After a good night’s sleep under the stars at Houchins Ferry Campground, we’ll have breakfast and a few hours to relax, before packing up camp and hitting the road home, with the excitement of the previous day’s ride still fresh in our minds.
Target departure time for the folks on taking “the route” home will be 10AM.
Of course – you don’t have to leave at 10AM… you can stay all day at the park and hike, have lunch, visit the cave… that is all on you. The “quick way” home only takes a couple hours so stay as long as you like.
The ”official” route home will again take the scenic backroads with the most twist, curves, and wooded lanes we could find. However, because we are leaving a little later, the trip home is only 128 miles and a planned 3-1/2 to 4 hours of riding. We will spread that 128 miles out over 5 to 5-1/2 hours after taking our stops, for an arrival in Newburgh at roughly 3:00PM.
Back Again: Mammoth Hills MainThe stops on the route home are frequent and short… roughly every 30 to 45 minutes we will stop, but only for 10 to 15 minutes except for lunch at the Dinner Diner.
We’ll make our first stop just a couple miles from camp at a gas station to fill up our tanks and check our bikes / gear. From there it will be only about 20 minutes until we stop at the Nolin River Dam to take a super quick 5 minute stretch and get back on the road for the longest segment of the day – 26 miles in one chunk (about 45 minutes of ride time) stopping at another gas station. No-one should need fuel, but we probably will need the restrooms, and maybe a snack.
The next section of road takes us to the edge of the Rough River area and another stop at a gas station (there isn’t much else out in these parts). Again, fuel isn’t the main reason to stop here, but it will be another 56 miles and a total of 99 miles from the start of the day to the next fuel stop, so those with small takes or thirsty bikes might wanna top off here.
We have a short jump off the route to take a look at the waterfall at “Falls of Rough River” which we stopped at on the Kentuckiana Ride as well. This stop will be short photo opp… and back on the road 16 miles (half hourish) to our lunch stop, the afore mentioned Dinner Diner.
After lunch we have the second longest segment of the day at 22 miles (about 40 min) before we arrive at the Doodle Bug, another stop we made on the Kentuckiana ride. I hope the restrooms will be open now that COVID is in the rear view mirror.
From the Doodle Bug it is a ”short” 16 miles across the Ohio River and back to Rockport, where we’ll stop one last time at a gas station before the final segment back to Yankeetown / Newburgh / Evansville.
All in all, this route should provide a road packed full of hills, hollers, woods, fields, pastures and corners… lots and lots of corners.
