Day Six: Madisonville to Calhoun to Henderson (Hopkins, McLean, and Henderson Counties)

November 15, 2025

I didn't sleep well for the second night in a row. This time it was multiple blaring train horns.

I was up by 4:00 and moving around. According to my phone it was already 60F! I put on my touring shorts and TransAmerica jersey. I was looking forward to not needing to wear all the heavy cold weather gear today.

I got everything together, a task which was more time consuming than usual because my bike was downstairs in an enclosed porch. The downside of staying in an historic B&B like this one is that often, as in this case, you can't take your bike to the room with you. I doubt I could have carried the bike up the narrow, steep, curving staircase to my second floor room anyway.

It was still dark when I rode a block to the "Dunkin'" for breakfast: An egg and cheese croissant, an apple fritter, and a Diet Pepsi.

By the time I finished breakfast, it was just light enough to ride a few blocks to get a picture of the bike in front of the courthouse:

Madisonville had a downtown with several potentially interesting things to photograph. Too many, actually; I was in a hurry to get going, and took only one other photo in town after the courthouse: This memorably creepy mural. It was in the police station parking lot, and I have no idea what it's about:

After navigating the interstate zone, which wasn't bad at all on this very early Saturday morning, I turned onto KY-254 for twelve miles. It was mostly flat, and low traffic this morning.

I stopped on the side of the road for a while, attempting to get an interesting photo of a "murmuration" of a flock of birds, starlings I assume. As usual when I try this, I was frustrated, but I did get this pic of them taking off:

I was heading to Calhoun, the county seat of McLean county. It was mostly flat, at least until I turned off KY-254 and onto some more interesting back roads with a few modest hills.

I took a photo of the bike in front of the courthouse in the small downtown in Calhoun. The population of Calhoun is 725, but it seems even smaller. I've been to Calhoun several times on bike rides, and I've never really found anything interesting there.

I stopped at one of the two convenience stores on the way out of town, bought a bag of Cheez-It Snap'd chips and a Diet Pepsi, and sat at a booth in the store. These "Snap'd" Cheez-Its are a (very) guilty pleasure of mine, which I try to indulge only on bike rides.

A large man with a massive belly (so large that I had to force myself not to stare) walked in wearing a shirt with a bunch of writing on it, both front and back, but the typeface was so small I couldn't read it easily, although I did see that there were multiple references to Jesus.

Based on the signage, and the attire I see on my bike rides, Jesus is super-popular in rural Kentucky.

I rode out of town. I'd previously worked out a route that would take me through Webster county, but after a mile or so, I made a quick decision to abandon it and ride through Daviess county on much smaller roads instead. I couldn't count Daviess county on this trip, because I wouldn't ride to its courthouse in Owensboro, the reason I'd originally routed around it. But I decided I preferred the roads, some of them gravel, that I knew from experience would be almost traffic-free.

In a couple of miles I turned onto one of these narrow gravel lanes:

I enjoyed several nice miles with a tailwind. The sun was out, the temperate was mild, and the traffic was almost non-existent.

I hadn't paid much attention to my route, and was briefly surprised when I saw several imposing brick buildings rising out of the bare fields. It was a large Catholic campus in the tiny community of Saint Joseph. I'd stopped here once several years and talked to one of the retired nuns who lived there.

I looked around for a minute, then got back on the road. I was getting into familiar territory now, and there wasn't much to attract my attention. Except maybe this:

I'd had a big tailwind most of the day, and was feeling good despite two nights in a row of inadequate sleep. Then, though, the wind shifted, or my lack of sleep caught up with me, or both. I could barely pedal.

With about 20 miles to get home, the ride turned into a real slog. I ate my "emergency" Payday bar, but it didn't seem to help much. I started counting down the miles slowly.

Twenty miles to go. Then fifteen. Time was crawling. Then I crossed the Green River at Spottsville. Ten to go. I mixed my last bottle of water with the salty LMNT electrolyte powder that Joy had given me. That seemed to help me the last five miles home.

Joy was at a memorial service in Louisiana, and our cat, who'd had to settle for the brief paid companionship of our cat sitter the last few days, came out and bleated at me in an annoyed fashion, although she eventually made up.

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Today's ride: 71 miles (114 km)
Total: 419 miles (674 km)

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