Warm Reception

We walked over to the gas station and restaurant to buy cheese sandwiches and pick up some breakfast items. The staff had changed over since the previous evening and our sandwiches had inexplicably increased by 50 cents. No matter. When we got back to the motel Adam had taken a ride with the owner of the Pine Tree Inn. They were heading to Lexington, Kentucky so Adam could take a Greyhound bus to Carbondale. Now we were four, three San Diegans and a marketing and communications dude from Munich.

There was a very light rain that morning, nearly more fog than falling water but it was a welcome respite from drops that sting when they come down. Nearly pleasant. We took some conventional stops and made it to a grocery store in Whitesville for some grapes. Chris opted to drink a half gallon of buttermilk. He says it's kind of spicy. How he rides on that stuff, I'll never know. He also buys quite a bit of Sprite, or Coke – no ice. The heat started to come up. So did the wind. We've started to get into the corn now, the rolling farmland. We lost a few miles an hour to the breeze but we pressed forward without much problem. We took a lunch at a gas station in a place called Utica. Jordan and Jeremy had cheeseburgers. Jeremy would come to regret that later. I had one chocolate milk, and then another – I would come to regret that later. Before meeting up with Chris we were pressing harder and it might have made sense to eat more, but at a slightly reduced pace we were all eating too much. It was difficult to leave the air-conditioned sanctuary of the mini mart and press on. The air dryer in the bathroom sounded like a jet engine, a little disconcerting.

We walked outside and got hit by the heat like a Mack truck. Us Californians are used to things a little drier. Jeremy and I were suffering from the excessive lunch and I threw up a little bit while on the bike. Didn't stop though. Always forward. We made it to Sebree and were welcomed into the First Baptist Church and met Bob and Violet, the pastor of the congregation and his wife. Outstanding people. Before we go further I'll mention that I found a wifi connection and looked up the charity cyclists we've been chasing. Apparently the guy in Damascus wasn't lying, but instead of 10 there are 13 with only four or five girls. We dream big nonetheless.

We were shown to the church's basement area which had mattresses for us to sleep on, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a shower. The washer and dryer was upstairs. The church was air-conditioned and we felt stupendous. But wait, there's more. Violet likes to cook for the touring cyclists and we had a dinner unsurpassed in modern times. There was salad, apple sauce, corn bread, sliced tomatoes, squash, several types of ribs, scalloped potatoes, green beans, macaroni and cheese, stir fried vegetables, and several other dishes I'm undoubtedly forgetting. Dessert was a blueberry cobbler with ice cream on top. Bob and Violet have been hosting cyclists for thirty years and their church has made it a part of their mission to support traveling riders. Bob told us a number of stories and local folklore, Jordan liked those in particular. We sat and talked and rested after a spectacular dinner and then thanked them for their generosity and went off to bed.

Toast.

Beginning of the day.

Hmm.

Jeremy of the corn.

The color of the water in the pond looked like they had tossed a few urinal cakes in.

Peering into an old store at the end of the day.