The Big Hill at Bighill
Thursday morning was cool and overcast when I left the Economy Inn in Harrodsburg. Once I got everything ready I felt a few drops of light rain, but it never amounted to anything more than that.
Leaving Harrodsburg was a challenge in getting caught at the train crossing and also dealing with numerous four way stops and traffic lights. It was good to get out of there.
Once I was out of town the hills began and never seemed to end for the day. You wonder how it’s possible to have so many hills squeezed into what was a 56 mile ride by the day’s end.
It’s hard to believe that by the end of the trip I’ll have done exactly the same amount of climbing as descending, since I started at sea level and am ending there. On days like today you would swear it was 90% uphill. The reason it seems that way is because you spend so much more time climbing than speeding downhill.
The weather continued to be gray and dreary and never warmed up, which made for one of the most unpleasant rides of the trip. Then I kept reminding myself that this was not even close to “bad” weather. My luck has held out for over two months now and this was nothing compared to rain or extremely cold temperatures.
I arrived around 3:30 in the town of Berea, which is a college town. Nice place, but traffic and some construction going on made it hectic. I had looked into staying at the local fire station, but was also considering going another 24 miles to the town of McKee, which wasn’t too appealing. Luckily, at that moment Chris and Amina, the couple I had ridden with but lost touch with a few days ago just happened to pass by.
There was a welcome center about six miles up the road where they allowed you to camp. They were heading there so I decided that was a good option rather than staying in Berea or McKee. So after stopping at a store to pick up some dinner items, we were off.
The Big Hill Welcome Center is actually past a small community called Bighill and more near a place called Morrill. In any case, to get to the Big Hill Welcome Center, you have to go up the big hill. And after you’ve been climbing small to medium hills all day long, the idea of climbing “Big Hill” is not exactly exciting.
The maps I have give elevation changes in increments of 250 feet. So originally when I looked at Bighill on the map, it didn’t look like much of a problem. However, the town of Berea started a new map where now the increments were 1,000 feet. Anyway, the bottom line was that this was a really big hill, something I’ve not climbed since Hoosier Pass way back in Colorado. But after chugging along for what seemed like quite a long time, I made it to the top.
The welcome center was locked when we got there, as expected according to the hours listed on the map. Amina went to a house not far away to ask for water. There a husband and wife, Tony and Vonna, ended up calling seven or eight people around the area until they finally got in touch with someone who could come by and open it up for us so we could sleep inside for the night.
Chris and I also went down to Tony and Vonna’s later to get water and ended up talking to them for a while and playing with their dogs Daisy and Bristol, as everyone in Kentucky has dogs. They told us a lot about the area and growing up there. These kinds of interactions make the trip interesting, as I wouldn’t normally be sitting on someone’s front porch in eastern Kentucky.
When we got back to the welcome center, a few minutes later a man named Darryl pulled up with his wife. Darryl unlocked the building for us, turned on the heat, showed us historical photos on the wall and told us about them. He was 70 and had grown up here.
The center was a great little place to stay and very comfortable inside. Darryl just asked us to turn the heat off when we left in the morning and to lock the door.
The people along the road continue to go out of their way to help out.