Day 0 - The drive To Berea

Tomorrow I start my second trek in earnest. Today Matthew and I drove from NC to Berea, KY. I had initially hoped to start from home in NC, but due to equipment delays I had to get a boost along the intended route to make up for lost time.

Currently we are sitting watching The best Indiana Jones movie — The last crusade — Fight me. This after a long 7hr drive, exacerbated by my own stupidity.

We decided to take the “Long way” up to Berea, rather than shooting up to Charleston WV and then over, we took the route north into VA to Wythville, then Abingdon and eventually into Hazard, KY. You can imagine our disappointment when we didn’t see the General Lee… I’m not even sure it’s the same county to be honest.

Regardless, it was a beautiful drive filled with good conversation.

Just outside of Lexington, Matthew got a call from his wife, Stephanie and he told her as much. It was at this point I realized a minor error in communication. While I had joked that my route took me through Lexington the next day, because Matthew is interested in seeing some civil war sites there, I had reserved the motel in Berea, the intended start. Somewhere in the mix he had interpreted my joking to mean that we were headed to Lexington directly.

This mistake quickly gave way to us laughing it off as a minor 30 minute inconvenience as we turned off the highway to take back roads towards Berea.

Honestly, the countryside here is beautiful. People frequently talk of the rolling hills of KY, and while that may be true, I was more taken by the overall feel. It has the kind of dense pastoral vibe of England, with tight roads hemmed in by trees and hedges and stone walls. Pastures surrounded by wooden fences breaking the closed in feel of these tight roads.

I remarked then how much I will enjoy biking through the same terrain tomorrow.

For now however, I’m going to rest after rechecking bags, clothes and tools.

More to come.