Day 59 – Dogs and Hills - and the Kindness of Strangers
Another perfect weather day: temp in 70’s, low humidity, and
little wind. Sunshine all day. I biked 79.1 miles from just east of McKee,
KY to Emmalena, KY.
Dogs were my concern today, and appropriately so. It started out rough. I had not gone two miles down the road this
morning and I came upon a dog. He was in
a fenced in yard. I breathe a sigh of
relief. As I ride by, he slowly gets up,
slowly walks to the gate. At that point
I realize the gate is open and at that point he charges me. I didn’t have enough momentum to out run him. I tried yelling at him to stop. Finally I fired the pepper spray in his
direction. Didn’t hit him directly (that
is my last resort), but enough to get him to stop.
Not more than another four miles down the road two large
black lab-looking dogs snuck out from behind a house and came at me as I passed. Again, I did not have the momentum to out run
them. I tried to shout them down, but
they wouldn’t let up. Finally a couple
indirect shots of mace stopped them.
For the next 60 miles I had no encounters. But, my dog radar remained on red alert. There were dogs. Mean looking dogs. Loud angry sounding dogs. Fortunately they were all chained or behind
fences. I thought maybe I had this dog
problem behind me. Then two more encounters as the day was ending. One of them required a direct shot of pepper
spray as he charged straight at me. I
hate doing that. It is not the dog’s
fault. I am completely perplexed by the
type of person who owns dogs like that and doesn’t contain them. And I also find it strange that the problem
is concentrated in eastern Kentucky.
Bikers I have met coming from the east warned me of the dog problem in
this area, and that is indeed the case.
I can’t wait to get this behind me – it is putting a damper on the
journey.
A nice distraction
from the dog problem was hills. The hills I enjoy. At this point I need to pause and explain
that I really don’t know what defines a hill versus a mountain. I assume there is some technical explanation. But after the height of the mountains out
west it is hard to call what I am climbing now anything but hills. Today’s hills rise up 500 to 1,000 feet and
they are steeper than the mountains (as steep as a 12% grade today). They are also much more challenging than the
mountains. Whereas climbing the western
mountains was a challenge due to their height, there would usually only be one
or two or three a day. The hills I climbed
today just keep coming one right after another.
In fact today, I climbed a total elevation of 6,175 feet. That beats the previous daily record by
almost 900 feet! Also, this was the
fourth day in a row of climbing over 5,000 feet. Prior to this run of four days there have
been only three other days the entire trip I have climbed more than 5,000 feet.
In reality, the western mountains were a
good warm up for the current hills.
I love how things work out.
One of the roads biked today. |
Another road biked today. Note the rocky sidewalls. |
A rest stop after a strenuous climb. |
The dogs sound crazy in Kentucky....and sorry to you have to be on edge and alert....just creates unneeded stress. Glad your day ended with the kindness of strangers. BTW, rolling hills in Kentucky sound more like mountains.....when you are on a bike and your legs are burning going uphill, I am not sure the technical differences really make a difference!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful serene pictures. Thanks again for sharing.
Those dogs sound terrifying! Glad you are out of Kentucky!
ReplyDelete