Last Modified on 9/10/97 at 3:48:40

Day's Narrative: It was raining when I woke at 3 am, and again about 5 am. Steve and I had a conference at 8:30 to decide whether to ride today. It was still raining and the weather forecast was for it to continue all day. We decided to stay over in Russell Springs tonight.

Yesterday after a hilly 30 mile ride into Russell Springs, Steve wanted to see if he could find a bicycle store in the area where he could get a larger rear gear cluster. In the area telephone book we found Bennett's Cyclery in Somerset 30 miles away. Since we were not riding today we drove the truck in the rain over to Somerset and they put a larger cluster on. That should help a lot in the next few days when we cross the Appalachians. Steve also toured the Somerset Food Lion supermarket (photo 4).

So it was a slow day. It started to clear abut 2 pm with patches of blue showing, and by 4 pm we had full sunshine. Then at 5 pm we had a thunderstorm. Tomorrow's forecast is for widely scattered showers, clearing as the day goes on.

We spent the afternoon doing laundry (photos 1, 2, 3), and taking naps.

Tomorrow we will head for Corbin, KY, about 65 miles (110 km) away.

[Connie] Rain here is nothing like desert monsoon rains where in the late afternoon the sky turns black, the rain falls torrentially for a short time and then it clears up and the sun turns everything golden against a black background. Here the sky is whitish-gray all day, thicker in some places than others, and suddenly the sidewalk is wet from what seems to be a mist. Shortly after that the skies open and it pours, stops, and then rains steadily. Rain sneaks up on you here, but it's not quite as cold as desert rains tend to be. It's now 6 pm and still raining. No wonder trees are so big and everything is so green. WAter works wonders.

Laundry day again -- it never ends. I wasn't quite as forlorn as the picture suggests (photo 1). I had Ray and Steve as laundry companions, so it wasn't awful. It sort of reminds me of John Denver's song in which he says he "spent a week in Toledo one day." Russell Springs is quiet, but we mostly napped and did chores, so it didn't matter.

Ray and I went for lunch, leaving Steve for a desperately needed nap. We went to the "Front Porch Restaurant." We had the lunch buffet with Chicken Parmesan, tasty, spicy, pinto and mixed beans, a salad bar with crispy , mixed greens (not just iceberg lettuce), and wonderful homemade rolls. In all, wholesome food with taste and flavor. We had just about given up on finding any of this here, except for catfish at the local steak house. We commented on the goodness of the food to the waitress/ cashier. She said that the townspeople were kind of cautious about trying new foods like Chicken Parmesan or Honey-Dijon chicken, but always liked them after tasting them. We are going back tonight for the Honey-Dijon chicken buffet. Steve is used to his wife Lydia's fresh, wholesome, tastily prepared meals and was, I think, despairing of finding any good food on this trip. The evaluation as we left the Front Porch was that it was "the best bought meal we've had." Ditto for Ray and me. The noon waitress was pleased to see us back again. We were reading plaques at the front as we were paying our bill. It seems the restaurant is a 1997 addition to Russell Springs.