1999-10-21 Today I hit the bigger big hills. At first I would see one of these hills approaching, and think, "Oh no! Not another one!" After a while however, I would grit my teeth together as I saw a hill coming and say, "Bring on the pain, baby! Bring it on!" However, near the end, after the numbness had set in and I would see a hill coming, I'd simply look down to see if my legs were still pumping and shift into a lower gear. I actually covered about fifty miles, fifty long and painful miles. The satisfying thing, however, is knowing that probably even a week ago I would not have been able to do it. Line upon line... For those of you following my route, I took 231 from Cromwell, KY to Aberdeen. There I met a trucker who looked, talked, and walked like the trucker from Smokey and the Bandit (I can't remember his name. Reed?) I backtracked a little and followed 70 all the way to Mammoth National Park. I do not recommend 70 to anybody on anything that doesn't have a motor. Beside the hills, it was a smooth road with light traffic. 70 brought me through some of Hill Billy country. The Hill Billies were easy to spot. They lived in small, rundown shacks surrounded by garbage, stuff somebody may never need, and "hounds." And many of them were "self employed." I'm guessing it would be an easy thing for them to clean up their yard if any of the four cars sitting out front actually ran. I guess, when you live way out in the hills and your car dies, there's not a lot you can do except let it sit or push it into a ditch (as the resourceful Hill Billies did). I'll also take a wild stab in the dark and say that most folks around these here parts are Baptist. Baptist churches are thick! Most every one was small, and they usually look nice. There are probably circuit ministers that hit three or four every Sunday. And the opossum seems to be making a comeback, although dead raccoon are still in the lead. But I'm not counting. That would be morbid. I am now happily camping (illegally, I think) in the southeast corner of Mammoth Cave National Park. I'm happy mostly because it's dark and it's not freezing yet. This morning I woke up and realized that there was no condensation on the inside of my tent. That's odd, I thought, until I realized that it was all frozen, and, thus, not dripping on me, which was good in a way. I did one of the cave tours. It was the 2 mile historic tour. In my experience, historic tours are the best because history tends to have a lot of good stories. This one was dry. Perhaps it was the guide. The cave itself was neat, even though I only saw 2 of the 12 miles open to the public, out of the 300 miles of known caves here. And there are other caves in the cities near by. I won't visit those, and I didn't take any pictures. To do a park like this justice, you'd have to spend at least a couple of days, not just the later part of the afternoon. Oh, and they have showers here! It costs $1.75 and the showers are in abck of a grocery stor, but that's a small price, as I'm sure most of you would agree. Does anybody know if there are bears in this part of the country? I think there are, but I can't remember for sure. Because something big (soft footfalls) just circled my camp, and I think I saw it, and it wasn't a deer.