day 61

We got up at 9, as usual, and went up to the table and it was full of cereals, oranges, bananas, apples, orange juice, and coffee cake and NPR was gently ushering in the developing stories of the day already. It was a wonderful breakfast and we enjoyed talking with dave then signed his guestbook and he snapped a pic of us to put in his book for next year. We packed up and bid dave and his historical society goodbye and we walked down the very steep driveway. We set off to elkhorn city, which sits at the border of kentucky and virginia. Another hot day. Another day full of some brutal steep hills. Lookout in particular was the hardest climb of the day and our knees could feel it later that night. Got chased by 9 dogs total today too. Dave gave us a good shortcut to cut out a hill at pippa passes so we went through the college campus there and bypassed a hill. Thanks dave! After much sweating, pedaling, and huffing and puffing we finally made it into elkhorn city. We hit up the rusty fork for dinner which had the most bland food on this entire trip but super nice people there and they were having karaoke later that night. They told us we could camp across the street by the caboose which is parked next to the bridge/park. As we were sitting in the shade next to the caboose, a gentleman, whom we met earlier, gave us some bananas, cherries, waters, and powerades. How amazing and awesome, thank you unnamed man of elkhorn city. He also told us we should go to the church down the road to try and stay there because it was supposed to storm that night so we walked over there and the pastor wasn't home so we sat under an overhang and, as my mom would say, “a storm was brewing!” the black clouds and the thunder started rolling towards us over some hills. About a half hour of lightning and thunder in the distance, the pastor rolled up and asked us if we wanted to stay in the basement of the church and we took him up on it. We charged stuff, dried stuff, read stuff, and was checking stuff on the internet when the storm hit. It started to rain some and shoot some lightning but we were safe inside. I was trying to teach myself the piano there by trying to play in a sweater poorly knit by mewithoutyou (I think I had the basics of the song down, but evan is a hard sell). We decided to head back down to the rusty fork to get some milkshakes, we got down there and karaoke was starting up and so was the downpour. We were so thankful to not be camping because it was flooding the river where we were going to camp, the streets were flooded, trees were falling, and damage was being done around town. We finished our milkshakes and just sat watching the storm manhandle the town then decided to make the walk back to the church. Luckily the rain let up for a bit so we just hungout inside where we read some before we went to bed in the church basement where it was dry, safe, and not outside in the storm. Much thanks to the church of christ of elkhorn city.