Underground Railroad 2023

 An early-ish start with luggage pickup at the Outcast Annex @ 6:45.  Emily had breakfast ready to go @ 7.  Today's ride was over 100 km, but relatively little climbing so I was hoping for a pokey recovery ride.  Except for the pesky headwind for about half the ride, it went as planned.  Even after poking about I was still into the hotel before 2 and had to wait an hour and a half for my room to be ready.  Oh well.... We started with a good long stretch on State Route 359.  Almost all the roads today were very quiet secondary roads.  They were a bit rough in places, but we also had some fresh pavement.  We're definitely in farming country now - mostly what looked like large farming operations.  Corn seems to be the main crop, but lots of something else too - maybe soybeans (later confirmed to indeed by soybeans).  In general, the homes (farmhouses and other rural properties) are some of the best maintained and manicured that we have...

Here we go...... the longest ride of the trip.  The hotel breakfast didn't open until 7, so we didn't get away until about 7:30.  Here's the view from my balcony about 6:30.  Looking out over Kentucky Lake. We backtracked a few miles to get onto today's route.  We crossed the Kentucky Dam on the bike path once again and then back over the Tennessee River.  At about 19 miles we reached the booming metropolis of Smithland (population 300) and our first SAG stop on the banks of the Ohio River.   Smithland is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers.  We saw a few of the historic buildings there.  The Gower House was built around 1780 as an inn for travellers.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. And - the original Methodist Church.  Seems we're now seeing a few less Baptist Churches and a few more Methodist ones. A mile or so later we crossed the Cumberland River on the brand new blue b...