day 60

Today was the day we've been waiting for since the end of kansas, the day we head to hindman, where we would stay at the knott county historical society. We got up, packed up, and said goodbye to jon and wished him well on the rest of his journey then we headed up to a greasy little diner, I think the only diner in booneville where we got some breakfast and chatted with some locals. There was one guy there that couldn't understand that I was from alaska but didn't bike from there, he kept telling everyone who came in that I biked from alaska and we would all correct him but it just didn't click. It was a hot hot day out, 90's+ with whatever humidity was. Another day of just dripping with sweat and downing water like there's no tomorrow. We noticed that vines have taken over everything on the side of the road; like trees, shrubs, telephone poles, barns, and even cars that have been left parked for some time. We'd both never seen anything like this so it was pretty crazy; someone we talked with said they are from japan but I haven't confirmed it with wikipedia yet. East of berea is dog country and literally like a third world country in some parts and its really sad. Yesterday we got chased by 11 dogs, today we got lucky and only got chased by 2 or 3. there are a lot of streams on the sides of the road and people build bridges over to their houses but dump their trash into the rivers or just into their front lawns. Saw a little horse that was unhealthily skinny and looked like it had been beaten, just some super sketchy trailer homes. Its really sad to see that here in america and it doesn't seem to be a big priority. Perhaps a documentary I should pursue...so later that day we stopped off at a gas station to refill up our water bottles and met up with a cyclist who was part of the first cross america tour in 1976 and he has gone coast to coast 3 times and this time he was riding his original bike from '76 with all the same panniers and all the same gear. Super amazing so we had to sit and chat with him for a long time about how touring in '76 was and what it was like. We then parted ways and finally made it into hindman where we called dave to let him know we wanted to stay at his cyclist b&b. So dave has a ridiculously steep driveway and if you ride up it, then enter the gate and ride the rest of the way up, you get to sign his guestbook in a special spot; sadly I did not make it all the way up but evan did on his second try. It was brutal and it rained there right before we arrived so the driveway was super slippery and I fell off my bike and deemed it not worth it to get hurt to sign my name in a special spot. Evan didn't get a good start so he went back down and dominated it. We both rode up the second part of the driveway and at the top dave was waiting with ice cold sweet tea, it was awesome! Dave is a super nice guy who loves history, theater, cats, and cyclists and he is working on the historical society there in hindman. He has a big family style tent with blow up mattresses and sleeping bags. We settled in, got showered, and handed over our clothes to be washed, as we sat outside listening to NPR (I miss it so much!), watching the weather channel, sucking down sweet tea, and having a dozen cats playing with each other around us. It was so relaxing and dave made us a baked potato for dinner which was devoured shortly after he placed it in front of us then he came out with the best banana sundae that i've had in awhile. It was truly everything that was told to us by other cyclists. That night we just hungout reading, interneting, figuring out amtrak schedules, watching baseball games on tv, and just relaxing. We chatted with dave for a bit before we all decided to call it a night.