Last night, we spent some time consulting the next few map panels. We would like to be cycling slightly longer distances each day but we are a little limited at the moment in terms of accommodation options on the route. Often, there are 30 or 40 mile stretches with no campsites or lodging at all so we either have to factor in a short-ish day or we have the prospect of over 70 miles in the saddle (with quite big elevation changes to consider). Given that we have a wedding to get to (!!), we are clearly going to need to catch up on some miles sooner or later! But for now, we are making pretty good progress and seem to be on track.
We started the day with breakfast in the motel (supplemented with bits of fruit we had bought yesterday). Then back on the bicycles, feeling much fresher and ready for another week on the road. The first few miles, on the outskirts of Bardstown, included lovely, rolling countryside, dotted with distilleries and whiskey barrel-makers.
The wind had died down and we were speeding along. Plus, we had managed to make a nice early start…so, by 10am, we had knocked off around 20 miles. That might be some sort of record for us; usually we’re just settling down for our second breakfast at that time!
Our very nice server the previous night had told us that one of the roads we were planning to take had been washed away, due to severe flooding so we took a detour. It worked in our favor: fewer hills and we got to visit Lincoln’s childhood home.
We were craving a cup of tea and had hoped we might find a diner in New Haven but everything was closed. So we stopped on the grounds of the Kentucky Railway Museum and had a picnic of avocado and cheese sarnies. Enough fuel to get us the remaining distance to Sonora.
The landscape continues to change. The hills have slightly leveled out and there is much more agriculture around here. Huge fields of wheat on either side of the road and a few Amish communities that still travel the roads in horse-drawn buggies.
We pulled into Sonora at around 2.30pm. It was a small place, but featured a couple of cafes, one of which looked somewhat unpromising from the outside.
Looks were deceiving on this occasion. We saw a light inside and went in to see if they were serving lunch.
The Brooks store and cafe has been around for over 40 years and has been on the Transamerica trail since its inauguration in 1976. As soon as they saw we were cyclists, they whipped out the visitor book for us to look at (thankfully, since we’d had a fairly light eating day so far, they also whipped out a couple of menus). The entries went back to 1976. It was amazing to see who’d stopped there over the years – the book was a history of the Transamerica bike route and kept us entertained for hours. We also found the entry from our friends, Alex and Matt, whose footsteps (or pedal strokes) we’re retracing.
They did a great barbeque pork with a couple of sides and fried cornbread. Fried cornbread is an amazing Kentucky delicacy: like a savory drop scone covered with salt and pepper. We also managed a couple of cups of tea.
Not wanting to pass up the opportunity for dessert, we finished the meal with a pecan pie and a peanut butter pie. Both with ice cream.
While all this was going on, we simultaneously sorted out our accommodation for that night, which until that point had been an unknown. I recall reading another cyclist’s blog, whose advice when hunting for somewhere to stay was to simply find the local cafe/bar, sit down, and start chatting to people. And it will sort itself out. It works. We asked our extremely sweet server at the Brooks Cafe if she knew of any places we could camp that night. She put a call in to Brother Tony at the Baptist Church down the road and before long, we were setting up our tent in the garage of the church office.
Once again, we are moved by the kindnesses we encounter on the road.
We settled into our home for the night and started to prepare dinner.
Before long, the janitor came by to let us know that there was a hamburger-eating competition down the road. Oh my. I’ll just write that one more time… A HAMBURGER-EATING COMPETITION. In any other situation, we’d have signed up before you could say “ketchup and all the fixings”. But, we had already had quite a hefty lunch (at 3pm) and we had a pasta casserole bubbling away at our feet. However, we did hop on our bikes and cycle down to check out the event. The burgers had already been consumed and a winner had been announced but we sat down outside the gas station and listened to a local band play some great music (I love how the stage is a trailer that’s been wheeled in!).
We headed back to our garage-campsite knowing that tomorrow we’d be cycling into a new time zone.
