Day 5 - Beattyville, KY to Bloomington, IN

First of all! The first video of three badass ones from Shenandoah is now live on google video: click here.

Last night, I got all the way to Beattyville, KY before making camp, underneath the picnic area of a senior center. I didn't get that much sleep since I was worried a little about snakes : ) And all night a muscle car was racing back and forth on the highway - by itself - like a dork - haha i mean badass - yeeeeah. And actually at 1 am, I had a hypnogogic hallucination of a man's shadow on my tent... I shrieked (actually it was a lot like how I shrieked when I crashed at Summit Point - like just a little shriek) jumped out and saw of course nothing. But when I got out, I did see a real firefly show... now that was spectacular. Before that, I thought anything was a firefly show. Haha - not anymore... of course, after this trip, I'm not going to see fireflies again for a very long time :(

Then at 7, I woke up just as a the van for the senior center pulled in, I think the driver wasn't quite sure what to make of my tent. Later another lady came, they were friendly and let me use the bathroom and offered me scrambled eggs and coffee. I was eager to go, the fog was pretty, and there were more excellent roads to be had. And what a great morning run! Ahhh - the middle of Kentucky is a lot like the Santa Cruz mountains, or Yosemite. Then the western part of Kentucky is more like the west part of Carmel Valley Rd. (before the village) or like the areas outside of Baltimore County. There were a few moments of traffic... but nothing horrible.

No more bees - and look at her badass rectangular sunglasses.

I stopped at a Walmart and decided to buy the dreaded $14 Phillips digital camera... and see if it is as horrible as the reviews... I got it to work fine though - so already it is better than the reviews (I don't think its target market includes folks with digi. photography skillz - hence the moronic reviews) At Chevron, I almost forgot to pay for my gas. And also I got a massive sunburn on my arms today. Ahh the lowpoints of the day hehe.

If you see speed advisory signs in Kentucky, do not follow them. I mean, not like you're going to anyways. But usually people put up 25 mph signs for similar turns... whereas in KY they put the signs up almost randomly... so ignore them completely.

Then I wasn't sure if Indiana was going to offer me anything excellent in the way of roads. But the roads around the Hoosier National Forest are just as good as the roads that I've gone on so far, well worth the lost moments and interesting routing to get there. I hope that I get to explore them a little more when I meet up with Danny and we come back down to Oklahoma.

The last bit of road of Kentucky

Now I'm in Bloomington, IN - very near the hippy commune that I'll be at starting on Sunday. My ass is soooooore. I hear there's a storm up in Chicago. I got rained on a bit earlier, but nothing horrible. I think I should be able to make it to Chicago tonight. If not... I'm sure there's some church that I can stay at ;)