June 11, 2024
Off the TransAm on Highway 80 - Hindman to Hazard
I neglected to mention an interaction with three old guys at a filling station yesterday. I stopped to buy a cold drink but this was an old fashioned filling station. Just car repairs and gas. The old men spoke mountain English. Fortunately I could understand most of what they said. “There’s a Faniky Dollar just up the road.”One of them got up and fetched a cold bottle of water from his pickup and poured it into my empty bike bottle. Nice guy.
I should also mention the ten-year-old boy who helped me take my things up the stairs to the hostel. Nice kid.
I hung out in the hostel playing word games on my phone and trying not to think of steep hills and aggressive dogs. I skipped breakfast because mass quantities of pizza were still working their way through my tummy.
The hostel room is up some stairs from the street so it took some time to get started. I hit the road around 9:30. Two miles later I came upon this.
A bridge was being replaced. This area of Kentucky was devastated by severe flooding in 2022. This bridge was one of the victims.
There was a steep, narrow dirt path on the other side of the equipment. At best, I could get through in 15 minutes; at worst, I could tumble over the side and die a quick death in the river. Now that I think about it, maybe I have that backwards.
I looked at Google maps and decided to improvise a detour. I backtracked to Hindman (just a couple of bored old dogs along the way). I headed over to Kentucky state highway 80, a four-lane road with very wide shoulders and rumble strips.
One kind of rumble strip was narrow and deep. If you hit them at speed you have to stop and pick up your filings. In Kentucky these strips are continuous, only broken when a side road intersects with the highway. That means you can’t cheat by using the travel lane then cutting through a gap in the rumble strip to safety.
The other kind of strip was quite shallow and spanned the entire paved shoulder (which was often 20-feet or more wide). I preferred the latter. It was no bumpier than the backroads.
After a long climb I came upon a detour sign that indicated I could return to my planned TransAm route. Nope. I like this four lane just fine. The only dogs I heard were caged at an animal shelter I passed.
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The highway cut through the tops of mountains that came about one mile apart. The climbs were significant but not very steep. No walking today.
It’s a good thing today is another cool day because there was absolutely no shade on the highway.
After about a dozen of these hills I saw a sign for WalMart. I knew there was one across from my hotel but I wasn’t expecting it yet. Sure enough my hotel was only a quarter mile farther.
The Walmart was part of a shopping district on the top of one of the mountains. I’ve seen this in West Virginia.
There are several eateries in this flattop complex. I chose Wendy’s for lunch. A chicken wrap really hit the spot. I lingered to kill time until check in.
There’s a rental car agency next to the hotel. It has dozens of shiny cars. So tempting until I googled a return route to home. THERE’S NO WAY OUT OF HERE!!!
Tomorrow is a long, hilly one with more dogs and a possible flood-related detour.
Today's ride: 22 miles (35 km)
Total: 835 miles (1,344 km)
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