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.