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(Sorry I didn’t post this yesterday. It was late and I figured it would be better to write a late, two-day blog than stay up blogging and sleep for five hours.)
Yesterday was a great day. We woke up in Goreville, Illinois in the Airbnb that Joel’s parents booked. The Kiernans made a delightful, cinnamon-heavy French toast and shared with us some of the fresh berries and peaches they brought with them from Michigan. (Fresh fruit is a rare treat on this trip. On hot days with the AC off Ody turns into a convection oven, and most fruit can’t last.) We ate, chatted, and then started getting ready with our usual routine, checking tires, packing the car, filling our water jugs, applying sunscreen. We ran out of my favorite sunscreen yesterday, so I’m learning to like the greasy spray one.
spokes and the kiernans!
Southern Illinois, like Missouri and Eastern Kansas, is humid, buggy, and, at least in the summertime, hot. When we departed for the day it was north of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Rose (Joel’s mom) and Peter (Joel’s younger brother) biked with us for the start of the first leg, but decided after about seven miles to call Joel’s dad (Dan) to pick them up because of the heat. It was fun biking with some new people who I wasn’t sick of yet (kidding!). It was a beautiful, long leg (27 miles) full of rolling hills. About thirteen miles into the leg we entered a gravel trail and I got a flat tire. Thankfully, Aja was there and she is a kind, patient person. She helped me fix the flat. It was a new tire, and not fully broken in, so we had to use our combined strength to force it back onto the wheel.
joel stops on one of the legs to touch a horse
Aja and I rode in the car for the next leg. We got to call with Katherine in the car, which was nice, since we hadn’t had a chance to call the night before. (She tested negative today, so we should be seeing her tomorrow in Louisville!) We met up with the Kiernans at a gazebo in Shawneetown, IL (right next to a town called Old Shawneetown). They treated us to a late lunch feast: gouda, cheddar, chunky applesauce, guacamole, homemade cilantro-lime-hummus, and more peaches and blueberries. We always have enough to eat on this trip, but rarely do we eat so well.
crossing into kentucky!
Aja took the car for the third leg. Sophia, Joel, Parth, and I took off and crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky. But Parth pulled over to the side of the road just 100 yards past the end of the bridge with a flat tire. I was the only person behind them, so I stopped and we began to fix it. What was supposed to be a 10 minute tire change ended up lasting an hour, and by the time we got back on the road Sophia and Joel were only 10 minutes away from our rest stop, a Long John Silvers in Morganfield. When we arrived, Aja, Joel, and Sophia were getting ready to depart, so I ran inside, wolfed down two protein bars, and got back on my bike. It was golden hour and the cornfields were tinted yellow in the light, and for the first time all day the air was cool and crisp.
bourbon tasting with brad!
We arrived in Henderson at around 8:00 pm. Brad, one of our hosts, made us a spaghetti and garlic bread dinner. After dinner, he offered to teach me and Parth about bourbon and to lead us in an informal bourbon tasting. From 9:30 to 11:30 we sat together at the kitchen counter as Brad pulled bottle after bottle off the shelf. He explained the “ABCs” of bourbon to us, talked about each brand, and explained the intricacies of the distillation process. By the end of the night we had tried seven different bourbons, a Kentucky whiskey, a homemade moonshine (Parth and I coughed when we tasted it – very strong), and a mysterious drink called “Applejack” (these last two came from Brad’s connections in Eastern Kentucky). I went to bed *slightly* tipsy.
This morning we biked two hours to Owensboro, KY, which is a small city / large town. Parth went to a famous barbecue spot in town called Moonlite Bar-b-q. They ended up chatting up the owner, who invited them into the kitchen and gave them a tour. It sounded to me like something out of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Meanwhile, Sophia, Aja, and I sat around in a Kroger parking lot, eating chips. Once Joel arrived in the car, he picked me and Parth up and took us to the Green River Distillery, where we met up with Brad for a tour of the facilities. (Aja and Sophia are under 21 so they couldn’t go.) We got to see every step of the distillation process: the tanks where the grains are cooked, the fermentation tanks, the barrel storage, and everything in between. Aja and Sophia did something else during this time, but I’m not sure what. When we met up with them two hours later, Sophia had a coconut in her hand, so that might have had something to do with it.
the fermentation tanks at the distillery
Because of the thunderstorms, we drove the remaining 10 miles to Utica. When we arrived, our hosts, Jo and Angelica, greeted us and showed us around. After a quick hose shower outside, I hung out with them and their son while they watched the Regular Show. Jo generously made hot ham and cheese sandwiches for us, and sat together, ate, chatted, and half-watched the TV.
one of jo and angelica’s cats climbed onto ody and aja reached up for a sistine chapel pet
That’s pretty much it for today. Tomorrow Katherine is coming back, so you may see a photo of her in the next blog post.
Till next time,
Timothy