Pittsburgh, PA

My final night in a tent of these travels was spent at an actual campground, the first of my time away other than the initial two nights with Charlie in Nebraska by a prime sand hill crane nesting site.  This was a primitive camping area with no water nor any sign-in necessary nor fee, just two designated spots and a portapotty.   

It was along the Montour Trail outside of Pittsburgh, “the nation’s longest suburban rail-trail,” encompassing more than sixty miles.  I picked it up outside of MacDonald, twenty-one miles from Pittsburgh, and rode its crushed limestone surface for six miles to the Boggs Trailhead campsite, happy to be spared the nearby hilly terrain, though the trail did climb, fluctuating between one and two per cent, the most a train can handle. 

I could have easily disappeared into the forest at many spots along the trail, but I was hoping for water to give myself a wash, and curious if there might be a community of cyclists at the campsite.  All that was there in the parking lot was a father with three little, very excited girls preparing to go off for a few mile ride.  I was happy to have a flat, well-groomed site to pitch my tent, especially after the previous night’s slender, uneven patch behind a complex of storage-lockers that necessitated clipping thorny bushes to slip behind.

It was disappointing not to have at least a water pump at the primitive site, as it had been an eighty-degree day and for the first time warm enough for me to shed my shirt when I settled into my tent.  I would have greatly welcomed a splash of water to remove some of the grime of the day, but I’m certainly used to not having that luxury.

My final miles in West Virginia took me past the world’s largest conical mound in Moundsville, close enough to the Ohio River for Meriweather Lewis to have spotted it and make note of it in his journal when he flowed past it in 1803 on his way to St. Louis to meet up with William Clark for their mapping expedition to the far west.  Its sixty-two foot height is thirty-eight feet less than Monks Mound in Cahokia, the tallest in North America, but that mound doesn’t have the perfect shape of a cone.  

It dates to 200 B. C. and originally had a moat around it and was part of a complex of other long-gone smaller mounds.  It was saved by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1908, as someone with a developer’s mentality bought it and wished to level it and sell lots, as it was valuable property in the middle of the town.  The view from its summit peers down on a castle of a penitentiary modeled on that of the Joliet prison outside of Chicago.  It dates to the Civil War and was in use up to 1995.  It’s now a tourist attraction, especially popular at Halloween, as it’s reputedly haunted.  

I left the Ohio River at Moundsville and climbed into the middle of West Virginia’s extremely hilly northern panhandle jabbing up between Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The state actually has two panhandles, with another appendage dangling off the east side of the state.  Oklahoma has appropriated the title of the Panhandle State with its more prominent handle, but West Virginia could argue that it is the Panhandle State, having two of them.  

Departing the flat road along the Ohio, known as the Energy Road for all the petroleum processing plants along the way, my legs were put to a final test with the highest rate of feet gained per mile, over one hundred, of my time in the state.  I was certainly striking a chord with West Virginians, as a motorist at a red light waiting to turn left let out a spontaneous shout at the sight of me saying, “Hey, way to go,” and a pedestrian blurted out as I passed, “My hero.”  And there was the guy who called me the “Healthiest guy in all of West Virginian.”  They were all older gents, perhaps beset by untold ailments that now limited their activity.  Never have I received such accolades, as these folk understood it took no small effort to be bicycling the unrelenting mountainous terrain of their state.

I was drawn to the northern panhandle for a Carnegie in Bethany at Bethany College, the oldest college in the state, founded in 1840.  It had been replaced as the library in 1960 and had been renamed Cramblet Hall in honor of father and son presidents of the college who had served from 1901 to 1919 and 1934 to 1952.  It now housed administrative offices.  A plaque past the entrance acknowledged Carnegie.  I could now leave the state, having gotten to all four of its Carnegies, none still serving as a library, but a rare state that hadn’t torn down any of its Carnegies. 

I’d arrived early enough in the day for a dine-in breakfast, but the small town of 749 residents and 600 students had no restaurant.  I was happy to settle for a heaping container  of biscuits, sausage and gravy from the town’s general store, which I ate at a picnic table out front.  I was tempted to add  its one dollar special baloney sandwich to my larder that was popular with students, but I still had some bread and sandwich fixings I needed to finish before my train trip home the next day.  The store had no Wi-Fi, nor was there a library other than the one on the campus, not necessarily open to the public, especially with the school year done.

I had to wait until I crossed into Pennsylvania, just a few miles away and came to the town of Avella Highlands to post my miles of the previous day on Strava and find out what was happening in the Giro, well into its first week.    Its library was up a steep half mile road that had no traffic on it.  I feared the library would have limited hours and this effort would be wasted.  The library was in the community center and the librarian was out front walking a dog and smoking a cigarette.  I was in luck, as the library was only open three days a week and only from ten to two.  

I abandoned the bike path the next morning after two miles as it continued further north than I wanted to go.  I chose a route through the town of Carnegie, established in 1894 and named for the steel magnate.  Five years later it became the seventh community in the US to receive a library grant. It was built on a hill and had an adjoining music hall which receives much use.  The library offered as comfortable a setting as any, a perfect place to while away a few hours as I had lots of time on my hands before my midnight train home.  

At the entry to the town of eight thousand a plaque honored Honus Wagner, perhaps the greatest shortstop ever, who was born there and made it his home his entire life, as he played for the Pirates from 1900 to 1917.  Mike Ditka was also born there in 1939, though he grew up in nearby Aliquippa, so he didn’t warrant a plaque.

With eight branch libraries, as well as the Main Library, scattered around Pittsburgh funded by Carnegie, it would have been difficult to avoid passing another.  I had visited them all on previous visits to the city, but always welcome renewing acquaintances.  I passed the West End branch shortly before the West End Bridge.  It was the eighth library Carnegie funded in the US, opening in 1899.  The West End Bridge took me over my old friend, the Ohio River, just after its origin from the merging of the Allegheny and Monogahela Rivers.  It had become an unintended theme of these travels, as I’d  also passed over a bridge at its terminus after its 981 mile meander into the Mississippi at Cairo, as well as biking along it for extended stretches in Kentucky and West Virginia.

The bridge deposited me in the Allegheny neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where the first library funded by Carnegie in the United States gallantly stands in its center, a veritable castle of a building.  President Benjamin Harrison participated in its dedication in 1890.  It is now a museum lab connected with the Children’s Museum across the street.  During the week it serves as classrooms for fifth, sixth and seventh graders.  

Facing it is a bust of Colonel James Anderson, Carnegie’s hero and inspiration, who made his personal library available to working boys on Saturdays, which included Carnegie in the 1840s after his family had immigrated to the US.  Anderson held a tender place in Carnegie’s heart all his life.  He considered him a founder of free libraries. He also named a library for him at Emporia College in Kansas, where he served on the board of directors, which I visited earlier in these travels. 

I had one more library in Pittsburgh to revisit, the spectacular Main Library that extends a full block in a park that loads of people were taking advantage of on this summery day, picnicking on blankets and relaxing in hammocks.  I crossed the Andy Warhol bridge over the Allegheny and took a busy Forbes Avenue for three miles, first stopping at the Amtrak station, which didn’t open until six, so I couldn’t confirm my ticket as early as I wished.  Only four trains a day pass through, to and from New York City and the Capital Unlimited to and from Washington D.C. to Chicago. 

It was the third library Carnegie funded in the US, opening in 1896.  The library’s facade is ringed with a cavalcade of writers, artists, musicians and scientists—Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Virgil, Chaucer, Tasso, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, Moliere, Pope, Voltaire, Goldsmith, Goethe’s, Scott, Irving, Macaulay, Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, Tennyson, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Titian, Schumann, Gluck, Schubert, Mendelsohn, Haydn, Purcell, Palestrina, Rossini, Chopin, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Govnody, Liszt and more.

And thus ends another glorious tour through seven states (Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania), 3,686 miles in fifty-one days.  I wove in over sixty Carnegies, forty-five that were new to me, bringing my life total to 1,115.  That leaves me with 390 left to get to in the US, mostly in the northeast and northwest.  I finished off four more states and nearly a fifth, with only three left in the northwest corner of Nebraska.  My route intersected with thirteen Statue of Liberties in five of the states. 

I will welcome some recovery days, as my legs were beginning to feel depleted.  It took some effort to hike up the mound in Moundsville.  But whenever I tried to sleep in, I couldn’t last beyond 7:30.  I know my legs won’t let me take any days off, but it will be nice in the days to come to be pedaling an unladen bike and in the flatlands.

Parkersburg, West Virginia

 

I’ve been reunited with the Ohio River for the fourth time in three weeks.  Our first meeting came in Cairo, Illinois, when I merely crossed  it into Kentucky. I returned to its banks a couple days later in Paducah for a brief few miles.  Six days days later I met up with it again in Newport/Covington across from Cincinnati.  I followed it south for a hundred miles into West Virginia.  After a few more miles I bid it farewell for a week until arriving in Parkersburg, where I’ll have its company for a day heading north up into West Virginia’s northern panhandle.

I greatly welcome its company, as it grants me a reprieve from the constant ups and downs that have been the story of West Virginia.  Level ground is such a novelty that one town that had some named itself Flatwoods.  The four-lane wide Highway 50 running east and west across the state to Parkersburg was nothing but one long climb followed by a fast descent for seventy miles.  I’d climb for fifteen or twenty minutes, have an all-too-short reprieve of four or five minutes, and then spend another fifteen or twenty minutes grinding up the next climb.  Up, down, up, down without any interlude becomes very tiresome.

The day before I had the pleasure of a road that followed the contour of the land rather than lashing straight through it as had 50 and the several Interstates that bisect the state.  The climbs were more bite-sized with little worry of choking on them and were broken up with prolonged spells of minimal inclines and declines as the road wound around the ridges that lace the land. It would have been the most enjoyable of cycling had it not been raining.  

The rain began several miles into a forty mile stretch without more than a dot of a town, so I had no choice but to keep riding.  When the rain came down in torrents, I was tempted to seek shelter in several abandoned homes and barns, but I needed to keep moving to stay warm.  I knew a cluster of motels awaited me in Weston or twenty miles further in Clarksburg.  After two hours of unremitting rain, it stopped shortly before I arrived in Weston allowing me to somewhat dry out before I came to a coffee house, the lone eatery through town.  It wasn’t serving, but I was able to sit inside and warm up a bit, making the decision to keep riding, happy as always that I did.

The internet told me the Quality Inn in Clarksburg offered the best rates of six or seven motels in the area along the interstate.  That was confirmed when its sign said “Weekly rates available.”  A few of those residents were out front smoking.  I took full advantage of its complimentary breakfast gorging on scrambled eggs and sausage, waffles, and biscuits and gravy, and filling my water bottle with orange juice.  I powered twenty miles north to Fairmont and the lone Strengthen the Arm of Liberty, Statue of Liberty in West Virginia.  It stood in front of a VFW Hall.  They had brightened its torch.  

Then it was west back across the state to Parkersburg and its Carnegie.  I knew it no longer served as a library, but didn’t know what use it had been put to.   I was delighted to see that it was still in the book business, transformed into a book store, the Trans Allegheny Book Store, selling new and used books.  Unfortunately, there was a chained gate across its entrance that looked like it had been there a while.  It was no longer in business and, in fact, had closed in 2010 after taking over the building in 1985 ten years after the Carnegie had been replaced as the city’s library.

It was a terrible shame this historic, noble building has been unused for so long.  It had lost none of its nobility and showed no sign of neglect. Its exterior was uniquely etched with the words “Literature” and “Art” between the windows on the first and second floors.  It also had a distinctive cornerstone indicating the influence of the Masons.  It stated, “Laid by Masonic Fraternity October 20, 1904 George Hatch—grand master.”  It also included the Masonic year A. L. 5904 which is four thousands years before Christ when they believe the world was formed.  A. L. is the abbreviation for the Latin “Anno Lucis” (In the year of light).

The replacement library a couple miles away on the north side of this city of 30,000, the third largest in the state after Charleston, the capital, and Huntington, whose Carnegie I earlier visited, had a stained glass window from the Carnegie of its benefactor.  The city has two branch libraries, one of which has the official Carnegie portrait.

I spent half an hour on the internet trying to book a ticket home on Amtrak from Pittsburgh.  It offers one train a day leaving at one minute before midnight (11:59 p.m.) and arriving in Chicago nine hours and forty-six minutes later.  I was two hundred miles from Pittsburgh, so could make the Thursday train.  Unfortunately, it was booked up and so was Friday’s.  I was unable to complete the booking process for Saturday’s train and had to make use of Amtrak’s on-line assistance.  That took quite a while.  

Charlie told me that Amtrak allows one to cancel a reservation without penalty, thus encouraging people to book a ticket when they’re not entirely sure if they’re going to use it.  Remembering that, I held out hope that someone might cancel a Thursday or Friday reservation and I could grab it.  Lo and behold, a Friday ticket became available shortly after I’d booked a ticket for Saturday.  Thank you Charlie.  So it was back to changing my ticket, which was another prolonged ordeal.  I wasn’t even sure if I succeeded until I received a confirmation email.

Having three days, rather than two, to reach Pittsburgh, I might finally have time to read the book and magazine I brought along that I have not yet read a page of.  And having no need of maximizing my time on the bike, I can try to time it to pass through a town large enough to have a diner during the time of breakfast and avail myself of some hotcakes.  It’s only happened once in these travels and that was on day three.  It is now near day fifty. Ordinarily I try for a massive calorie infusion of hotcakes once a week.  Lacking that makes me nervous about what the scale is going to tell me when I get home and weigh myself.

Sutton, West Virginia

 



West Virginia continues to dish up a steady diet of climbs exceeding a mile or more.  Most of the climbs are followed by a descent of equal length, but after some the road will level off for a spell. At the summit of a five-miler I was greeted by a cluster of homes, one of which was holding a yard sale.  

Two older guys, who had parked across the road from it, were walking over to the sale as I approached.  One said to the other, “That’s the healthiest man in all of West Virginia.”  I was too far beyond to hear if there was a response of “and the craziest,” as they may have also thought.  Who in their right mind would want to be pedaling up these steep monster climbs on a bike, loaded or otherwise?  I certainly didn’t see anyone else doing it.  

The road out of Hinton the day before along the New River took me over another of those long climbs.  I was having an enjoyable, strain-free ride along the scenic river, which I presumed would be continue for ten miles when I would depart from its gentle banks.  But after less than three miles I came upon an unexpected huge hump in the terrain which led to the New River Gorge National Park and the Sandstone Falls Overlook five hundred feet above the river.  

Those five hundred feet were among the 4,699 I did for the day, by far the most of these travels and on a day when I rode the fewest miles, fifty-five, thanks to all the climbing.  It wasn’t my lowest average speed, however, as I’d had a couple worse days thanks to headwinds.  Most of my day spent climbing was on roads with little traffic and few habitations.  The route also included two state parks in the thickly forested terrain. I was back amongst abandoned homes as I had been in Kansas.  

One made for an easy shelter to camp behind.  My tent appreciated the soft grass after the many nights of lumpy ground in forests pocked with roots and rocks poking at its underside. 

Just as Kentucky abounded with businesses and roads taking the name of Blue Grass, West Virginia has abounded with businesses of Mountaineer this and that.  I spent a few miles on a four-lane highway, 19, that is known as the Mountaineer Highway.  A smaller road leading into it had signs identifying it as the  scenic Cranberry Corridor.  

Litter is such an issue that in addition to the frequent “Unlawful to Litter” signs, there is an occasional “Proud People Don’t Litter,” trying to shame people from what seems a natural propensity in West Virginia.  The roadsides are so thick with cans and bottles, it is as if motorists consider tossing bottles and cans a divine right, such as carrying a firearm, thinking that littering only applies to dumping loads of refuse.  There is no urge to pick up the litter.  I’ve come upon only one or two stretches that have been adopted, unlike every other state where services organizations and businesses and individuals are happy to put their name on a sign saying they’ve adopted the next two miles.  Ironically, foster parents wanted signs turn up all the time. 


At least the church message boards provide some amusement.  Its not clear if pastors are posting sermon titles or just some witty, homespun homily such as “Sin is a short word with a long sentence,” “A smile is happiness right under your nose,” “Tweet others as you’d like to be tweeted,” and “Inflation has not effected the price of salvation.”

I thought I might have something else to gather along the road when I saw a recycling center advertising that it bought lead tire weights.  I didn’t stop to see what they were paying, as I certainly wouldn’t be in the neighborhood again, but later went on-line to see what the going rate might be.  If each were worth a dime or more, I’d be tempted to stop for them, as I once did for cigarette packs when they were worth close to a quarter on redeemable merchandise.   The internet quoted a price of thirty-one cents for a pound of the lead weights, making each worth just a couple of cents, leaving me curious as to who would bother to collect them, as it would take quite a few to add up to even a dollar.  I was  glad I could tune them out.  

Sundays used to be a day when I worried about charging my iPad, as it would be rare to come upon a library with Sunday hours.  But shortly before I left on these travels I replaced my iPad, as it had several cracks, one of which was fogging up.  Before the cracks had become an issue, I’d been tempted to simply replace its battery, which I didn’t realize wasn’t possible, as it needed recharging with increasing frequency.  

When I took it in to Apple I was surprised to learn it was still at 88 per cent of its original capacity.  The new one though holds a charge so much better that I haven’t once fallen below fifty per cent in all these weeks, and I’m able to fully charge it each night in my tent with a mini-battery I’ve charged with my generator hub all day.  It’s wonderful to be freed of continually being on alert for outlets for additional charging, though I always take advantage of them when I’m at a Taco Bell or MacDonalds.  

Most, but not all, of the franchises have an available outlet.  It takes some prolonged  snooping at times to find one.  At one MacDonalds I was wandering all over after putting down my helmet and handlebar bag at a table.  Someone thought I couldn’t remember where I had put them and pointed them out to me.  When I told him I was looking for an outlet, he happened to know there was one in the children’s play area, where I then sat amongst the frolicking kids tending to my business of eating and charging.  On those rare occasions when an eatery doesn’t have an outlet, it’s no longer the disaster it had been, since the battery is so strong. 

I was initially reluctant to travel with an iPad, concerned about keeping it charged.  Now it’s not an issue at all.  I continually marvel at how the iPad has enhanced the touring from its precise GPS assistance, photography, not having to sign in for a computer at libraries, podcasts, ebooks, email, FaceTime and more.  It’s hard to imagine how I got along without it.

Hinton, West Virginia

 

I concluded my ten days in Kentucky riding along the Ohio River for over one hundred miles looking across its expanse at the state bearing its name. The river also provides the divide with West Virginia for a spell.  I crossed over the Big Sandy River, one of its many tributaries, into West Virginia and  followed my companion for the past day-and-a half for another ten miles.  I bid farewell to the Ohio when the road branched off to follow the Guyandotte River, then the Mud River.   Roads follow rivers in these parts as they provide rare stretches of somewhat flat land.  I was riverless for a  twenty-five mile stretch crossing a high ridge, then linked up with the Kanawha River for forty miles. 

The terrain had been pleasantly undulating along the rivers, but not so pleasant for riding in West Virginia, as the river valleys provided rare corridors of terrain flat enough for habitation and were crammed with traffic.  It was hard to believe that a state with less than two million people could have such a non-stop torrent of traffic and so many businesses crammed along the road for miles and miles.  

It seemed that whatever flat land there was had been built on.  It was a challenge finding a place to camp my first two nights in West Virginia, as so much of the land was vertical.  I was forced up steep rocky four-wheel drive side roads to find almost flat spots among the trees.  A Walmart could only find a suitable spot past a train yard that required a one-mile detour from the highway to reach.  All had to drive a mile in, then a mile out unless they were prepared to walk across several sets of tracks as I saw one guy doing lugging an armload of bags of food.  

The traffic finally thinned when I left a river valley and began a long steep climb that was preceded by signs warning that the road ahead was steep and twisty and not fit for larger trucks.  At last, after one hundred miles, I was intruding upon the real West Virginia.   I was flanked by the tightest yet of vertical terrain thick with trees.  This semi-canyon had been carved by a stream, rather than a river.  The road leveled here and there, allowing for small clusters of homes that constituted towns.  After twenty miles I came to another valley that was wide enough for a four-lane highway and lots more people, enough that after ten miles I came upon another Walmart.  

I had to endure another twenty miles of mind-numbing traffic before I turned onto another tributary of a road that led to Hinton and a Carnegie, one of just four in the state.  I’d visited one of them in April of 2011 on a ride from Washington D. C. to Chicago via Winston Salem in North Carolina, where I attended the River Run Film Festival and met up with long-time friends Lyndon and Tomas.  

The Carnegie was in Huntington, which I passed through once again on this trip fifteen miles after crossing into the state.  As then, it continues to provide offices for the local community college.  The nondescript replacement library faces it from across the street.  The two couldn’t be a greater contrast.  The Carnegies are all solid, statuesque edifices built to last, built for the ages.  All the other nearby buildings in the center of Huntington looked mundane and disposable.  Among the extra notable features of the Carnegie was the inscription of Socrates, Plato and Homer below its roofline and a poetic cornerstone paying tribute to Carnegie and future generations.

The Carnegie was easily the most striking building I’d come upon for miles and miles until I reached Charleston, the state capital, along the Guyandoote.  Its domed capital was the equal of any state capital.  A statue of Lincoln stood in front of it, the second I’d come upon in these travels, the other in Leavenworth, Kansas, where Lincoln had kicked off his 1860 presidential campaign.  He was honored here for having created West Virginia in the middle of the Civil War.  Virginia was very much divided.  In the 1860 election only two thousand people in the state voted for Lincoln, and mostly in the western portion of the state.  

The sprawl of Charleston included a quarter million people, though the city itself contains twenty per cent of that.  Dual paths ran along the river, one up high along the road and another narrower one below closer to the river.  It was a sunny day, but I had it all to myself other than one lone jogger. 

The route to Hinton took me over a three thousand foot ridge with grades of nine and ten percent and then a four-mile descent to 1,500 feet and the New River.  As I approached Hinton surrounded by high ridges I thought I might be entering a Shangri La.  The central district of this town of 2,200 had been placed on the Registry of National Historic Places.   

The Carnegie was a few blocks away in a residential district and was now a Veterans Memorial Museum.  The replacement library took over an old bank in the center of town.  The old vault was shelved with Classics.  I asked the librarian if they were locked up each night for extra safe keeping.  She said no, that locking the front door seemed adequate.  

With the Kentucky Derby this weekend it has been a topic of conversation on some of the sports podcasts I listen to.   It is significant as the fiftieth anniversary of Secretariat winning the Triple Crown, all three races in record times that still stand. He was included on many of the end-of-the-century lists of greatest athletes of the century.

A guest on the Tony Kornheiser show actually mentioned the mural of Secretariat I had just seen in Paris, Kentucky, near the stables where the horse lived out his life until 1989.  The three-story high mural had been unveiled last November.  The artist, Jaime Corum of Louisville, specializes in horses, though she had never done something of such magnitude.  She spent five-and-a-half weeks working on it. At the unveiling she said she had greatly enjoyed painting it as many people stopped by to tell stories of the horse.  His grave at Claiborne Farm has become a pilgrimage site.

Ashland, Kentucky

 

For the first time in over a month, since those early sub-freezing nights in Nebraska and Kansas, I needed to light a candle to add some warmth to the tent.  The temperature was still in the forties and was only predicted to dip to thirty-seven, but a light drizzle had dampened my gear, which wasn’t going to dry with just my body heat. 

I had endured sporadic sprinkles all afternoon, never enough though to cause me to seek shelter until near day’s end.  I had stopped at a service station when the drizzle persisted a little too strongly, not wanting to be too wet when I retreated to my tent.  I sat under an overhang waiting for it to let up counting on being able to ride a spell to dry the slight wet I had taken on.  I was enough of a pitiable sight for an older guy to ask, “You’re not homeless, are you?”

“No, no, I’m riding my bike across the country.”

“Where did you start?

“In Colorado.”

“That’s a good place to be from.  Could you use a little money to help yourself along?”

“Thanks I’m fine.”  He was the first to ask, not making the assumption that others do and forcing money on me without asking.

With the rain persisting longer than it had all afternoon I went in and asked the Pakistani attendant if there was a motel down the road.  He whipped out his phone and a moment later said, “There’s a Holiday Inn 6.2 miles back towards Cincinnati.”  I wasn’t going to double back for that. 

A lull in the rain finally came, but it didn’t look too promising to last.  I needed to find a place to camp before the rain resumed and I got wetter.  I knew it was going to be a cold night.  For the first time in weeks I hadn’t shed my wool cap or puff jacket that I frequently start the day wearing.

Within a mile I came upon a sports complex with a couple of ball fields and a forest behind them.  Just what I needed.  As I set up my tent a few drops penetrated the forest canopy, making me very happy to have stopped.  I was most concerned about drying at least a little my gloves and shoes, which I managed to do. 

If the rain could have made up its mind and come down in earnest earlier in the day, I could have retreated to a motel in Newport or Covington, sister cities just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, who both had Carnegies that brought me here.  It had been a startling sight to see the mini-skyscrapers of Cincinnati in the distance as I approached the metropolis from the south.  They were the first I had seen in a month-and-a-half since leaving Chicago.  They were a marvel to behold after weeks in rural, small-town America.  It was almost hard to imagine that such large edifices could be constructed and for what purpose.

It was somewhat of an accident that I had made a one hundred mile jaunt up to these Carnegies from Winchester, as I had previously visited the Carnegie in Newport in November of 2015 on another ride to the School of Americas vigil at Fort Benning in Georgia, gathering the eight branch Carnegies in Cincinnati just across the Ohio River.  I had been lax in my research and hadn’t realized there was another Carnegie a little more than a mile from the one in Newport on the other side of the Licking River that separates the cities.  I couldn’t regret too much having to make this detour rather than heading east over to West Virginia from Winchester, as it allowed me to experience all the horse farms and the new Secretariat mural in Paris.

The Covington Carnegie was on such a grand scale that it had been converted into an auditorium for theatrical productions.  It is now known as The Carnegie.  With it I had completed Kentucky, the third state of these travels and eighteenth overall.

The Carnegie in Newport, built a year before in 1899, had a grant of less than half of that of Covington’s, but was still a most formidable and distinguished building.  It now calls itself Carnegie Hall and hosts events.

I stopped at a bike shop a couple blocks from Carnegie Hall to ask about getting over to the Ohio River and biking south along it.  The terrain was hilly and my GPS didn’t show an obvious route over the hills I had ridden over coming into the city.  I was told to continue north and ride along the levees rather than cutting eastward through the hills. I was hoping for a bike path along the river.  There was but disappointingly it gave out after little more than a mile. 

Half an hour later after I had escaped the clutches of the urban sprawl I came upon a sign warning that the road ahead was blocked.  I was fortunate to know from the bike shop guy that bicyclists could go around the barrier and keep riding.  It was a very serious blockade and the road beyond didn’t necessarily look like it went through.  I was very glad to be spared the anxiety of fearing I might have to turn back.  It would have been easy to camp anywhere in this stretch, but the rain was so minimal I kept riding.  I was angling southeast with a bit of a tailwind.  The terrain had leveled along the river. The miles were coming easily other than the moisture saturating the air.  It would have been delightful were it not for the fear of getting soaked, but as always I ended the day pleased with what the road allowed me and happy to be in the tent.

Paris, Kentucky

 

The light was much dimmer in the forest when my alarm went off at 6:30 than it had been the day before when I set out from the motel in Central City at that early hour.  I was surprised the foliage could make that much of a difference. Fifteen minutes later when I glanced at my watch, I was taken aback when it read 5:45.  I had crossed into the Eastern time zone without being aware of it, though my iPad registered the time change.  I was too far along in my packing to go back to sleep for forty-five minutes and instead could be happy for an early, early start, giving me a better chance to get to Lexington and beyond. 

I arrived at the first library of the day in Bardstown just as it was opening.  There were several others awaiting, including a mother with two young children.  In the foyer was the usual display of notices of community interest on a shelf. The one with the largest, boldest type was titled Felon Expungement, something I’d never seen before.  The rest room door had a sign warning of camera surveillance in response to vandalism.  Fearing I may have ventured into a den of ne’er-do-wells, I went back outside and moved my bike by a window where I could keep an eye on it.  A nice older gentleman engaged me in conversation, taking the edge off my concerns. He recommended an alternate route to Lexington with less traffic.  After several minutes he wished me luck, and added, “I don’t envy you,” with the implication that he knew that maybe he should.

A few drops of rain and forecast of more for the next hour prolonged my stay at the library.  The day remained overcast and cool with intermittent drops though never enough to more than dampen my clothes.  The hilly terrain kept my average speed below eleven miles per hour, which I needed as a minimum to reach Lexington and get beyond it to find a place to camp, so I stopped ten miles outside the city when a vast unplanted pasture with a ring of trees around it presented itself.

It was a lucky oasis, as I was already in the Lexington sprawl.  I was relieved to be able to pass through Lexington early on a Sunday morning rather than in the bustle of Saturday evening traffic.  As I approached the big college town I came upon the first indication that I was in the state known for horse racing.  It was a sign for Man O’ War Boulevard leading to Blue Grass Airport.  

Man O’ War was considered the greatest horse in history until Secretariat came along, though ironically Man O’ War did not race the Kentucky Derby, as his trainer thought it was too long of a race for him.  He went on to win the Belmont and the Preakness, the rest of the Triple Crown, setting a record time for the Preakness.  He was so dominant, winning nineteen of twenty races, that the New York Times named him the athlete of the year in 1920 along with Babe Ruth.  

The high status of horse racing in Lexington was further evidenced when an intersection had benches at each of its corners named for a Derby winner—Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Citation and Alysheba.  College basketball is also regarded with religious fervor in Kentucky.  Every few blocks a sign indicated Rupp Arena, the basketball stadium named for the great coach, was ahead.

Just as in Lawrence in Kansas, home to another college basketball powerhouse that I passed through earlier in the trip, there was a strong element of homelessness here.  Older women were pushing around shopping cards loaded with all their earthly possessions.  Others were huddled by piles of their belongings.

Just a block off my route through the center of the city I passed its Carnegie, which I had seen in a previous visit to Lexington.  It had been the city’s main library from 1905 to 1989.  It is now the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.  A plaque out front said its predecessor had been the first library west of the Allegheny Mountains in 1795.  The plaque named two people instrumental in the founding of the Carnegie,  a trustee on the library board who obtained the large $60,000 grant from Carnegie, and Mary K. Bullitt, the first librarian of the Carnegie.  It also acknowledged that nearby Transylvania University provided the land. 

The day before I passed another Carnegie that I had previously visited in Lawrenceburg in November of 2014 on a north to south crossing of the state on my way to the School of Americas vigil outside Fort Bennington in Georgia.  It continues to serve as a museum.

My previous rides though Kentucky hadn’t gotten me to Winchester, fifteen miles east of Lexington, where Kentucky Wesleyan College had a Carnegie.  The Methodist college was founded in 1858 and relocated to Owensboro in 1951.  The Carnegie is presently vacant sitting in a large park across the street from the main building of the college, still looking as gallant as ever.

I turned north from Winchester after coming over four hundred miles since crossing into Kentucky six days ago.  For the first time I saw horses.  Some of the farms offered tours and had signs saying what horses had been bred there.

My route took me through Paris in Bourbon County, the heart of horse breeding country.  A small park had a large mural of Secretariat.

It also boasted a Carnegie I had previously visited.  When I was last there it was in the midst of a large expansion to its side.

One final Kentucky Carnegie awaits me in Covington, on this side of the Ohio River across from Cincinnati.  Then it will be on to West Virginia and more coal mining along with three Carnegies.