Dinner last night was a cold can of beans and sliced cheese rolled in tortillas - we each had two! Best burritos I’ve ever had. This morning V couldn’t be bothered to have another peanut butter tortilla roll-up, but I was starving so had that with a Subway chocolate chip cookie and some banana chips inside. Mmmmmm. We rode off and made it all of 0.4 miles before we stopped for awful gas station coffee and sausage biscuits. The day after that was really pleasant for about 5 hours with more hills than the previous two days but still manageable, and again with cloudy and cool conditions. A little cold actually, but that’s MUCH better than hot. We stopped in Fordsville for a big restaurant meal - I felt gluttonous with my homemade meatloaf, white beans with bacon, mac and cheese, and cornbread. We took the cornbread to go. It started getting warmer around Utica, and then we reached Cemetary Hill, apparently well-known around here. Again very short but very steep. We needed shade at one point a few miles up the road and stopped at a gorgeous home with to a huge front lawn with many big trees, with a driveway so long there was a woman walking laps to and fro on her driveway for exercise. She invited us to use her shade for as long as we wanted and then her husband came out to chat with us about bikes, touring, and precious cyclists that have passed by. He was so kind, Greg, and he invited us to stay the night and said he had some great steaks to share. But he also had a new German Shepherd and V didn’t want to stay where there’s another dog so we pushed on. Pushing on was the right decision, though, because a HUGE tailwind popped up shortly thereafter and basically pushed us the last 20 miles into Sebree and the AMAZING First Baptist Church Hostel. I had great memories of Pastor Bob and his wife Violet taking care of me here 12 years ago, cooking me dinner, and providing this amazing indoor space with showers, snacks, A/C, couches, games, and laundry facilities, all for free. When we arrived this time, a new young pastor Dylan greeted us with the same enthusiasm for helping cyclists and ensuring all our needs are met. It’s so comfy here that we decided to take another rest day and catch up on laundry, showers, ride documentation, and of course eating and resting. On our rest day we did 2 loads of previous cyclists’ towels, walked to the (pretty crappy) Family Dollar store for groceries after a walk for breakfast at about 9 a.m. revealed exactly zero breakfast restaurants, one open hamburger joint, and one closed pizza place. We grabbed some eggs, cheese, Chips Ahoy cookies, corn, pasta, coffee, as well as some salmon in a small, sealed pouch for Maui. We came back and had just a short, blissful time alone to cook our breakfast before two more cyclists joined us, one arrived and then another about an hour later. It’s nice to meet other cyclists on the road doing what we’re doing. Later in the day the now-75-year-old former pastor Bob and his sidekick Monty showed up to evangelize to us, their captive cyclist audience. Bob is such a nice guy and I told him my memories of coming here before and how I ate dinner with him and wife in their living room and that he even took me downtown Sebree to watch an old-time music concert; by his disinterested reaction I could tell that he’d probably done that for countless other people. I enjoyed chatting with him for a bit making small talk, but make no mistake, he was here to save souls and the small talk was only his way to get in the door to do his business. He felt like a salesman, pushing his message, buttering you up for the big close. I don’t recall such a big push to evangelize when I was here in 2010. It was too much today, but V and I were respectful and let him do his thing and were polite. After all, he and his church family provide a wonderful accommodation for us and truly care for our safety and comfort. It was interesting to watch how passionately he works for Jesus, and I respect how strongly he feels about his life’s mission, though. That said, I was glad when the pitch was over because I needed to get packed and get some sleep. Tomorrow we’re up early to ride out of Kentucky into Illinois!