Today it looked like rain. Heavy cloud cover warned us of what to expect, but why shouldn’t it rain. We are leaving Kentucky today and entering Illinois.

Our daily routine usually starts somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. We start with rolling up our bedrolls sleeping pads and I change into my riding clothes. Then, roll up the tent (wet) and somewhere along the ride Kye takes the tent out to dry. Kye always makes sure I have a banana and a muffin before leaving. Charlie, Ed and I always leave camp first and then stop at a restaurant for breakfast. The small town restaurants are usually pretty good and the prices are low.

Then we are on the road somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. Today was not different and the rain started after our first rest stop. When about 8 or 9 miles out of the second rest stop the lightning began and the rain got heavy Charlie spotted a farm house at 6 miles out of the rest stop that had and covered car port, so we sheltered in place for about 30 to 45 minutes to wait out the heavy rain and lightning storm.

When we got to the second rest stop the support van had not arrived, so we stopped at a convenience store and bought warm food, coffee and hot chocolate. We needed to warm up. The van did arrive before we took off so everyone had a chance to get some warm clothes.

Then off to the state boarder which is the Ohio River and a fiery boat ride We could see our camp site directly across the river from Kentucky. The camp site “Cave in the Rock” is a nice site and we checked out the name sake location.

The rain had stopped before reaching the river and very little rain had hit the camp site. During the night the skies cleared and the stars were out in all their brilliance. I had forgotten how bright the stars could be after living in the city for so many years.