October 7, 2019
Hawesville KY, to Owensboro, KY - 50.3 miles
The rain from last night continued until about 9:30am and we decided to wait for it to clear before leaving the county park. The route was blissfully flat and it was a glorious day to ride. The Adventure Cycling route follows very quiet rural roads and the last ten miles of the day was on a paved bicycle trail. This got us safely into the city of Owensboro. The photos below were all taken the morning of October 8th.
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| butterfly enjoying the zinnia nectar |
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| These are bee magnets. |
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| Every flower was dewy in the morning sun. |
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| another migrating monarch |
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| There is an orchid house filled with many varieties of orchids. |
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| Fall is coming to Kentucky. |
It was smooth sailing from Hawesville to Owensboro, but we are tired just from pedaling 50 miles. The hotel in Owensboro is just barely clean enough to stay in. It is "fall break" for Kentucky school children and a brave and dedicated Mom is hosting a sleepover birthday party for her 12 year old daughter. The hotel pool which is right in the middle of the atrium area is filled with screeching pre-teens. They have a great time playing Marco Polo for hours. and hours. and hours.
We are way too starving and tired to try to find a restaurant. After a grocery store dinner hastily heated in the microwave we fall asleep despite all the commotion of the birthday party.
October 8, 2019
Owensboro, KY, to Henderson, KY - 37.8 miles
Because of the spacing of appropriate lodging, we have a short day today into Henderson and we are going to stay with another warm showers host. Her profile says she is an empty nester with lots of empty bedrooms. A few years ago, she kept noticing long distance cyclists in her tiny town and found out about the warm showers community. She decided she should host. We are thankful for her decision because there isn't any camping for the next 100 miles and Henderson is the only town of any size for many miles.
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| Another paintable farm view as we ride through Kentucky. Tom plans on rediscovering his artistic talent. |
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| Perhaps the state's smallest post office - Baskett, KY |
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The Ivory-Billed woodpecker was extremely rare even in Audubon's time. He cited the chances of seeing it were possible only by "venturing into deep gigantic cypresses, interrupted by moss-covered branches and thousands of creeping plants of numberless species." This one was spotted on 2nd Street. |
Henderson sits right beside the river and is surrounded by beautiful rural farmland. It is home to John James Audubon and the downtown features 13 sculptures which perfectly replicate his paintings. The cast bronze sculptures are detailed and really capture the positioning of the birds for which Audubon was so famous. After a failed attempt to build and operate a mill in Henderson, Audubon was bankrupt. He had built a big gristmill for grinding wheat and grains, but he didn't know that there wasn't enough wheat or other grain grown in the area to demand his mill's services.
After this failure (and a few other business endeavors) Audubon devoted his life to his illustrations for
The Birds of America. His artistic ability and dedication to precision and accuracy in portraying the birds he painted made his book probably the most read natural history book in the world. Everyone knows Audubon's birds.
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| This original white limestone library building opened in 1904. Thanks, again, Andrew Carnegie! |
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| cornmeal dusted catfish served over red beans and rice |
We have a delicious dinner at
Hometown Roots The food is really good and our warm showers hostess later tells us that the chef is a local Henderson native who cooked all over the country in fancy restaurants and returned home to Henderson to open this place and raise her family. The town is very quiet, but Hometown Roots sees a steady flow of customers. They serve excellent local beers from Henderson Brewing Company too.
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| Sunset over the Ohio River and the CSX bridge |
With this low mileage we arrive in town at about 2:30 pm and have plenty of time to take the Audubon Sculpture Walking Tour, check our some shops and sample the homemade ice cream at
Bliss
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| Owensboro to Henderson |
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