We busted out of the Quality Inn in Harrodsburg at about 730, in GoreTex because of the pending rainstorm. We had a longish up and down 3-4 miles to pedal back to the route but the grades, which had seemed steep yesterday in the afternoon heat, were easy in the cool, not-yet-wet morning. We stopped at Walmart briefly and bought the 3 remaining COVID tests they had because for two days we’ve felt weak and short of breath in the mornings and Vanesa has been having a lot of allergies. We rode to McDonalds and got coffees and I got two Sausage McGriddles with egg…and we sat outside and each tested ourselves for COVID. NEGATIVE!! Woo hoo! So we hit the road and were in that uncomfortable zone of wearing GoreTex because of the weather report and bad skies indicating imminent rain but feeling hot and sweaty because it’s 65 degrees and not raining and we’re wearing plastic! Soon we shed the plastic and decided to just wing it and it was fine. Basing your decisions on iPhone weather reports is often the wrong thing to do…looking at the sky seems better…but then of course when you ignore the weather app warnings, you get soaked. Murphy’s Law we suppose. The terrain is changing since Berea - hills are still steep but now shorter and there are fewer of them and there are more rolling hills. We’ve left the Appalachians and eastern Kentucky and are now in central Kentucky which is like a completely different country!!! Seriously, eastern Kentucky is like a third (fourth?) world country in comparison. And as the terrain has opened up and the poverty has decreased, the loose dogs chasing us have also decreased. Late on this Sunday we rode through Loretto, KY, the home of Maker’s Mark distillery. The distillery was off-route and likely closed but we rode right by the huge storage facilities for the aging bourbon barrels. It smelled DELICIOUS!! It was still a little bit shy of where we wanted to stop for the day, and we planned another church pavilion stealth camp because there are a million churches out here and no motels around at all because we are quite remote at the moment. So we left Loretto and guess what? No more churches for like 2 hours. We were starting to get annoyed because there was a huge climb upcoming and the worst thing is to HAVE to climb late in the evening after a long day just to get to where you can sleep. We were super thrilled and relieved to stumble upon St Ann’s Catholic Church in eerily quiet Howardstown, literally a mile or two before we reached the big climb, and it was super clean, with water/electricity, and well-removed from the road. Perfect. Well, except for the huge light that turned on right over our heads as we settled into our sleeping bags for the night!! Thankfully the temperature was in the mid-50’s with a bit of wind so it wasn’t too hot to pull the sleeping bag over our heads.