Monday, August 30, 2010

Day 9 Louisville KY, to the Kentucky Horse Park (Lexington, KY)

The recent memory of the difficulty of the 89 mile day to Louisville weighed heavy on the morning of my departure. I knew more would be asked of my body than it was going to give comfortably. I guess adventures are not really complete without at least a little deprivation, anguish, and pain. I chose a different route for leaving Louisville than when I had arrived and botched it after about 6 miles. It cost me 3 more miles but losing the time was the most discouraging thing. I wasn’t really logging miles going East until about 1130 AM which meant I would be arriving to Lexington late if I didn’t pick up the pace. I had seen everything already between Louisville and Shelbyville and though there was a time crunch I took a nap at Todd’s point under a Silver Maple at the entrance of a horse farm. I woke up to a tractor moving and mowing in my direction. I pressed on through Shelbyville and into Frankfort. I got directions from a guy on a really tall and twitchy horse (16 ¼ hands) named Marlin. His rider had rescued him from an abusive home in Indiana. Though the pair had a visually commanding presence the beauty of the horse combined with the rider’s soprano voice and smooth accent made the pair very approachable for an exchange of pleasantries. From there it was on to Frankfort, the capitol of Kentucky and a good place to get pizza. So I did. The afternoon was hot. I waited until a little after 5PM to leave for the horse park. I thought it would be an easy 20 miles or so but it proved more difficult. I arrived at the campground about an hour before the sun went down. It was just enough time to take a dip in the pool, set up camp, discover my stove was not working, and call in for backup should I break down over the next 24 hours. The next day I had the option of biking about 70 miles to the lake I had already been to, or push for Carter Caves State Park, a favorite family recreational area. I decided to go for Carter Caves, which was over one hundred miles away from my starting point.

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