Tuesday, June 21st:

This morning started off a little interesting… Now I know the question forming in your heads: How could anything at 4:00 in the morning be interesting?? Well the night previous, we got a load of laundry together for washing, but the machine for the guests was broken- so the hotel crew said that we could give them the laundry, and they would just charge the cost to our room. Well they started it around 7:00, which didn’t leave enough time for us to collect it before the morning. So in the morning we grabbed our laundry, and after sorting and folding- Ed realized that one of his biking gloves was gone. Looking everywhere for it, we all finally gave up and grabbed some breakfast. While sitting there- a little peeved at the morning’s events, we were less than happy to see the same employee who had washed our clothes come in to greet us. Gratefully, he brought the missing glove with him- because had he not- Ed may have torn his head off Compton style… and none of us want to see that. With that out of the way, we set off for the Missouri border. As I explained earlier, the bridge that we were supposed to go over was closed to traffic, but Ed pulled some strings and got permission to hop the fence. However, this meant that I, as the driver, had to go up north 12 miles and then come back to meet them on the other side. After crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois, we quickly bid farewell and rode over the Ohio River to Kentucky. Our high expectations of Kentucky were immediately met with beautiful scenery and pleasant locals who offered to let us come in and rest for a while. We gratefully declined and cruised our way down Highway 58/121 towards Mayfield. I grabbed some juices and milk in Mayfield and caught up with the group just in time for their 60 miles break. We stopped at a pretty place with a bench and a cave (see pictures). We decided to eat in Hardin, about 10 miles down the road, at a place called the Cross Roads. After eating, we started back out, and the rain started coming down too. We were 30 miles from our destination when the rain started pouring and we threw on our rain gear. After about 5 miles, though, Ed and Jerry made a decision to cut our losses and just stay in a small hotel just between Hardin and Aurora called the Lakeland Resort. Of course, right when we stopped- so did the rain. And it didn’t rain for the next while- so we could have made it to Cadiz… Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.