Continuing on Lincoln’s Trail
With around 800 miles to go, I’m starting to look at the maps and plan for the end of the trip. It’s not going to be coasting to the finish with the Appalachians coming up. And with doing some shorter days in the past week, progress has slowed. Wednesday was just a 32 mile ride into Harrodsburg, which was partly a great ride and partly annoying.
In leaving Springfield and the traffic behind, soon I was on some great rural backroads with perfect weather. You couldn’t ask for a better day. Shortly into the ride I arrived at the Lincoln Homestead State Park. This is where Lincoln’s parents lived before getting married and moving miles away to the areas I stopped at on Tuesday.
I spent a lot of time wandering around the area, but they close the visitor’s center in October so nobody was around to answer any questions. They have a golf course right next to the site. One of the holes is near the cabins and a couple of guys were teeing off there. I don’t think Lincoln’s father Thomas could have envisioned the land being used in this way when he was making his cabinets on that spot over 200 years ago (he was a woodworker).
After leaving the park I got into some of the best riding of the trip. The road became very narrow, but there weren’t any cars. As I’ve said, when you don’t have to listen to any traffic approaching from either direction it makes things so much better.
Shortly after, I was on another road heading to Harrodsburg and the traffic was picking up. Here you really have to focus on the road and what the drivers are doing. There are lots of curves and small hills, sometimes both, so at times it’s best to just pull over and let the cars go by.
It was a contrast between the first two thirds of the ride and the last third. When I got to Harrodsburg there was a lot of traffic through town for such a small city. A woman said that with Louisville to the north and another fairly big city to the south, you get a lot of it passing through, which makes the area so much less attractive. But all this traffic allows for a Dariy Queen in town. It’s nice to have a banana split Blizzard and still be losing weight, which I think I’m losing more than I thought.
With getting a late start and also spending a lot of time at the Lincoln site, I called it a day after only 32 miles. Thursday will be either a 50 or 70 mile day depending on the weather, which for once doesn’t look favorable. I had thoughts of finishing up in the next two weeks, but it may not happen if I don’t get some longer days in soon.