Rolling through Kentucky

And then there were four.

At Catawba, Virginia, a couple of weeks ago, I met Cooper Hanning, a 26 year old cyclist from Minnesota.  We spent a  a pleasant evening chatting and drinking beer before bedding down in the hiker/biker camping shelter behind the General Store.  In the morning I left him sleeping peacefully and made an early start.  Two days later in Damascus, Virginia, I met him again in the main street.  By this time he had teamed up with 22 year-old Ryan Anderson from Newcastle, England - another Trans-Am cyclist.  The three of us had beer and pizza together and slept at a cyclists' hostel behind the local Methodist Church.  

We cycled on together to Hindman, where we enjoyed the cyclists' B & B at the Hindman Historical Society so much that we declared a rest day and sat around enjoying the conversation and hospitality - and home-made Kentuicky moonshine - of the eccentric host, David Smith.  That evening, as we ate dinner on the terrace, another cyclist rang through to check if there was a vacancy.  David put the phone down and announced, "Jeremiah is coming".  We wondered what a person called Jeremiah might be like.  Would he pronounce esoteric prophecies about the fate of the Jews?  Surely he'd have wild hair, a long beard and a robe.  Jeremiah, in fact, turned out to be Joe Meyer, a 22 year old physics graduate from Cleveland Ohio.  We haven't been able to get a single prophecy out of him, but he's ridden along with us happily for the last week.  

We seemed to have trawled our way through all the dry counties in Kentucky, unable to unwind from a hot day's ride with a cool beer or anything else.  (My particular fantasy for days was a chilled bottle of Pinot Gris.)  Then, all of a sudden, there it was: the Rolling Hills Vineyard and Winery, operated by special permit in  an otherwise dry county by twin brothers Donnie and Ronnie.  Not only were we invited in for a tasting and to purchase a couple of bottles, we were invited to camp on the grass next to the winery, and Donnie left the door unlocked in case we needed to shelter from the severe thunderstorms that were predicted for the early hours.  We did.

Ok; the wine wasn't exactly top shelf (in fact the blackberry was the best), and Donnie did inform us twenty or thirty times that Kentucky hospitality is the best there is, but he wasn't far wrong.  He even made us breakfast - sausage, eggs, toast and coffee - and we had to insist on paying five dollars each.

The days have been getting hotter and more humid, and the afternoon thunderstorms are frequent and fierce.  We've left Appalachia now, and the country has changed from forested mountains to rolling bluegrass pasture and cornfields.  There are fewer trailer homes, and the ones we pass now look relatively neat and well cared for.  Most of the dogs are chained up, although one very handsome canine vagabond, looking like a shaggier version of  a Queensland Red Heeler, joined me for a run and followed me for a couple of miles, up and down steep hills, until he got a better offer from a German Shepherd.

The cycling is still quite hard because the hills are steep and the humidity is stifling, but we've started to cover more distance now - 80 miles yesterday.  Tomorrow, we'll cross our second state line into southern Illinois.  No more dry counties until Kansas, we're told.  

The Weekly Religion Report

I'm not normally so focused on religious matters, but America just won't let you forget it.  The churches and religious signs and stickers are just as frequent in Kentucky, but the denominations have changed.  Now we have the Freewill Baptists, Independent Baptists and Baptacostals.  (Yes; it's a real church.)  In central Kentucky, there's a Catholic enclave that's referred to locally as The Holy Land.  (That seems to me to imply that the inhabitants regard their Protestant neighbours as infidels).  Every second front garden here has a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary, whereas the Protestant counties feature signs displaying the Ten Commandments. 

I spotted a bumper sticker the other day that read, "Christ or Antichrist: You Must Choose One."  This bothered me a little.  I've seen plenty of Christ's election posters, but nothing from the other guy.  I wonder if there's preferential voting.  

Kentucky has been a strange and wonderful experience.  In many ways it's the kind of quaint, backward place you feel compelled to joke about  (like Queensland?), but it's also fascinatingly different - a rich tapestry, as they say.  I'm looking forward to seeing the last of its bizarre, restrictive liquor laws and its overbearing  religious messages, but I'm glad I've been here.  It's been fun.  Next - Illinois.