Day 14: Gimme a Breaks

46.18 miles (Total: 582.35) Average Speed: 10.3mph Max Speed: 38mph

We left Rosedale hungry in search of a place to eat. We stopped at the first town to find breakfast but had to settle for some old egg and bacon biscuits (biscuits are like scone things here and I’ve never really taken to them).

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The morning is foggy and with with people going to work and school buses flying past it makes tackling Big A mountain even more of a challenge. Our destination for the night was Breaks Interstate Park and Cooper has a small stove so we had decided to cook supper, tacos were on the menu.

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Really? I spell it Happiness.

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After picking up some food for later we then reached Haysi and stopped at a pizza buffet before hitting the Haysi library. I spent a few minutes checking emails but couldn’t update my blog as they were typed up on my netbook and Haysi had no wifi. By this point the roads had started to become heavy with coal trucks. We knew this would be a problem in Kentucky as the industry is huge in the area. They are huge monoliths with dark souless windscreens.

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What would the people at Rural Retreat have to say about this blatant rip off!

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Everything One Dollar…Or More!

We sweat our way through yet more short climbs before reaching Breaks. The woman on the entrance waves us through without charging and points us in the directions of the campground. We stop in at the camp office to register a spot and the guys are super friendly with deep country accent and talk us through the best sites then even give us a golf cart to drive around and check them out before picking one. Once camp is set up we get a fire going and cook up the grub, the taco shells in the kit we bought were horrific so we went to the camp store to pick up something else.

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Just as the evening was coming to a calm end thunder rolls in, soon followed by the rain, then lightening. Its only about 8pm but we scramble into our tents as the storm raged on and on. I dropped in and out of sleeping as each flash of lightening would crash close by and I battle to make sure my tent wasn’t letting the water pool on top. This is going to be an interesting night!

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Oh dear

We left Rosedale hungry and hunting for anything resembling a proper meal, but the first town we hit could only offer old egg-and-bacon biscuits — biscuits here being something closer to scones, a substitution I’ve never quite made peace with.

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The morning came in foggy, school buses and commuters flying past, which made Big A Mountain feel like more of a fight than it probably needed to be. Our destination for the night was Breaks Interstate Park, and with Cooper’s small stove along for the ride, tacos were the plan for supper.

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Really? I’d have spelled it Happiness.

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We picked up food for later, reached Haysi, and stopped for a pizza buffet before ducking into the library — a few precious minutes of email, though the blog would have to wait, since the entries lived on my netbook and Haysi had no wifi to speak of. The roads by now had filled up with coal trucks, huge dark-windowed monoliths that we knew would only get thicker once we crossed into Kentucky, coal being the industry that runs the whole region.

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What would the people at Rural Retreat make of this blatant rip-off?

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Everything one dollar… or more!

We sweated through a string of short climbs before finally reaching Breaks. The woman at the gate waved us through without charging a thing and pointed us toward the campground, where the guys at the office — thick, easy country accents, friendly as anything — talked us through the best sites and then, rather than just pointing, handed us a golf cart to go scout them out ourselves. Camp made, fire lit, we set about cooking, only to discover the taco shells in our kit were a disgrace and had to make a supply run to the camp store to salvage supper.

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Just as the evening settled into something calm, thunder rolled in, and then rain, and then lightning close behind it. Barely eight o’clock, and we were already scrambling into our tents as the storm took hold in earnest. I drifted in and out of sleep all night, every flash of lightning cracking close enough to jolt me upright, fighting the whole time to keep the rain from pooling on top of the tent. It was shaping up to be an interesting night.

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Oh dear.

73 days, one line across the country

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