mount orab oh to may's lick ky, may's lick ky to lexington ky

hey all! its been a few days sans updates -- theres been less computer access than we'd thought.. we left kirk and julies in wilmington (thank you SO much for the hospitality! it was a GREAT start for the tour!) early sunday morning, with bellies full of homemade blueberry muffins and fruits. kirk dropped us off in mount orab, ohio, where we stopped to fill our water bottles in a mcdonalds (ew). we ended up talking to an older man who lived nearby who is an avid cyclist. he told us that 68 south is a good road to take all the way to the border, a town called "ripley." we followed his advice and took the road south. halfway down, we turned west into a sad little shopping center in the city of georgeville. we told the mcdonalds the classic line, "we didnt receive our large fries with our drive thru order," and kyle walked back to the table with an apology from the manager and a large fry. having eaten our fries, we talked to some local teenagers about maysville kentucky, where they were heading for the night. we walked across the parking lot to a pizza hut, giving them a sob story about these poor young adults having little money, riding bikes from springfield oh to atlanta ga. the manager gave us 5 breadsticks and some hot sauce (yum!) which we ate next to a local skatepark (score!). we tried again at long john silvers but the manager was a cold blooded dictator who charged for ketchup packets and offered no refunds on the quarter machines. we got back on our bikes and picked up 68 south again. we got to the town ripley at the ohio river. we stopped in a flea market for water, and ended up talking to a slightly eccentric, intelligent, poetic (!) former military man. after listening to several funny/entertaining/enlightening/scary life lessons, he offered us $12 to take a ferry across the river. his friend, who owned the restaurant, gave us a veggie tray and a cantaloupe. we thanked them profusely (really, how kind!) and loaded up the goodies on our bikes to hit the road. we rode down 52 east to cross the ohio river. crossing was amazing, a bit of euphoria as we rode into maysville kentucky. the town was very pretty, though we didnt stick around long. we continued riding, up to our first monster hill in kentucky. a bicyclist caught up with us and walked up the hill with us. he was very nice, gave us some advice, and was a good morale boost. we parted at the end of his loop, and he took our picture and took down our blog information. if you're reading this, hi jason! thanks a lot :D we rode on about 5 miles, and ended up camping in an older couple's front yard. we woke up early and ate a VERY modest breakfast at a park across the street. lexington was 59 miles away, which we naively thought we could make. we stopped at a shell station along the way to fill up on water. the cashier overheard our conversation and gave us free sandwiches. score! as we were leaving, a woman walked in and the cashier said "hi jana! what are you up to today?" and she replied "oh, im moving my daughter up to louisville..." kyle and i thought nothing of it, so we loaded up our bikes and hit the road. about 15-20 miles down, we were feeling pretty tired, so we stopped at another gas station, where we got a bunch of free sandwiches. we hung out there for about 30 minutes and left again for 68 south. here, the road got very dangerous. the hills got steep, and the shoulder disappeared. we were pretty fatigued and semi trucks were passing us 2-3 feet away. scary! we stopped to pull into a farm market to refill on water and rest. right as we were pulling in, jana (the woman from the shell station!) pulled in with her daughter following. she says "honey, get in the truck! this is a dangerous road!" and we loaded up our bikes (with some difficulty) into her pickup truck. we greatly enjoyed her stories about kentucky history as she drove us to lexington ky, where she was originally headed. she told us she normally wouldnt have stopped, had she not seen us in the gas station this morning. she even empathized with us for having ridden for five hours! she told us that 68S is a very dangerous road, with lots of motorist fatalities, let alone bikers! she dropped us off in lexington, where we stopped at a starbucks to use our gift card (thanks grandpa osborne.. haha). we ended up sitting there for 2-3 hours! we talked to the workers a little bit about our trip, and they were impressed. we called darin and lauren from 503 oldham ct (awesome people! sweet house!) to get directions. we rode bikes the few miles to their house when it looked like rain. we showed up, and the first question was "are you vegan?" followed by "do you get high?" fun times! we hung out for a few, and then left to go dumpstering at kroger's for some food. granted, it was still daylight, and great fun! we saw the dumpster was full of goodies, but lauren had no trash bags. we went into krogers and asked for some grocery bags (oh the irony!) and went out back to fill them up. we ended up with 13 ears of corn, and quite a few pounds of carrots, turnips, and parsnips. we drove home (with lauren and her kids in the car, how fun!) and boiled some corn and steamed the rest of the veggies. after a good dinner, we went to bed in the tent. we woke up relatiely sore, sunburnt, and tired. we both took showers (what a relief..) and boiled some corn on the cob for breakfast. not very filling! we then walked to a bike shop to get kyles derailleur worked on, but they were sorta pricks about it. we walked back to oldham since it was starting to rain and our clothes were hung on the line. by the time we got there, the rain had stopped, and we walked again to the university library. we looked up some bike route information to no avail, and we were getting very hungry. we tried to use our starbucks gift card in the university dining area (yeah, i guess we COULD have 2 muffins and 2 scones for lunch) only to find that they couldnt accept a gift card. hungry and slightly dismayed, we took the walk to downtown. after trying our sob story at a quizno's, a papa john's, and a cosi bread, we were ready to cave in and buy a meal or use up our starbucks card on more pastries. turns out we didnt need to! we walked to the quizno's and the la gourmet by the starbucks, where we got 2 free slices of pizza, 2 bags of sunchips, and 2 free cookies. still hungry, we bought 3 pastries from starbucks on our gift card. we then got free refills at starbucks, as we sat there for 4 hours drinking coffee, chatting, reading tolstoy and hemingway, and watching a young couple's life get ripped apart by a drug bust outside. hm. anyways, thanks to anyone who worked at the starbucks and put up with us during our stay there! it was great fun. especially thanks to DARLA, who was way nice and fun to talk to! :D we left the starbucks for the library, where we seemingly have found a good route from KY to TN to Ringgold GA, just north of atlanta. the library is closing, but here is a link to my photobucket where you can see not 1, but 54 photos of our trip thus far. enjoy, and please write back!

http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/joshuawalden/