Day 21: To Central City

September 29, 2014

Today will be a long day so I got up early and quickly left the motel and ate breakfast at McDonalds. On the road at 7:25. 60F, sunny.

I pedaled west, climbing 300 feet to the turnoff to the cave, then continued west on KY 70. For 15 miles it's in the national park, all forested with commercial vehicles prohibited. Fall colors are starting in the cool forested hills of the park, but nowhere else in the area.

No houses, no farms, and no commercial vehicles allowed for 15 miles through the National Park.

There was very little traffic until KY 70 connects to KY 101 which has heavy traffic for 2 miles to Brownsville.

I see very few wild flowers this time of year.

Brownsville is the most prosperous town I've seen in several days. It seems to have thriving agricultural and manufacturing industries.

North of Brownsville I turned west onto KY 70. Finally light traffic again. Big rolling hills, but no super-steep grades. Alternating between forested hills and small farm valleys.

I was surprised to see oil tanks in several places. Several places smelled like oil. I didn't know this region had a bit of oil.

I was surprised to see crude oil tanks in the middle of Kentucky.

More oil tanks. They must not be sealed well because the smell was very strong.

Traffic got heavy again when KY 70 connected to KY 79 for the last 4 miles into Morgantown. I had lunch at Kountry Kitchen restaurant. What a treat. The first "mom and pop" restaurant I've seen in several days.

Morgantown is also fairly prosperous, more like regular middle America. It's kind of nice to leave impoverished Appalachia behind.

I never saw horse carriages in Kentucky.

West of Morgantown the road continues to be rolling, but the hills get gradually smaller.

Highway 70 in west central Kentucky, with the usual rumble strip.

Crossing the Green river. All water in Mammoth Cave drains down to this river.

After several days of a Southern Baptist monoculture, today I saw mostly Missionary Baptist churches. Also General Baptist and United Baptist churches that I had never heard of before.

Why so many versions of Baptist? All I know is that the Southern Baptist church was created to defend slavery after the Regular Baptist church declared that slavery is a sin.

Rare log church. I'm now in Missionary Baptist country.

Green river near Rochester, Kentucky. The rock dam on the left creates a waterfall on the right.

The final 10 miles to Central City was on US 431, with awful rush hour traffic. One of the worst roads of the trip, since I had to ride to the left of the white line. I'm getting in the habit of ending every day in rush hour traffic.

Coming into Central City at 5 PM, one of the first things I saw was a big Days Inn where I got a room for $84. I'm sure there were cheaper places in town but it was a long day, the traffic was bad, and I just want to rest.

Next door to Days Inn is the only package beer store I saw in Kentucky.

Today was the warmest day of the tour so far. High of 86F, mostly sunny. Extremely humid as usual.

Today was a long hard day with a lot of climbing. After leaving the park the roads had a continuous rumble strip that forced me to share the lane with traffic. I won't miss the rumble strips when I leave Kentucky.

Distance: 81.0 mi. (130 km)
Climbing: 3633 ft. (1105 m)
Average Speed: 11.4 mph (18 km/h)

Today's ride: 81 miles (130 km)
Total: 1,051 miles (1,691 km)

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