June 24, 2007 - Day 8

Finally we got started on a ride early. We left about 7 am and headed up the Oak Ridge. As we were riding over the ridge, I was thinking the Oakridge Boys probably grew up around here. It kind of puts their music more in perspective. It also made me wonder if future generations were likely to think the mountains were named after the Oakridge Boys. As I watched the different wisps of fog rise up out of the trees, I could understand why it looked like the mountains were smoking. Most places like this, the fog just hangs or blows through, but here it actually looks like it comes from the ground in many places. When you are in it though, it is just wet and cold. I guess I am just thinking too much. The views from the roads up here are so intoxicating that you just can't help but let you mind drift over the past. By 10 AM we were already way almost 2 hours ahead of schedule, so we stopped at a little general store called Forbus. There were so many awards and articles on the walls describing it's history, I could only imagine the activity that must have gone on there. I made one small error though when I made a comment about a dollar bill with Hillary's face on it. It seems that this area seemed to think that all the problems in the world were the fault of the current President and that once she is in the White House, all things will return to he way they were. Wouldn't it be nice if one president could return the world back to the "good times"? Anyway we made a hasty exit before we got lynched and headed on down the road. A few minutes later we crossed back into Kentucky and removed our skull skids. A short time later we found a restaurant that was open. The first one we'd seen since leaving, so we stopped to have lunch. It had to be lunch, cause no one serves breakfast down here on Sunday. Or so we've been told. This place had a historical theme and we found some images that really brought back memories. After a nice lunch, we were westbound making good time, when the sky opened up to remind us that things just don't go that well without some kind of interruption. We stopped and covered our packs and kept going. We got a little wet, but we'll dry. Sure enough it stopped, we dried, and then here comes another. We were riding though Bowling Green when it started again. We weren't alone there. I saw 30 or more bikes and no one was dressed for rain. We all got wet together. Still we kept riding and 20 minutes or so later, we were almost dry when..... You guessed it. More rain. This time we were right next to a gas station, so we stopped till it passed. On the bikes again about 20 miles later and, "Oh S#T^%R$^#*$". This time the sky from as far as we could see to the left, all the way to as far as we could see to the right was black with lightning and thunder. Not only was it nasty looking, but it was coming at us way too fast. We pulled over to stopped and watched it for about 30 seconds. I told Karen, "If we turn around and head back right now, we still might not be able to avoid it. The wind was blowing so hard we though we were going to get picked up and delivered to Kansas. It was our turn to ignore the speed limit as everyone else had been doing. We rode the 23 miles back to Bowling Green in record time and got to a motel about 2 minutes before those same clouds surrounded the city in black rolling angel trying to wash away the cities' sins.  It was early, but we decided we would rather stop here and make it a long day tomorrow. So for tonite we are going to dry off, get some sleep, and we will see you on the byways tomorrow.....