Today started out pretty sad, because we had to leave Hazard, but Sherry sent us off with a bountiful breakfast of delicious Banana Pancakes. The first thing we saw as we pedaled out of Hazard was this enormous hill, with construction all the way up, which resulted in a few minutes where I was definitely white knuckling the handlebars. The rest of the ride before lunch was not too long, but very hilly. After we got out of the Appalachians I thought the elevation would be a little gentler, but these foothills are almost as rough as the mountains themselves. We rolled into lunch in the picnic area of a year-round school that was nice enough to let us use their facilities.
After lunch, it was my turn to drive in the van, so I ran a few errands before we got to our campsite, picking up sausage for pasta and getting gas (apparently there are places outside of New Jersey and Oregon where you don’t pump your own gas).
Some of our group are really fast, because they beat me to the campsite, which was a field and pavilion behind a presbyterian church where bikers can set up tents. We met another biker who was staying there with us, Mike, who was biking from Colorado to the East coast. It really is a small world because after talking with Mike for a while I found out he grew up in the same town I’m from, and we went to the same grade/middle school.
Maile and Devin made delicious pasta for dinner, and though It’s raining pretty hard right now, today was a good day.
PS - Pictures will be coming, the wifi where I'm posting is not very good