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Saturday, October 12, 1996 - Time out: 11:16 AM
I overslept til 9:30 AM. I had asked Ritt not to wake me, so he didn't.
We got off real late. We went to Waffle House for breakfast. They didn't
have french toast on their menu, so we left. We then went to Perkins Family
Restaurant--another big chain. The menu showed french toast but with cinnamon.
I hate cinnamon. I asked the waitress if I could have the french toast without
cinnamon. She checked with the cook and he said it couldn't be done. Since
I'd already started drinking my coffee, I ordered corned beef hash instead.
We were off to a bad start.
I took some pictures of Cincinnati from Covington.
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I rode back to the foot of the Roebling Suspension Bridge--the first bridge (1867) to span the Ohio River. It was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge.
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I also shot a picture of the Mike Fink, a stern wheeler riverboat named after the "baddest dude on the river."
As we were wandering around in downtown Covington looking for US-127
signs, a motorist powered down his van window and directed us.
A couple of miles south of Covington, I stopped for Gatorade and a woman rider, Leah, formerly a student at UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks) joined us on her bicycle. She told us that the drivers around Covington were not real willing to accommodate bicyclists in "their" roadway.
There were NO shoulders at all on the road between Covington and Florence. Not wanting to endanger myself by sheepishly hugging the curb as cars passed inches from me on a 4 lane street, I elected to take my lane. HEY BICYCLISTS OUT THERE--THAT'S THE WAY YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO RIDE . If there isn't room for a car and your bike in a lane, take the lane!
Leah went on as we stopped at a bicycle store in Florence. I forgot to get the name of the store because I expected to have it on a receipt, but the rain booties I went to buy didn't fit so I didn't buy them and didn't get a receipt. The folks there were real helpful. They suggested that we take US-25 instead of US-127. US-25 runs parallel to I-75, so there are far more services available. US-25 runs to Knoxville rather than Chattanooga.
Between Florence and Dry Ridge there are only 12" shoulders (if any) and there are often hatch marks across the shoulders to keep cars (and thus bicycles) from driving on them. We asked several folks if there was any other way for us to go and they all said that neither US-25 nor US-127 have shoulders in Kentucky. The drivers in Kentucky (so far) have been great though, so I wasn't too concerned. One man flagged us down after passing us in his car and asked us to come on into his house. We declined because we were making no progress at all. [While I love kibbitzing as much as anybody, on a long trip like this I'd get nowhere if I accepted all the invitations I had to talk to folks, so, I tend to say "sorry" quite often.]
A family in Walton, KY (Mary Catherine, Steve, Lydia and Troy)
flagged us down and offered us peanuts. They explained that they had passed
us in their car, bought us some peanuts and stopped us wehn we got to their
house. We declined the peanuts explaining what a concern weight was to us.
We still had our heavy camping gear. We really appreciated the generosity
though. The people here are great.
I did quite a double take when I saw this sign north of Dry Ridge. I figured we must have completed our journey. [the odd angle is due to the position of the sun]
Since leaving Michigan, I'd been looking for an electronics store to consult about some way of stepping-down the voltage of the NiCad battery for my NiteRider Cyclops headlight. I had purchased a 9 volt NiCad battery from Radio Shack in Okemos, MI to power the headlight that was designed to use 5 "D" cells for 5.5 hours of light. The "D" cells weighed too much and were too expensive to replace after just a few hours of use. I figured the 9 v. NiCad would power the light for 1 hour, but lighten my load considerably. My math was faulty: 5 x 1.5 is 7.5, not 9. I bought the wrong size NiCad. I needed 7.5 v. The first time I turned the light on, the bulb burned out and I had to replace it ($21 at On 2 Wheels in Jackson, Michigan).We stopped at an electronics and hobby store in Dry Ridge at about 5:00 PM. Instead of selling me some sort of resistor to reduce the voltage of the 9 volt NiCad to 7.5, the store accepted my 9 volt in trade on an 8 volt NiCad that the owner said should work fine.
It was after 5:00 and we'd only ridden about 35 miles but the man at the electronic store explained that beyond Williamstown (9 miles away) there were no motels for 30-40 miles and that there were more food choices in Dry Ridge at the I-75 interchange, so we stopped to eat dinner. As we finished dinner, the sun was setting and we felt it unwise to continue another 9 miles. Furthermore, we convinced the Dry Ridge Motel owner to do our wash for us if we stayed the night. [I lost one of my precious CoolMax headbands to that wash, though]
Services along I-75 appeared to be far more plentiful. We may have never needed out tents and sleeping bags at all. In fact, I expect we'll send them home on Monday.
Mileage: 37.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997