of the sights from the state whose motto is “United we stand, divided we fall.”

The Appalachian Mountains have been very tough. For the last week and a half there have been no flat roads; we are either going up or down. And steep gradients over ten percent are common.

There are three other riders with blogs, but like me they are not posting much either. Instead it’s been about survival for all of us…too exhausted for blogging.

Our layover day in Damascus at “Woodchuck Hostel” was a chance to glimpse a special subculture.

This was a twenty-something hiker nerd flophouse, one of dozens in this town that exists solely as a hiker center. We happened to hit town the same weekend as the annual “Trail Days” festival, the largest gathering of hikers in the world.

We crossed into Kentucky where the new growth on the trees was springing to life with a beautiful lime green. Sunlight infused the forest from top to bottom making it seem like it had its own internal light. And the wild honeysuckle wafted in the air as we traversed valley after valley.

We stayed at the Freeda Harris Baptist Center our first night in Kentucky.

It’s a real adjustment to have my metabolism revved up to about four thousand calories a day for days on end. It’s all about trying to help the body recover at the end of each day to be able to go out again the next morning. We are all gradually getting stronger. The chance to experience America from the backroads and small towns…at ten miles an hour…on a bike…is what we came for. So far the trip has delivered on this promise. The time we’ve had in coal country has been eye-opening. More to come.

Our little caravan is traveling on a well worn route that was created and mapped in 1976 by the non-profit organization that became Adventure Cycling Association. The occasion was the USA bicentennial and thousands took part in the bike ride across the country called the “Bike-Centennial.”

Today, there are still many cyclists traveling this route and we meet fellow travelers along the way. One amazing experience was riding by the house where the legendary “Cookie Lady” lived in Afton, Virginia. She began offering cyclists water, cookies, and free hostel beds in her expansive basement that first year and continued to host traveling cyclists almost up until her death in 2012. She became a legend.

The door was open and we walked right in and looked around. Although someone was keeping the place dusted, it appeared like it was untouched with every inch covered with postcards, newspaper clippings, photos and memorabilia from the thousands of cyclists that passed through over a thirty five year period, a living museum.

Mom is 95 years old and lives in a Newport Beach tri-level condo she and my father bought in 1980. She has a caregiver come on the weekdays but is on her own at night and gets by weekends with friends and family. In other words, she’s doing pretty well..

Here is Mom with the man with whom she has her one weekly standing appointment, her hairdresser, Michael.

On this Mothers Day I’m grateful for a mom who is now the grand matriarch of the family, who has devoted her life to the well-being of her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.

When I first started talking about a cross country bike trip it was going to be a solo effort. Mom said she forbid it! Absolutely not!

Of course, I always listen to Mom so when I ended up on an organized tour with ten others, she was resigned. I’m sending her daily postcards from my phone and now she approves.

Meet the ten riders who have self selected to cycle across the country with people they don’t know and become part of a unique “family”. The very nature of the trip, self contained with no vehicle support, means we will be depending on each other.

Shopping, cooking and clean-up for the group is shared. Two people do the work every five days. This first week we are getting used to the routine and learning the ropes. We have a terrific ride leader from Adventure Cycling Association who is next to me in the photo above, Wally.

Marie is French Canadian and one of two women on the ride. The day before we were set to depart from Williamsburg she had a freak fall in the parking lot at the motel and broke her wrist! It looked like her ride might end before it began. Instead of leaving with us in the morning she went to see an orthopedist. This evening, at the campground where we landed after two days of riding, Marie rejoined us. Here she is showing off her new cast. We are so glad to have her back with us.

It turns out that each of us has a unique reason for taking this journey as we have started to share with each other. We all know that we will be quite changed when it’s over, but at this point we don’t know just how. The journey has only begun.

After meeting each other yesterday afternoon over dinner, the ten transam riders took a shakedown ride to Yorktown today. It’s fitting that I start my journey in the same spot where America started its journey here where the British surrendered.

The ceremonial dip of the rear wheel in the Atlantic took place amid lots of picture taking as we share the excitement of launching on our ride. As Woody Allen noted, “Eighty percent of life is just showing up.” We have shown up, each for various reasons. Sitting here where Alexander Hamilton and friends fought for the ideals we revere, I’m glad that “I’m not throwin’ away my…SHOT!”

 

Good morning Santa Barbara! Roadside flowers singing to the sun…