Distance: 62 miles Buckhorn, KY to Pippa Passes, KY (Alice Lloyd College)
Ride Time: 6:28
Average Speed: 11.3 mph
Maximum Speed: 34 mph
Altitude Gain: 4875 feet
Average Temperature: 87
After the storm through the night, morning was clear and the weather was great. We had decided to meet at Combs. Because of the roads, Kathie had to take a different route than me and got to Combs much before I did. Her GPS did not recognize the center of town and kept routing her around and round the parts of town. She knew it was sending her in circles and pulled over at a plant outside of the town, but still didn’t know where to meet me. We did not have phone coverage at this point. At this time a truck driver, named Tyler, noticed her and asked if he could help. She started to cry because she had felt so alone and now here was someone who grew up in Combs and knew exactly where she should go. He was very comforting and told her where to park and how to meet up with me. He even gave Kathie his phone number to give him a call if she needed anything and to let him know when we were through the canyons ahead. As I was coming out of the canyon and into Combs, I noticed an eighteen wheeler start to pull out in front of me but held back. He jumped out of his cab and yelled at me. I thought he was mad at me for having made him wait where it had been clear for him to enter the road. I was frightened by what this big truck driver wanted. I turned around and went back to talk to him. He introduced himself as Tyler, and asked if I had a wife that was pulling a trailer that I was to meet up with. He told me she was visibly shaken and that he had tried to calm her down. He said that the area we were going into was no place for a trailer and would have no cell phone coverage. He recommend that I send her a totally different way and not try to meet her at all until after Pippa Passes. Tyler was a very kind and caring person and I am so thankful that God had lead him to Kathie and I.
I had lunch, we filled up the truck with gas and agreed to meet in Hindman after the first Pippa Passes.
As I came into Hindman, I saw the truck and trailer parked in front of a church. Kathie had left it there while she went back to shop at an Amish produce store. It was located a few miles outside of the town and Kathie had started to walk back there when a lady offered her a ride to the market. Kathie had walked back down the canyon into the town and was just getting back at the moment I saw the trailer. As we were talking, a lady with two children passed us on the sidewalk. She asked if I was riding the TransAmerican Bike Trail. I said yes. She said her husband was the Pastor for the youth church in town and told us she would let him know we were there. She also said that typically they would have several cyclists stay at their church for the night and clean up there. I explained that would be great, but that I was interested in riding another 30 or more miles that day. She told her husband, Pastor Steve, and he came out and talked to us and again offered their church to clean up and stay the night if we would like to. I explained that I would like to ride further that day. He said he knew of a lady that worked with a youth church group in Pippa Passes at the Alice Lloyd College and gave her a call. While we were waiting for her to call back we got talking. Kathie asked why there were so many law offices in that town. She saw 9 law firms as she walked along the main street. Pastor Steve explained that Hindman had the highest prescription drug miss-use in the country. Besides the law offices, there were recovery facilities in town. He said that 60% of children in town were raised by their grandparents. Pastor Steve also said the WalMart in the area had told him that it was the top selling WalMart for Mountain Dew, Little Debbie pastries and Bibles. Pastor Steve got his return call from Mary Turner at Alice Lloyd College. She had things arranged for us at the college and had even invited us to eat dinner with a group of students there. By the time I got to Alice Lloyd College, Mary was already feeding Kathie with her daughter, Avery. She had a place for us to park the trailer, told us where we could shower and do laundry. After showering, we took our laundry and put it in the three washers available. Typically, a washing load was on a 30-minute cycle. These were front loading washers, and as the door locked shut, we saw 1 hour and 50 minutes light up! There was nothing we could do at that point and rolled our eyes at each other several times through the cycle. One particular time was when two of the washers stayed at 33 minutes, while the other washer moved ahead. Then it was a race to the finish as we tried to predict which one would get to the end first. By that time, we were looking for anything to entertain us, knowing that we had the dry cycles to go. Needless to say, we did not get to bed before midnight that night. So much for the extra 30 miles I got in. We were treated very nicely by Mary, her husband and their two daughters.
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