The Kentucky story we promised

Ok: now for the long awaited Kentucky country boy story. So we biked up that huge hill everyone was warning us about (they didn't know we had just come out of the Apps!). When we pulled into the driveway, Thomas and Glen were prepared to cook a delicious meal for us. Thomas goes to a culinary arts institute, so he knows a whole lot about food preparation (of course). Anyways, he made us boiled carrots, wild rice, and venison (he had killed the deer earlier in the year). I, staunch vegetarian, even tried the meat to experience true Kentucky. It was chewy but good.
Thomas and Glen took us in their pimped mustang to the Catholic church annual picnic, where Thomas's family had been all afternoon. On the way, as they were speeding down the mountain, we started talking about bike accidents. Then we rounded a turn and there was a biker (motor) dragging his bike off the road desperately. He wasn't badly injured (although there was flesh coming out of his arm), but needed help with the bike. Immediately Thomas stopped the car to help the man and Glen ran up the road to stop traffic. Cars waited on both sides of the road, but few people offered to help. The man who had had the bike accident was black and we were in Kentucky country. One guy who had a pickup truck was asked to help out and put the truck in the car, but he refused because he would not help a black man.

This experience opened our eyes to the racism that still exists everywhere in this country, not just in the Kentucky boonies.


We arrived at the Catholic picnic where throngs of kids were playing games like the horse shoe toss, dart throwing to win stuffed animals, or trying their luck at the cake wheel. We tried to win a cake with 50 dimes (a significant part of our daily budget), but none of our lucky numbers were actually lucky. Thomas won us a cake though- a delicious, Kentucky home-baked carrot cake. (we consumed half the cake in two days!).


Then we went to Thomas's house to meet the WHOLE family. There are 11 children, 2 sugar gliders, many goats, doves and chicks, ducks, miniature ponies, a red tailed hawk, cats, dogs, a ferret (or something that resembled a ferret). Joseph, the second oldest son was the animal keeper of the family. He gave each of us a squirrel pelt for our bikes and a soft white rabbit pelt (from his extensive collection). The boys explained how the family ate about 150 squirrels, several deer, dozens of rabbits, and mostly vegetables from their garden each year. They taught us how you cook a squirrel in a crock pot over night and stew it the next day. I really respect their sustainable lifestyle and can't help but recognize how much in line this way of living is with the sustainable methods in the Nepali eco-villages. Living off the land respectfully and knowing where your food comes from is something largely forgotten in America and the world. How fortunate were we to discover that this way of living is still being practiced, despite the millions of super Wal-Marts that sweep America away from sustainable living (we see them at the edge of most towns we pass through: parking lots full of cars... not a good sign).

Anyways, staying with Thomas and Glen was really great- a window into family living in the country and not to mention a nice place to sleep, shower, eat, and hang out with people and hear their stories.

We were sad to leave the country house the next morning (we had thought about sticking around and learning how to fish).

so there's one of our favorite Kentucky stories, however, there are a couple more from Kentucky we should fill in.



Ok: I'm filling it into this post, so hopefully it will be seen/noticed.

After we left the country and Thomas + Glen, we cycled into Rough River. Beth, a cyclist hostess contact we got from a couple of older guys biking the other way, picked us up there to bring us to her beautiful home for the night. We were treated like queens! We had our own cabin. Gary, Beth's husband, cooked us the most delicious meal ever! his corn bread is amazing (I need the recipe). Thank you to Beth and Gary- you are awesome and what you do for cyclists is so amazing.


The next day we pedaled hard into Sebree KY. We stayed at the First Baptist Church with a cyclist hostel. Bob and Violet, the pastors, were so wonderful!
I helped Bob edit his book about Jacob and Joseph and Egyptian slave traders. Violet was soft spoken and exceedingly warm. She gave us the most beautiful parting prayer I have heard in my whole life. In this prayer (for us and 2 cyclist dudes) Violet spoke about anything we could possibly be worried about. She was so sincere and heartfelt, it almost made us teary.

We left Sebree after indulging by playing piano for a few hours. About 20 miles into our ride, we met Bryan (A.K.A Peanut). He is awesome and we still keep in touch (even though he's hundreds of miles ahead). He did say he'll wait for us in Nevada, but who knows- that's a long way away.