A Heroic Beginning – Day 42

Date: Sunday 19th September   

Route:  Sonora, Kentucky – Harrodsburg, Kentucky 

Distance: 96 miles 

Total climb: 5625ft 

Net climb: 184ft

Food, as anyone reading this blog will have realised, is a central preoccupation of mine whilst out on the road.  It should not come as no surprise then, that as I woke up in the Glendale Economy Inn, my thoughts immediately turned to thinking about what breakfast delights waited for us in the Iron Skillet.  I was not disappointed; the unlimited breakfast buffet was magnificent and we all spent an enjoyable hour there preparing for the day ahead.  Our efforts, were knocked into a cocked hat though by the chap on the table next to us who in addition to the porridge, eggs and bacon and other delights on offer managed to tuck away an entire plate of steak – it was mightily impressive.  Another patron also very kindly gave Team Stockham some tips for what to visit during the day including the whisky festival in Bardstown.  The Skillet had once again proved to be a triumph.

Back to the motel, the bikes were loaded into Tammy and we headed back to Sonora.  It was a Sunday so everything was closed, but it looked like a fun town with lots of antique shops (essentially stocking anything over 15 years old) and bunting lining the streets.  We headed out on SR 84 and although it was a lateish start, the plan was to stop after only 10 miles for what I hoped would be one of my personal highlights of the trip – the Abraham Lincoln birthplace memorial.  It is not often that we get to visit the birthplace of our heroes and for me this was a special moment.  There can be no doubt that they “do” memorials very well in the US – perhaps their short history as a nation means that they are particularly keen to protect and commemorate those people and places that have contributed to it.  The site has a memorial building which marks the spot of the Lincoln cabin, next to the old well.  We spent about an hour at the site and in the visitors centre and it exceeded all of my expectations.  It was past eleven o’clock by the time we were back out on the road, but we were in good spirits and ready to make up the time.

Our route for the next 40 miles took us through a changing landscape where we were enclosed by a series of low, rounded hills known as the Knobs.  Steadfastly refusing to make any jokes whatsoever about our surroundings we continued until reaching the top of a short climb where we were overpowered by the smell of a distillery.  This was not ideal when we were breathing hard whilst finishing the climb, but it did mean that we had arrived at Bardstown – Bourbon capital of the world, site of the whisky festival, and more importantly, our stopping point for lunch.

We shunned the McDonalds on the main road in order to ride to the centre of town and catch a bit of the festival.  The town was lovely with a genuine sense of history, unfortunately, almost everything was shut and the festival was on the far side of town.  After a lot of searching we eventually found a place to eat – the Old Talbott Inn.  It looked like an old English pub, but inside it was a rather different affair.  In the entrance hall, to a rather bizarre backdrop of medieval harpsichord music we were asked if we wished to eat in the restaurant or bar; we eventually chose the bar on the basis that the menu was basically the same and there were TVs showing sport in the bar (including the Patriots v Jets American football game that I had been keen to watch and some women’s football, the standard of which was mystifyingly poor).  After an interminable wait (which had the advantage of letting me see more of the game) we were finally served our food – which, it has to be said, was good.  By this time Team Stockham had also managed to find us, and so we all ate together. 

Our lunch stop had been much longer than intended and so we were keen to get back out on the road.  We were momentarily delayed after I whacked my head on the pub’s wooden sign, but we had to get away.  Back on the bikes we headed out of Bardstown and back out into the green Kentucky countryside. 

We took one more stop twenty miles down the road at the Lincoln Homestead state park, a collection of houses that were occupied by various members of the Lincoln family (most had been moved there from other places in the state) including the house where his father had proposed to his mother.  The houses were closed for the evening, but they provided a good mental diversion from the road and the drinks machine provided a chance to take on board some more fluid on what had been a hot afternoon.  Just after we had set off again we were met by another cyclist who had stopped for the evening.  He was slightly younger than us, and also doing the TransAmerica ride with a friend, although they were planning to take a few weeks longer than us to complete it (in fact these were the two cyclists that we had heard about the previous day in Fordsville – we had finally caught them!).  They were camping at the Lincoln Homestead and recommended it as a place to stop, but we were set on reaching Harrodsburg by the end of the day. 

Make it we did, although, as with so many days, we cycled the final ten miles as darkness set in.  Team Stockham rode at our backs for the final few miles and although this caused some confusion (and tension) as we pulled into the final junction at Harrodsburg, it was very reassuring to have them there.

We hopped off the bikes and loaded them into Tammy, before heading to the eatery recommended by the manager of the Days Inn motel that Team Stockham had booked us into – the Huddle Hut.  It was a curious recommendation as it was a fairly standard burger chain, although Britney, our waitress, did provide some amusement by failing to understand a lot of what we said and proceeding to talk faster that anyone we had encountered to date.  We headed back to the motel, full, and pleased to have made it to Harrodsburg, albeit a bit disappointed not to have seen more of the town.