Smooth Sailing on Smoother Pavement

Today was probably my favorite day on the road thus far. The morning started out quite well. We left Berea and hit some small rolling hills. It was fairly easy riding with some slightly steep hills with which to contend, but nothing compared to Eastern Kentucky. We went off course a bit to go to a bike shop in Danville KY. Danville had a bike shop and Rob's and Jacob's bikes needed some work. So while the bikes were in the shop we went to a coffee shop/bookstore/sandwich shop with really good food. They also had the first sweet tea I was able to find in days...I love sweet tea. I don't think I'll be able to pedal without it when I can't find it out west. We sat down and ended up talking to a guy named Nate who was thinking about doing the trip himself next year. He asked us a lot of questions about the trip, our motivations for doing it, cost etc. Then he told us how to get around the whole "dry county conundrum...that is, go to an Applebee's or similar chain. Apparently they can serve beer in a dry county. So Nate borrowed a friend's car and drove us to Applebee's and bought us all a round. Beer is good...
Danville was a very nice town with a lot of character. Apparently we missed a huge town brass band celebration weekend by about a week. Too bad. After the beers we went back to the bike-shop, got the bikes back and left town with the quickness so as not to run out of daylight before getting to Springfield KY. The ride from Danville to Springfield was the flattest and fastest riding we've done thus far. It was fun because you can make the ride as easy or difficult as you like. It seems like you can always go a little faster. I like to push myself to the limit. I got to a point today where I was, at any given moment, teetering on the edge of exhaustion. Its really fun though. If I find that I've pushed myself a little to hard, then I back off a little, stop pedalling and recharge. My rebound time is really fast now. It takes only a few minutes to feel completely recharged and ready to attack the road again.
As we got into town Jacob and I ate at the local Mexican restaurant. The food was great and they had beer! We had a few, I got a free 32 or 34oz beer for drinking one without stopping. I think I drank it in about a minute, with very minimal spillage. I impressed myself, and then had to chill a while before the next one.
We slept under another pavilion in a city park next to a playground. Jacob and I played on the seesaw and Rob climbed on the monkey bars. Come to think of it, maybe we had more than a beer or two...