Falls of Cold Beer

Sebree to Falls of Rough 7/29/11

More of Kentucky's green grass and rolling hills. Really, the terrain is not so rough. And of the weather, I would say, there's only about an hour a day now that is seering my flesh. So, that's positive.

Had ice cream in a combination pottery painting place and soda shop. (I'm sorry, I can't get enough.) Nothing spectacular to speak of on the route. Just more cows and horses. Ended up in Falls of Rough. Which sounds like a badly translated phrase that might mean 'come upon hard times', which would be an apt description for the area. Just like the rest of the small towns we have seen in the west, everything has been closed or abandoned. The few stores that are open have a few cans of over priced, dusty peaches in thick syrup. Found a dirt cheap place to stay called the Pine Tree Inn. Remember Clark Griswald's hilkjack brother and his RV dwelling family? That's who vacations in Falls of Rough.

Scrubbed the bug guts off our faces, peeked out our dirty, cracked window to see the pool. Looked pretty good. But we were bummed to see that it was full of people. Oh, are we misguided. If we had known what kind of people we would have found, we would have done a little dance.

We sheepishly slipped into the pool, quickly, to avoid the embarassment we inevitably feel when people notice our preposterous shark belly tans. Treaded water for about sixty seconds before one of the eight people propped on the edge struck up conversation. "Where are you coming from" was immediately followed with, "Would you like a beer?" Ok, we can dig these people. They hassles us for being from Ohio as they are from Michigan. But that tension dissolved fast.

After two beers, I must admit, I was quite the Chatty Cathy. We haven't been drinking at all in the last month or so. The heat and length of our rides pretty mucb prohibit any kind of fun. Just ride and sleep. My tolerance is low.

It is the Decker family reunion. There are 200 people involved. And, the only reason they are staying at our cheap ass motel and not in the resort and golf area across the street is the black mold discovered in their suite that morning.

We are grateful for the black mold. Because it was the catalyst that led to us meeting this wild family. We heard awesome stories about the Papa of the family and his famous mullet that lasted all the way to 2005. After many more beers, that Papa and myself boogied down to bad summer jams, donning wet bathing suits in the motel parking lot. We're a classy pair. Chris astounded everyone with the number of bratwurst he could throw into gravel and then consume. We played cornhole until Julie broke the grill with a mean (and purposeful) over hand.

It took all the discipline we could muster to peel ourselves from the party. The sun was setting, which surely indicates we should be sleeping. We got hugs from everyone and dragged our feet all the way up the stairs to bed like the littlest VonTrapps.