When we awoke on July 4, comforted by the kindness of strangers, we felt ready to brave more of the dark underbelly of coal country, cautioned (by the Elkins themselves, no less) that Hazard County was filled with “rough folk.” The guidebook made a point of warning us about coal trucks, whose drivers were paid according to their speed in completing their routes, and who as a result were said to navigate the narrow roads with reckless abandon, and with particular scorn for cyclists.
As good fortune would have it, however, the week we passed through Hazard coincided with the week allotted for coal truck driver vacations. In retrospect, it was fortunate for another reason as well: had I known then how frightening to a plodding cyclist is a speeding truck filled to overflowing with heavy, precariously placed objects, I would have spent the remaining distance to the west coast dreading the Oregon lumber trucks.
Our departure from Pikesville was leisurely; slow starts had already become the norm for the four of us. We ran into our host (the fellow whose lawn we had occupied) at a local market on our way out of town. He and his son were consuming a breakfast of chocolate milk and cookies. They bid us safe travels, and voiced skepticism when we said we were aiming to reach Pippa Passes that day.
We reached Pippa Passes quite easily and discovered it possessed at least two notable attractions. One was a youth hostel which, by some now forgotten metric, was considered one of the two best in the U.S. (the other being in Oregon). We also took the opportunity to visit Alice Lloyd College, an unbelievably rustic little institution which (at the time at least) had an enrollment of only about 300 students, and which specialized in Appalachian Studies. After chatting with a few students who were spending their summer building homes in Appalachia, Jeff and I played some one-on-one basketball in the hostel gym.
We ate canned stew, heated up at the hostel, then finally ended our extended lunch break about 4 p.m. and pushed off. Some locals suggested a route to Hazard which they said would cut about eight miles off the 30 miles shown by the guidebook, and we decided to try it.
The route may have been shorter in miles, and with fewer hills, but we ended up taking major roads, which were extremely busy with Fourth of July traffic. This gave us a new opportunity to see the redneck-y side of the area, as exemplified by the profusion of pickup trucks and 4WD vehicles, driven by good old boys with no love for cyclists.
By 7:30 we had reached Hazard, and by 9:15 we’d eaten a hearty dinner at a local restaurant. My meal came with an unlimited salad bar, of which I took full advantage, gorging myself until I felt almost ill. Who knew, I thought, when I would again be able to eat as much as I wanted (and more)?
Our holiday celebration, we decided, would consist in taking a break from camping out; instead we elected to stay in a motel for the night. Once we had found a likely-looking place, Brenda and Carrie got us a room with two double beds. Jeff and I snuck into the room after it had been rented, forestalling any attempt by management to charge more for our two additional bodies.
The motel was nothing fancy, but it felt like an unusual luxury to take a real shower and loll about on the motel beds. Jeff and I made our way through a six-pack of Budweiser as I updated my journal and enjoyed the company of the other three.