Day 17 

Dry Ridge, KY to Augusta, KY

Today I planned to ride from Dry Ridge, KY to a campground just past Ripley, OH. I woke up, thankfully feeling normal. Yesterday wiped me out. As I was packing up my tent and getting my bike ready, Ewing came out of his RV to offer me some coffee and bid me farewell. I’ll say it again, I’m so amazed and impressed by how kind people are to me on this trip! I packed up and headed out. About 25 miles past Dry Ridge I passed Kincaid Lake State Resort, my last night’s intended destination. I was now glad I didn’t make it there, and instead had the opportunity to meet Ewing. On I pedaled. When I hit Gertrude, I took another look at my map. Augusta was off route but had a historical landmark of “Doctor Perkins” home. He was a free person of color, he was arrested when he was 70 years old for “enticing slaves” and ended up dying in the state penitentiary. Augusta also had some of the older brick slave houses I wanted to see which were quite different from the slave houses in the far south. But the main seller to going off route was that google told me that I could put my bicycle on a ferry to cross the Ohio River into Ohio. It’s silly but I really wanted to ride a ferry so it was pretty done. Google had me at “ferry”. I could still hit my same campground so it seemed like a good detour. I arrived in Augusta and the downtown area was SO cute. Historic homes everywhere and it was just a super cute downtown area. I stopped at the ferry pick up and the ferry was just approaching but I hadn’t really had a chance to poke around Augusta yet. They said they just go back and forth till 8pm. In this case, I decided to skip hopping on the ferry just yet. Because I hadn’t biked enough today, I putted around on my bike around town. By now it was around 3:30 and so hot! I rode around looking for a store to get something cold to drink and take a break. I couldn’t find anything downtown but just across the way I saw a gas station with a picnic bench out front. Perfect! I rolled over there, got a drink and sat on the bench.

Random bit of trivia. Augusta, KY is the hometown of George Clooney. His parents still live there.  

While I was sitting on the bench, this woman and her little dog came my way. She asked me what I was doing. I went into my normal spiel. She looked at me like I was loco but was very curious. She asked where I stay at night. I told her I camp probably half the time, stay in motels sometimes and stay with random folks the rest of the time but tonight was a camping night in Ripley. There was silence for a second then she said I should stay with she and her husband tonight. I had planned to go about another 15 miles today and was already behind from being under the weather yesterday but there was something about her, plus she had a dog so she gets extra credit, I totally wanted to stay with them. She introduced herself as Sheila. She said she should probably go check with her husband and walked back towards a truck yelling “hey ronnie!!!” Next I know, she comes back with this big guy with a friendly face. He kind of had this look on his face though, like, I can’t believe my wife is having us bring this stranger home with us. Lol. I asked how far they live and when they said “UP” the hill I said forget it, ha! But they said we could stick the bike in the truck and Ronnie would sit back there and hold it and it would be all down hill in the morning when I rolled out. They said they lived on a farm. This was even better! A farm! I got good vibes from them so I took them up on their offer. 

We went up a very large hill that I would have never ever ever pedaled up and then turned down a driveway with a small house in front, then a barn, then a beautiful newer house back further on the property. I saw they had this older blue tractor in the front and asked if I could possibly take my picture with the tractor. I had wanted to find someone to take a picture with me in their tractor but hadn’t found the right person to ask so this was perfect! Ron said he wanted to pull out the big nice tractor for me not the old blue one. I was just happy with any tractor! I took a shower, got cleaned up and low and behold…there was a giant John Deere tractor just outside the back door when I got out of the shower! 

Jackpot! I got in and gave Sheila my camera to take a picture, then she did the unthinkable…she asked if I wanted to drive it!??!?!?!? WHAT!??!? I can drive it too?!?! She fired it up, gave me a few instructions and I was off! I was totally driving this huge tractor. I gave her my camera to video tape me driving. I never expected to get to drive one, I just wanted a picture! So cool! They let me do some laundry too (with dryer sheets of course) and that was super. Their friend Tracey came over that evening and was cracking up at Sheila and Ronnie bringing home a girl from the gas station but she said it really didn’t surprise her all THAT much. We had a delicious crock pot meal with homemade tortillas. (Sheila, I bet you still have enough Masa to make approximately 5,982 tortillas, LOL) I also got to help get the chickens in the coops but I really didn’t help much, I was more like a supervisor than helper. I watched them bring in the cows for dinner. 

So cool. A real farm. 

I had such a fun night!! That night I got the whole front house to myself. That was the house that came with the farm and that Sheila and Ron lived in while they were building their house. So much better than camping. I was so glad I they offered and I took them up on their offer to stay with them.