Into the Heart of Darkness...

Some parts of Kentucky look more like part of a rainforest with all the vines.

A strange little elementary school in Berea, KY.

Me and a future bicycler killer.

Wildflowers that grow along Kentucky river banks

The only thing I can really say about today is that I was so tired and ready to get to the end of our second map section that I burnt myself out pretty early and didn't save much energy for the second half of the ride. We had a few very short climbs out of the state park we stayed in last night, but we finally got out of the bigger altitude hills into those that peaked in the 1000 ft range. The first part half of the day was okay, a few stores along the way, and we ate lunch in the small city of Boonevillle. After that, however, were a lot of really really short, but super steep hills, and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of farmlands with small 1000 footer mountains that all looked the exact same. We went 40 miles or so, maybe more, without passing a convenient store that hadn't closed because of lack of business. The mountains around us changed pretty quickly but they all looked the exact same, there was always one in sight that had a very sharp point, and one or two that were long and flat on the top and terminated on either side with about a 45 degree angle or so.Notice how the mountains in each picture look the exact same? They're not the same though.

It really felt like we were pedalling and pedalling ever further into more and more of the exact same scenery. It really dulls your senses after a while and it made me want to never ever visit Kentucky again...at least on a bicycle. I'm sure in in a car with air-conditioning it would have been a breathtaking ride. Not so on a bike when you have very little water. We actually had to stop at some one's house and ask them for some hose water. They were very kind, and the guy's wife brought us some ice for our bottles. That pretty much saved us from dehydration.
The dogs today were pretty bad too, I got chased by quite a few, one of them was a St. Bernard. That was pretty intense, but luckily I'm pretty fast when I need to be.
We finally got into Berea and got a hotel. We were all so tired and excited to be done with the second section of the map. We went down to the convenient store to get some beers to celebrate, only to find out that Berea is in a dry county. Kentucky didn't make any new friends today...