It was a beautiful, foggy morning...
Taylor's bike today took him on narrow, winding roads, often next to a creek or stream
Now in the Appalachians the poverty was even more apparent than in some of the areas of Missouri/Ozarks.
When Taylor slowed to look at this home overloaded with "stuff" the family sitting on the porch across the street said "Go ahead, take a picture." Many lived in RV's as their full-time home, torn curtains or blankets in windows that were often broken. Lots of trash...old cars...and by this day there were more dogs than Taylor could count that chased him.
He had to get off his bike 3 times and outran the rest. It makes for stressful and tiring biking to be tensed not only from narrow winding roads with no shoulders and often only one lane, but also wondering when the next silent dog will jump out of the bushes.
Stark contrast between the difficult living situations and the beauty of the area.
A still functioning coal mining facility - the major industry in the area.
Taylor and I met in Hindman and consulted our maps...to go on or to stay in the area??
We learned that there was a campground about 7 miles down the road, so we decided to walk around town for a bit then drive there.
Hindman has a community college for the arts...and we didn't know what a luthiery was...so we checked out the dulcimer museum across the street.
After a mexican meal in Hindman we drove to the campground...through this rock cut, which we figured would have been very expensive to do...
Near the entrance water was dripping down the rock face, creating multiple colors from the different ores and minerals contained there.
Another fine campground that appeared to be very under-utilized.