Day 12 from Council, VA across the State Line to Elkhorn, KY

Today we woke up in our virtually private community park area in Council, VA. We had a lovely quiet evening complete with Wi-Fi from the community pool literally 25 yards from the pavilion we claimed for the evening.

We woke with a stiff climb out of the William P Harris park followed by spectacular rolling and quiet roads heading towards the state line. We made a quick stop at a friendly looking grocery store as we always want to have at least one meal in our packs at all time. In this case we purchased a few pieces of fresh fruit. As Leisa was wandering the store looking for fresh coffee, Fran, a super friendly store clerk ushered Leisa to the employee area and not only poured her a cup but made us all a fresh pot of coffee. How’s that for some Sunday morning Virginia hospitality? The restroom in the staff area had a couple of hilarious posters for staff.

We then proceeded through a town called Birchleaf and started a super steep climb to the town of Breaks. Prior to descending to the actual town we took a nice long stop for lunch Breaks Interstate Park and had lunch at a super pretty little lake followed by a brief tour the Visitors Center. I had no idea the famously feuding families of the Hatfields and McCoys were from this area.

Following the leisurely stop at the Park we then proceed across the State Line into Kentucky where we were hosted at the Elkhorn, KY city building. The Mayor, Mike Taylor let us into the modest building (also houses the local police and volunteer fire department) and then delivered us some delicious pulled pork, buns and coleslaw.

We have the whole building to ourselves so we took some time to perform minor bike maintenance, lubing and clean up for our continued journey. We got to the building relatively early but it was also heating up outside so getting into an air conditioned building and having dinner delivered by the mayor was definitely special.

Tomorrow we have a huge day of 68 miles and 6,900 ft elevation. It’s also supposed to get to the upper 80’s so we plan to get up around 4:30am and hit the road by 5am.