Beautiful riding weather last few days - cool in the morning, crisp sunny days, not too hot. Why more people don't time their tours for the fall I don't know.
Left Elizabethtown and caught the ferry at Cave-in-Rock, so named for the cave at rivers edge which harbored hiding pirates during the early days of commercial navigation on the River (or so legend has it). Once in KY the route followed small secondary roads, rolling hills with lots of small up-and-downs. Some noticeably older architecture in the smaller towns. Still mostly corn and soybeans, but now and then a random tobacco patch at various stages of harvest. I was feeling sluggish and opted for a short(ish) day, finishing in Henderson, a riverfront town with an affluent past and a nice waterfront. Barges carrying aggregate, salt and scrap metal we're plying the waters. The Ohio is a real working river. Stayed in a state park named for John James Audubon, who spent early adulthood in Henderson attempting to own and operate a saw/grist mill, c. 1815 or so. Audubon figures in many local business names: Audubon Tobacco Mart, Audubon used car sales etc.
Awoke early and determined to crunch some miles so I could slack off a bit in ensuing days. Perfect day with no wind and few hills. But for the confusing route through Owensboro, I made very good time, and pulled into Brandenburg after dusk with 111 miles, and feeling like I had a few more miles in the tank. Decided to motel it. Did not want to get out of bed the next morning, but Indiana beckoned! So crossed the river yet again, and rolled through Corydon mid morning in time for Bfast. Corydon was the early 19th century capital of IN with some beautiful historic buildings including the state house. The ensuing countryside was decidedly more affluent, owing I think to proximity with Louisville. I saw the skyline of Louisville but that's about it, sticking to the IN side of the river. I passed a massive ship building yard called Jeffboat that proclaimed itself the largest inland shipyard in the country. Dozens of huge vessels were in various stages of fabrication. It was great to see American steel manufacturing on this scale.
I camped that evening in Charlestown State Park. The park was created when thousands of acres of the closed Indiana Army Ammunition Plant was deeded to the state during the huge wave of DOD base closures in the mid '90's. The IAAP came on line in 1940 and within one year employed over 27,000 people and was the largest munitions factory in the world. I rode past a vast area of abandoned buildings, warehouses and railroad tracks that looked like what remains today of Chernobyl. It gave me a fresh appreciation for the scale of the war effort during WWII.
Next day more rolling hills of southern IN, including the first hill that was so steep I had to walk the bike up. Beautiful country with deep wooded valleys and magnificent old trees. Another long day of 92 miles brought me into Lawrenceburg IN where I moteled it again for lack of any decent camping options - a gritty little river town just west of Cincinnati.
Next morning I relied on Google Maps Bike Route to help me chart a path around suburban Cincinnati, as I had departed from the ACA Underground Railroad route. It led me away from the Ohio R valley I had been straddling for 4 days and up the Great Miami River valley and onto a series of paved bike paths that were perfect. Of course the first true tailwind of the entire trip, blowing from the southwest, helped make the route all the more enjoyable. Wind is EVERYTHING when you are touring: when it's at your back life is beautiful. When it's in your face or hard from the side, everything takes on a negative pall.
No comments:
Post a Comment