The Eastern Time Zone and so long Kentucky

The big rolling hills of south eastern KY

We checked off another pair of milestones as we crossed over into the east time zone and left Kentucky behind at the Cumberland Gap tunnel.  The riding has transitioned from the rolling farm land of southwestern Kentucky to the roller-coaster hills of southeastern Kentucky.

Our planned ride on Wednesday was from Hale Hollow State Park to Sand Hill RV Park in the Daniel Boone National Forest.  It was going to be a pretty challenging ride through what seemed to be never-ending roller-coaster hills at 84 miles and about 6600' of climbing... but there was a slight change of plan...

As usual, Beth and I were up early and on the road by a little after 6AM.  The weather was not that hot, but really humid.  The constant up and down of the steep hills is really tough on a tandem.  There was one seriously steep hill that started with a pleasant 16-18% grade climb for about a quarter of a mile.  Beth thought she might fall of the back and I thought the handle bar might slip out of my hands from all the sweat. The climb dropped to something closer to 10% as we approach the top of the mile long climb.... then immediately down again.  By the time we reached Monticello, KY this ride was clearly in the top 3 of tough 50 mile rides what with 4150' of climbing in the hot sticky weather.

Beth took a quick detour to Walmart for supplies while Nicholas joined me for the ride into Daniel Boone National Forest.  The road "leveled out" for a while, but the hills picked up again as we got further into the forest.  When we arrived at the Sand Hill RV park, it was quite the odd sight (and I didn't take a picture).  It looked like something out of a Steven King movie.  The area was mowed and well kept, but with only a lone RV sitting in a back corner of the large park.  The office looked abandoned, no instructions for self-registration, no indication if it was even open at all and no one answered the phone at the number posted at the office.  All of the doors were locked except the women's restroom.  But the water and electricity was turned on at all of the sites   We actually hooked up for a while and considered staying, but in the end decided to move to plan B. It was just a little weird. The Cumberland Falls State Park was another 10 miles down the road.  We called and they had RV hookups as well.  So Nicholas and I rode on making it a 97 mile / 7500' of climbing day.  (here is the route)

Starting the ride out of Daniel Boone NF
Humidity so thick you could cut it with a  knife.

Nicholas had already run 4 miles before unhooking the RV and catching up to us just outside Monticello.  It was really good timing when he caught us.  We were being chased by a dog and we were running low on water to squirt at them.  He then rode 47 miles on the bike and when we got to Cumberland Falls he ran another 4 miles.  Oh to be young!

Luckily we were able to get the laundry done at the campground.  The humid weather and all of the exercise just seems to make the laundry grow even faster.

The ride to Cumberland gap was much less eventful, but very humid.  Still lots of hills in the first 35 miles along the back roads.  The final 20 miles or so was along a 4 lane highway with a big shoulder, so a much more even grade to finish up the day.  (Here is the route).

We'll be taking a rest day here in Cumberland Gap before heading on into the Appalachian mountains and the Blue Ridge highway.

We have entered the land of the Kudzu Vine.  This was a pretty impressive example of how invasive it can be.