From North Carolina To Colorado (NC, VA, WV, KY, IN, IL, KS, and CO)

February 24th

As I drove the familiar Avent Ferry Road out of Holly Springs I put on my daily Spotify playlist. Tim Barry’s “Church Of The Level Track” was the first song. I thought it was a fitting start for this roadtrip as it’s a song about hoboing. Tim Barry writes a lot about being on the road and doing what makes you happy as opposed to what people think you should do.

The roads were familiar and I looked forward to getting out of North Carolina. I really wanted to see something new. I settled into a backlog of Outside/In Podcasts and made my way north through Virginia towards Charleston, West Virginia. West Virginia is a place that stirs a frontier spirit within me. Everytime I pass through I love the raw beauty of the place and see it as having so much potential as an outdoor recreation mecca.

After Charleston, it was all uncharted territory. I drove west to where I could see Ohio across the river from me, then crossed into Kentucky. The winds whipped my truck back and forth as I drove further west. I soon found myself passing through Lexington, KY where the world seems to revolve around horses.

I made my way to My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown hoping to snag a campsite for the night. I was not excited about pitching a tent on a cold windy night. What I found was that the bathhouse was locked for the winter and there were only 2 RV’s in the area. I decided that I needed to find a better campground.

Fortunately, there was a list of nearby campgrounds on a bulletin board. The last one picked up and the woman said she would wait for me as it was closing time. I hauled ass over there because I was 30-minutes away. When I asked for a tent site, she offered me a cabin for $35 ($15 more than the tent site). I thought about the cold wind and took her up on the cabin. Once I downloaded into the cabin, I settled into a dinner of ramen noodles and bourbon.

February 25th

I woke up early from my first night on the road with two objectives for the day. First, visit the Maker’s Mark Distillery and then get to Lawrence, Kansas. Maker’s Mark didn’t open till 9:30 and I didn’t realize how quickly I would get through making breakfast and reloading my truck. I had nothing but time to kill before I needed to be at the distillery. So I took the longest route that Google Maps offered me to see some more of Kentucky.

As I drove around, I was was listening to Dave Hause’s “Bury Me In Philly” album. He has a song called “The Mermaid” on that album that really resonates with me. The song opens with the line, “I’ve done everything in my power to file down my claws, White picket fence, cold showers, cheap tricks get cheap applause.” It describes a bit about how I felt not having an outdoor job. Now I feel like I’m going out to swim with the Mermaid.

The drive in to Maker’s Make is beautiful. You come down a hill that allows you to see the old Samuel’s house and historic production facility.  The Distillery was founded by Bill and Margie Samuels in 1953. The CEO of the company has continued to be descendent of Bill and Margie. They take a lot of care to keep the grounds manicured and beautifully maintained. It’s really a quiet and relaxing place to visit.

For $14 dollars you get a short group tour that shows you around the facility, the various barrel houses, tells you some history, and ends with a tasting. It was a great experience and on such a nice day served as a nice walk before I started driving again.

From this point, I drove through the rest of Kentucky and into Indiana. A few hours later I was into the breadbasket of Illinois. I was looking forward to getting to Missouri because I knew I could stop shortly after that. I took the time to catch up on several podcasts including The Dirtbag Diaries.

It was the latest episode of the Dirtbag Diaries that really struck a chord with me. This episode “Living For The Lost” is about how Navy SEAL Joshua Jespersen uses ski mountaineering and other sports to commemorate the lives of those lost in war. It’s an episode fraught with tragedy and then redemption through outdoor pursuits. It really reaffirmed the part of me who wants to help others through outdoor recreation.

As I crossed the Mississippi River into St. Louis, I received a phone call from an admissions counselor for Prescott College.  She started explaining the school and the graduate program I had inquired about as I tried to navigate through the congested traffic. It reminded me of my aunt’s favorite story to tell about young me. When I was 3 years old, and prior to gps or navigation systems, she was helping my family move back to Pennsylvania from Missouri and asked us to be quiet as she tried to navigate through St. Louis. It was at that moment I decided to ask her, “Do dogs go to heaven?”  My timing is still impeccable

I pulled into a motel in Lawrence, Kansas, after almost 11-hours on the road. It was late and I unloaded my bikes and some gear into the room as quickly as possible. I then called Lyft to take me to Free State Brewing for dinner. I was impressed by the quality of beer and options on the menu. I was captivated by an amazing dish of gorgonzola mushroom gnocchi for dinner while the town was preoccupied with the current basketball rivalry happening down the street.

February 26th

I got up early and packed up the truck so that after a quick stop for fuel and coffee I was headed west across Kansas. I got onto the turnpike in darkness and kept rolling as the sun rose behind me. I hadn’t expected much from Kansas but found myself quite taken by the landscape.

As I looked at all the draws and gullies that made up the prairie I found myself fantasizing about riding around it on my bike. I just wanted to pull over and bomb down those gullies and hit the drops. It also made me think about my favorite chapter from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” In “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” we see a wagon train passing through a similar landscape. I won’t spoil the ending of the story. I just love that the dog was named President Pierce.

Alas the the landscape didn’t hold out for long and somewhere after Fort Riley it turned into more of what I had expected from Kansas. I did find Wilson Lake State Park, which I hope to stop at on my return to North Carolina for some amazing looking singletrack riding. The outside temperature hovering at 6-degrees fahrenheit as I passed did a lot of dissuade me.

I was happy to get to my friend Patrick’s home around two in the afternoon, making it the shortest day on the road. I hadn’t seen him in three years and was struck by how, even with all the time, distance, and too few chats in between, we were able to pick up where we left off. He’s been a great friend that I always look forward to seeing.

Date	Avg. MPH	MPG	Time Driven	Total Miles
2/24	63	16.2	9hrs	574.3
2/25	60	17.9	10:53 hrs	663.5
2/26	73	15.2	8:08	595.3