16-04-14 Day 18 Dogwoods Left Redbuds Right
Biking the TransAm 2016 Blog
2 Wheels, 6 Months, 1 Adventure!!!!
For some reason I wasn’t in a hurry to get on the bike. After two cups of coffee it was time… Right out of the gate the climbs began… uppp and downnn… After the first it was time for a DQ greasy egg, sausage biscuit… Now I’m ready to bike..
The goal was to bike as far as I could so tomorrow’s ride would be shorter into Berea KY for a much needed ZERO….. The only challenge was the 9 climbs before Booneville. The weather and scenery was awesome… Dogwoods and Redbuds were showing their glory…. Climb to a view and ride down to the creeks. Then repeat… I stopped for a train and saw the first operating coal mine…. Time to reflect on all the unintended consequences of the industry. As the day rolled on, I saw a glimpse of the strip mining off in the distance well hidden from the Kentuckyians who live in the hollows…
The Presbyterian Church of Buckhorn has a children’s home… Some of the good things churches do you never hear of…
After climbing two more mountains, I was ten miles away from Booneville and it was 6:45… I was thinking about stopping. Could I make it? Sure….
I rolled into town just before 8pm and a quick stop at the Old Bus Stop Diner.. Yumm and then to the Cyclists only campground hosted by the Booneville Presbyterian Church.
Pippa Passes to Booneville, Ky.
74 miles
Booneville Presbyterian Church
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I just had to know more about a community named Pippa Passes, so Google and I took off on a romp to find the Robert Browning poem—written in the 1840s—that was the origin of Kentucky town’s first post office’s name. A Browning Society, popular in the latter half of the 19th century, made a donation in 1917. (Sort of like the amphitheater in Northern Virginia is Jiffy Lube Live, maybe?) Anyway, Browning Societies, not surprisingly, were made up of fans of Browning’s Victorian-era poems and plays. “Pippa Passes” would have already been well-known to Browning admirers for its most popular passage—which is a rather fitting tribute to Mark’s own recent blog posts, I think:
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!