We left the gross but comfortable Hindman First Baptist church pretty early around 7 am. Woody and Amy had shown up the night before at about 8pm when were were about to go to sleep so we stayed up chatting and therefore woke later in the morning and left later than we wanted to. It was a lovely morning ride with quiet roads, chirping birds, little traffic, and BIG ASS hills. That’s the theme around here. We wanted to go to Buckhorn, about a 50-mile day, but since we’d just had a rest day and we’d left somewhat early, a nearly 70-mile day to Booneville wasn’t out of the question, and was preferable because the camping in Buckhorn is standard tent camping while the Booneville Presbyterian Church has a covered area with picnic tables for cyclists to camp. Given that we were expecting a huge thunderstorm, covered camping seemed a much more appealing option. So we rode, up and down, big hills and little hills, and few few few flats areas. We powered up at McDonald’s for breakfast and it was weird to see Lord’s 10 Commandments framed and hung on the wall for diners to read. I bet McD’s headquarters doesn’t know about that. Then more up and down and guess what, we made it to Buckhorn by about 315!! We took a well-deserved ice cream break and V actually tried a corn dog - said she’d never tasted one and wanted to know what it was. After she ate it, she wasn’t too impressed and wished she hadn’t. Some things are better as ideas maybe than in reality. Bu this lady Pam Stamper who ran the Anchor Dairy Bar in Buckhorn was sooooooo kind to us. She filled our water bottles with ice and insisted on giving us bottled water to fill them and not tap water. Then when she found out avamesa is from Spain she asked if we would just pay her in “Spanish money” because she wanted to have some to remember us by. We did t have any euros, obviously, to give her but she insisted we not pay and we just send her some “Spanish money” later. Such a kind woman - we signed the restaurant wall (a tradition there) and we chatted with her for a good 10-15 mins. There are a lot of really kind people here who want to help a cyclist (not the dog owners, though!!). We decided to push to Booneville and it was hard but we made it. We rewarded ourselves with a terrible restaurant meal - so disappointing that a local restaurant with home-cooked meals can be so bad that you wish you’d just eaten more of the same snack foods you carry on the bike. The menu was gorgeous. And literally everything was terrible. We are SO spoiled in the West, especially Portland, with food. And to top it off, we lingered too long at the restaurant and the big thunderstorm hit before we left to ride the quarter-mile to the Booneville church cyclists camp. We had to Gore-Tex up to ride 1/4 mile!! Thank god for the covered camping - it rained SOOOOO hard, and the wind blew so hard, that I don’t think our waterproof tent would have remained so in that storm, but we were cozy and dry as the covered area was big enough that the rain blowing sideways didn’t really reach us. The provided lights and electrical sockets unfortunately didn’t work (like a lot of things in Eastern Kentucky, it seems…broken, in disrepair, or neglected). Oh and there were a lot of dogs again. This time there were some scary ones, on the hill climbs where you can’t outrun them, or, worst, at the literal TOP of one really hard climb. When I arrived, beat and out of breath, I unclipped one foot from my pedal and stopped to rest and wait for Vanesa…it just walked out of its yard and approached me growling. That’s scarier than a dog chasing a bike for fun. This was a menacing dog, a big pit pull mix I didn’t want any part of. But I couldn’t ride off because I felt hed chase and bite me. And I didn’t want Vanesa to arrive and have no warning that he was here. So I stayed, avoided eye contact, talked sweetly to him, moved very slowly, and tossed him a bit of my granola bar, twice, which he gobbled up each time. That satisfied him for a minute but he was still a bit on edge with me. I felt we’d reached an ok place where he’d tolerate me, but when I gently and quietly I unclipped my second shoe from my pedal, he gently and quietly lunged out and bit my leg!!! Thank god he didn’t mean business because those jaws could’ve torn my leg in half but he literally just nipped me. At that moment the lady that lives there decided it was time to call him back, bribing him with pizza. It just pisses me off so much how the dog owners here let their mean dogs run around and chase, scare, and even bite people. Such a different way of life in this part of Kentucky. When V arrived I waved her by and told her to not stop…better to rest a ways down the hill. That was a really close call, but we’ve been pretty lucky with the dogs here so far, either they run away when to press the air horn, or going slowly and talking sweetly works. A few times I’ve had to yell and kick at their faces, though. Anyway, once laying down in Booneville and the thunderstorm storm raged above our glorious chuch picnic area roof, when it stopped, there was this sudden calm and thousands of fireflies started a light show that lasted for at least an hour and we fell asleep before they stopped. It was MAGICAL.