Category: DC to California 2010

Scottsburg, the town I stayed in last night is exactly 30 miles north of Louisville, so today would be a short day. I don’t really like these short days though – I get my hopes up that it will go by quickly and I never get into a proper groove which causes the hours go by slowly.

It was pretty much a straight shot south along a state highway. My shoulder started out being maybe 3 feet wide which was pretty nice, but over the course of 20 miles it slowly dwindled down to the 4-6 inch shoulders that seem to be the norm.

Stopping in a convenience store for a drink, I had a conversation with the guy who worked there about my trip. I felt weird telling him I was on my trip because my life was boring (this is a partial truth, I’ve been trying to come up with a good answer for when people ask me about why I’m doing this). But telling this to a guy working at a convenience store in the middle of nowhere seems wrong. If anything he should be the one bored to tears.

As I approached the city I turned off the state highway onto a suburban road for a few miles. Not to have a day go by without a dog encounter, a huge dog came running up to me and it was apparent this was a very vicious dog that wanted a piece of me. The wife of the owner was screaming at it but the dog didn’t react at all. I didn’t even try to pepper spray this one since I thought it would just be angered. Luckily the owner came out of the house and got the dog to go back inside, but it was probably my worst dog experience thus far. These dogs are really getting to me. I think I have about 5 more days of riding through territory that will probably have lots of dogs before I suspect the occurrences will start to subside.

Anyways, as I came to cross into Kentucky, the only bridge into town that wasn’t an interstate had a big “road closed” sign. Just my luck, same as in West Virginia. There were several cop cars parked by the barricade to the bridge and I waved at an officer. He begrudgingly stepped out to say I could take the sidewalk across the bridge.

Turns out there was a triathlon going on and the runners came halfway across the bridge before turning around. Towards the end of the bridge there were lots of spectators sitting on the sidewalk which made getting my bike through very difficult. I wound up having to navigate through a maze of police barriers and eventually cross the race path to get into the city.

Finding my way to the b&b where I will be staying for the next three days, I took a shower and went to find dinner. Being in a large city gives me more options than fast food, american food, or sometimes Chinese food, so I picked out an Indian restaurant, biked to it, and locked up my bike only to find that the restaurant was closed due to a fire. Wonderful. So I looked up another one and biked to it and had a great meal.

Today’s mileage: 40 miles
Total: 1115 miles

This was not a very good day. I started out with another late start. That’s okay because I had 2 days to go about 80 miles to Louisville and as such I was in no rush. I picked out a campground to spend tomorrow night and got a reservation since it was a weekend. I hit the road after noon and headed south without eating since I wasn’t hungry yet.

I came across a huge wildlife preserve. Google’s directions had me cutting through it but it was completely fenced off – i would have to go around. And so I was stuck on this highway with a 4 inch shoulder going directly into headwinds for 10 miles. At one point I pulled over to refill my water bottles and watched as a hundred motorcycles passed me by. I could see them coming from miles away since the road was absolutely flat and straight. Back on the road, I was getting hungry but it was only 15 miles to my stop for the night so I decided to keep going.

Indiana has been the worst state for dogs so far and today was no exception. At one point a pack of 3 little dogs came after me and because of their numbers I had trouble keeping my bike between me and them. I resorted to my pepper spray for the first time which slightly deterred them but didn’t stop them outright. I probably didn’t get them in the eyes sufficiently. Anyways, after over a minute of being harassed by them, the owner calls them away. I continue on only to have the owner chase me down on his ATV and threaten to run me over. Keep it classy, Indiana.

I arrive at the campground. It looks like a trailer park. Stepping inside the office, I tell them about my reservation only to have them tell me they don’t take reservations. Apparently the google maps result for the Lakeside Camping in Indiana (a trailer park) has the phone number for Lakeside Camping in Vermont (an actual campground). Lovely. So I find another campground and head that way. Getting pretty hungry.

On the way to the next campsite I get harassed by more dogs. I do my usual dismount and walk maneuver which usually keeps them several feet away, but this dog is pretty persistent. A SUV drives by and the driver smiles and waves. I give him an exasperated look while the dog is barking just a couple feet from me but he just keeps on smiling and moves on. Eventually the dog relents and I am able to continue.

I arrive in the town of Scottsburg and decide to just get a motel. I’m starving and almost out of water, having gone 60 miles without any food or refilling any water.

The restaurant in front of the motel has a deal for four Coronas for 6.50.

Today’s mileage: 60 miles
Total: 1075 miles

Got a late start today. I was out of my campground at 11, but had to eat lunch, plan my route, and grab some groceries before finally making my way out of town after noon.

I guess I haven’t talked about much of my routine yet. So I have a medium term destination in mind at all times. Right now it’s Louisville, then Denver, etc. So I know the general direction in which I want to travel. I’ll bring up my map on my phone and search for “camping” in an area that looks to be about a day’s ride from where I am, check out websites and travel distances (add 15% or so for bike travel) and make reservations if I deem it necessary.

Today was a weekend so when I decided on Versailles State Park, I called them and made a reservation. On weekdays I don’t bother. I then pulled up maps.google.com on my phone so I can view the terrain and possible bike paths ahead of me (actually this is done in parallel with finding campgrounds as my destination would change depending on areas I’d want to avoid of paths I want to go on). So today I saw that to my direct west there were lots of hills and so I plotted out a route that would take me to the north a bit (out of my way) to avoid the worst of the hills.

I then wrote down what turns to take on a piece of paper that I keep in my map holder on top of my handlebar bag. Since I choose roads manually it’s a hassle to figure out distances between turns so I write down landmarks or other directions instead.

Directions on hand, I started westward out of the suburbs of Cincinnati and towards Indiana. Once in indiana, a road I had chosen turned out to be pretty bad for biking because it had a 4-6 inch shoulder and 55mph speed limit. So I pulled over and looked for when I could next turn off and still go the direction I wanted to, and went on my way. It was about then that I had a 500 foot climb. I was pretty happy that I was able to do it without stopping.

Turning onto rural roads requires re-checking your map a lot. Roads never last more than a few miles and aren’t marked the same as on the map. Lots of turns but very little traffic. Some days (like today) there are lots of dogs on these roads. Had a few close encounters – today was definitely the worst dog day so far. A couple times I encountered state highways with 10 foot wide shoulders and few trucks so I took those when I saw them.

I arrived at the state park from the north and found the road was closed. Not to be dissuaded, I just walked around the barrier and down the closed road for a mile until it joined the state park. Several hills later and I was at my campsite. This one is less of a glorified parking lot than yesterday but there still are lots of RVs.

I took a shower and headed into the town next to the park for dinner. When I had called to make reservations this morning the man on the phone called it VerSALLes so I figured I had misread the name. Nope, just turns that’s how it’s pronounced here.

I rode around the town looking for somewhere to eat other than mcdonalds and came across a place, the Yellow Dog Tavern. I’ve been eating a lot of burgers this trip and even those that are supposedly “good” are just hamburgers, and most of the other food I’ve eaten has been similarly uninspired so I was happy when I found some thought had been put into the one I ordered – it was great. I had a nice chat with the owner and the patrons and gave them my website (hi!).

The ride back to my campsite was cold, hilly, and completely dark but I didn’t mind because I had a great evening.

Today’s mileage: 71 miles
Total: 1015 miles

Hit the 1k mark!

I got up shortly after dawn and packed up my camp quickly. While it was great I had the invitation to camp on the property, I was still too self conscious and loathed the possibility of being discovered. After a breakfast of some reeces pieces, I set off on the trail at about 7:30.

It was cold – mid 50s – and so I put on whatever I could to keep me warm, which was only my rain jacket. After several miles I stopped in Xenia, Ohio to take a break and wait for things to warm up. Xenia is the hub of all the trails in southwest Ohio and so I had to decide if I wanted to go south or southwest. The men I ate dinner with last night thought southwest might be best so I wouldn’t have to deal with crossing Cincinnati, but after looking up campgrounds I decided on a little park about 10 miles north of the city so south it was.

Along the trail there were towns every 8 or so miles and so I kept an eye out for somewhere to eat. However, there weren’t many options. Town after town went by and all the places to eat were either closed permanently or didn’t open until later in the day. Finally after about 45 or 50 miles I found a bar right next to the trail that was open.

Despite it’s proximity to the trail and the fact that it advertised lunch and dinner, the place was empty. I had a good conversation with the bartender about my trip and life, and headed out. It turned out that about 2 miles later was a big and busy town with lots of places to eat, but I didn’t regret stopping at the bar.

I got off the trail a few miles later – about 10 miles before the end of it – so I could cross the northern suburbs of Cincinnati to get to the campground. I was immediately greeted with a pretty big hill, but after a couple more, things flattened out a bit before getting hilly again. I arrived at the campground at 4 which was probably the earliest I’ve ever called it a day. I went and had more okay Chinese food for dinner and used my free time to get some reading done.

At one point, another person staying at the campground came up to me and commented on how I had the best campsite in the park because of my view of the lake, and how she wished they would clear more if the trees so more people could see the lake. I looked around. This place was just a slightly glorified parking lot at this point because of how much they had cleared to make room for RVs. Some people are crazy.

Today’s mileage: 79 miles
Total: 944 miles

As a side note, the mileage is total miles biked including errands, getting food, etc. Not just progression along my path.

My sleep last night was bizarre and sporadic, but the sum of the parts left me rested in the morning. I once again took my time getting checked out of the hotel since I have been planning on doing shorter days in order to arrive in Louisville on the 30th.

Heading out of Columbus, I connected to a road that supposedly had a bike lane, but it turned out not to. Since I had a late start, I stopped for lunch after only 12 or so miles and ate at a Chinese buffet. It had been a long time since I had eaten at that sort of place, and it was pretty decent. One of the journals of an extended bike tourist I had read mentioned that Chinese buffets were the best bang for the buck, but unfortunately since I hadn’t ridden much, I had not worked up much of an appetite. It was still decent and cheap so no complaints.

I took rural roads to connect to a bike path. This path is part of a large network of paths in southwest Ohio that will probably last me 90 miles. Pretty sweet. I took to the trail at a slow pace, I often was just meandering at 9 or 10 mph.

This section of the trail was pretty desolate and it just went on straight as far as the eye can see. I kept my leisurely pace while pondering existence.
At one point I passed a road biker going the opposite direction at high speed. I wondered what I would say if he came back my way and asked why I was going so slowly. I would say “it’s because I’ve got nowhere to be.

I think I struck at the heart of the issue there. That phrase has several meanings. It means I’m on a relaxed journey where there are no deadlines. I means I hadn’t figured out where I was going to stop or stay that night. It means I’ve got 6 days to kill before Louisville. It also means that one of the reasons I am on this trip is that I felt I was out of place with my life in Arlington and that’s why I left.

It was about this time that I was passed by a couple of older cyclists. Except instead of passing me, we struck up a conversation about my trip. We wound up biking together for a few miles before deciding that we would eat dinner together in the next town. The road biker I had seen earlier had turned around and passed us by but didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t worried about it.

We wound up eating dinner together and talked about biking, dogs, and the route I would take from here. They wound up paying for my dinner and left to finish their ride.

The owner of the establishment then came up to me and told me he owned all the property surrounding the restaurant including the next door laundromat and that I could camp out if I wanted. That was pretty awesome. So I took him up on his offer, did my laundry while waiting for it to get dark, and pitched my tent.

I need to take pictures of things other than roads and clouds. I’ll work on that.

Today’s mileage: 54 miles
Total: 865 miles