Day 16: Kentucky Fried Chicken

Liberty, KY to Mammoth Cave National Park, KY – 88.6 mi, 5,465 ft

Today was our longest ride to date — 88 miles — and I woke up in the morning not looking forward to it. It was going to be my third straight day cycling and my left knee had been bugging me more and more over the course of the last two days. Moreover, after a discussion the previous night about trying to actually leave earlier in the morning, the team firmly resolved to get on the road by 9am. I haven’t seen the doctor about it yet, but I might be allergic to waking up so early.

So, after a speedy pack up process in the morning, we got an early (by our standards) start to the day and I got to biking. The rolling hills of Kentucky went by rather uneventfully until I came up on a small stream that I tried to cross on my bike. After I fell in, what did I look up to see but Joseph recording my stream crossing attempt and laughing to himself. This guy really waited 20 minutes at the stream just to capture everyone’s crossing attempts. (He did actually yell out for me to dismount my bike and cross normally, which I didn’t hear because I had my earbuds in 🙊).

Once everyone behind me crossed the stream (without trying to pedal through it and falling off), Joseph asked us where Greta was. We were sure she was ahead of Joseph, but he was adamant that she hadn’t passed him. After gaslighting Joseph for a few minutes, we realized that Greta maybe took a wrong turn after the rest of us lost sight of her and we called her. She had in fact gone down the wrong road while calling her mom and biked an extra four miles. So we all owe Joseph an apology for making him question his own sanity.

After the rest stop, Greta and I biked side-by-side and started chatting. We rode together for the rest of the day. This actually was great for staving off the biking boredom that I had been dreading for the day and I’m definitely going to employ the “yap ride” technique on these longer mileage days. We talked about silly topics, like religion and making friends, and deep topics, like if we would get along with twin versions of ourselves and whether we’d marry into the British royal family.

Our second rest stop of the trip was possibly the best rest stop we’ve had yet. Ishaq and Ruth got Lee’s Fried Chicken and lemonade. They made the mistake of allotting chicken by number of pieces, so I claimed the two largest pieces in the entire bucket. A few of the others went to the coffee shop and met a bunch of interesting people. I joined a few others in the book shop and bought a book.

The food tided us over until a late lunch, when I ate my two sandwiches for the day. To keep things interesting, I’ve started making one normal sandwich and one abomination sandwich every biking day. Two days ago, Ruth made me a diabetes sandwich (peanut butter, golden Oreos, Hersheys, sour patch kids, marshmallows, and jam) and it was actually incredible and got me through the hills. Tuna, sour patch kids, and hummus was another surprising yet resounding success (others disagree; they are wrong). For today, I had asked everyone to name a random sandwich topping and assembled the resulting peanut butter, crushed red chili flakes, goldfish, apple slices, and parmesan sandwich. Unfortunately, this disaster looked to be my first sandwich DNF of the trip.

Greta and I yapped until we reached our final destination, Mammoth Cave NP Campground for the night. We finally got to pitch our tents with daylight left and made a fire! After compensating for our poor fire-starting skills with plenty of lighter fluid, we cooked corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, and burger combinations in the fire while everyone took turns telling scary stories. I finished my thought-to-be-DNF sandwich. It wasn’t so bad actually — I think all the crushed chili flakes got concentrated in one bite I had at the rest stop. The indomitable human spirit triumphs again.

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Double blog! Ruth had such a fun day riding in the car with Ishaq today that she has decided she wants to hijack my blogging day and write her own events of the day. So, I’ve kept my musings short and I’m tapping Ruth in. In exchange, I’ll be popping in to Ruth’s blog tomorrow to rave about Buc-ee’s.

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Ruth here! And now for the better blog…

Uh oh. Why can’t I breathe??

This was my first thought waking up in the church in Liberty, Kentucky, where we spent the night. I’ve been battling a cold for a couple days, but something changed today. It went from being uncomfortable to becoming semi-serious. I thought to myself, I probably shouldn’t bike. But I couldn’t decide, and I really didn’t want to miss a whole 85 miles, so I got ready for the day, staying in my pajamas for as long as possible. When I couldn’t prolong it any longer, I announced to the team that I didn’t think I could bike. Everyone was very supportive, probably because they care for my health more than I do, let’s be real. I took on some driver roles and helped Ishaq load the car and fill waters, then I sat in the van and mentally prepared for the next super serious role I’d have to take for the rest of the day – passenger princess.

Ishaq and I started off by getting gas, because someone forgot to fill it up the day before (cough Greta cough). We then went to Save a Lot to buy ingredients for our hobo campfire dinner at Mammoth Cave Campgrounds. Save A Lot didn’t have some essentials, like marshmallows, aluminum foil, and firewood, so we planned on stopping by a Walmart later on. We made it to the rest stop and watched Sonic 3 on Ishaq’s iPad until bikers showed up to refuel. Now, this boring pattern ought to have continued through the rest of the day, but Ishaq the goat discovered a Lee’s Famous Chicken shop nearby and bought a 16-piece bucket for us all. He also spiked one of the water tanks with lemonade powder and ice. We parked on a main street in Campbellsville, a hidden gem in the middle of Kentucky, and waited for bikers to show while munching on our own chickens, sipping lemonade, and proceeding with Sonic 3. Once the bikers arrived, we all munched together, except Tian who’s vegan.

I also discovered an adorable bookstore across the street and bought my summer book #2 for $3.50. Sarah, Charles, and Greta are all copycats and followed me in.

We declared this the best rest stop of the trip (crazy that I’m agreeing with Charles, I know).

Once the bikers had semi-digested, they headed off, leaving me and Ishaq behind yet again. We went to a bike shop to fix one of our broken pumps, and instead ended up trading our pump with the owner’s personal pump from the 90s for free. Then we went to Walmart and had too much fun perusing the aisles. Ishaq got his Sprite, and I got the rest of the important stuff (jk jk). We still couldn’t find firewood but figured Mammoth Cave Campground would have some. As a result of our jovial time at Walmart, we were very late to the next rest stop. But it was at our favorite place, Dollar General, so bikers had already gone inside and bought their snackies and peed and whatnot. Ishaq declared the breaks were getting too long and shooed them away.

We drove to the next place and proceeded to watch more Sonic 3. The bikers rudely interrupted us demanding lunch, which we begrudgingly handed to them. Ishaq’s friends called so I got kicked out of the car, and I sat with the bikers and listened to tales from their harrowing journey.

Once everyone left, we went to the final rest stop, a Dutch-themed place with ice cream and other desserts. I got a pumpkin loaf that reminded me of a bakery from my hometown (shoutout to Fornax), Charles got his signature float, Ramona probably also got the same thing since she’s been on a soda bender recently, Sarah was disappointed by her pumpkin cream cheese chunks, Joseph is boring and just got vanilla ice cream, Greta got toothpaste mint chocolate chip ice cream, Tian ate her vegan chili, and I don’t remember what Ishaq got. Sarah got mistaken for one of the Amish workers, I stole 16 plastic utensils, and Greta made new stranger friends, per usual. 

Once everyone finished, Ishaq and I kept driving until we reached Mammoth Cave. We bought some firewood and set up tents until the bikers finished their travels for the day. Joseph and Charles struggled to start the fire, but once it was ready we threw in some foil-wrapped corn, sweet potato, and hobo onion + carrot + patties (tofu for Tian because she’s vegan). While eating and making s’mores, we told impressively crafted ghost stories, except for the fact that several people didn’t think of endings and just stopped telling the story right at the denouement. What happened to the butler, Ishaq?!?