Indiana:

"Hoosier Hospitality." That was the explanation offered by the elderly couple who paid for our lunch on Saturday afternoon in southern Indiana. They asked us a million questions about our trip, wished us luck and safety, and announced that they were paying. Amazing.

To backtrack: We crossed the bridge into Indiana from Kentucky on Friday afternoon. We didn't get on the road until 2PM, and all three of us were tired and a little bit cranky. We rode about 15 miles before finding a genuine biker bar called the Hog Tavern, where we befriended the bartender, a woman named Caroline. Caroline gave us 12 free jello shots, which I put on ice and carried in my drybag.

Sometime around 6PM, the three of us got into an argument outside of a gas station at the top of a very steep hill. Ten miles later, Iris secured us a place to stay for free, with a hot tub. We got into the hot tub, took the jello shots, and became friends again. Incidentally, the place we stayed was called the Scout Mountain Hideaway, and the owner, Mike, was fantastic. He is in the process of starting a winery, and we slept in his air-conditioned workroom, surrounded by glass jugs and other sundry peices of equipment.

On Saturday, refreshed from a good night's sleep, we were on the road by 8:30 and on track to be in Evansville, Indiana, by 5:00 or so. We were riding a beautiful scenic road through a forest, and we were riding far apart from each other, enjoying the view and not worrying about speed. I crested a hill, looked for Jon, and found him sitting against a tree, drinking a warm can of PBR, and pointing to a sign for a nearby winery. The three of us went in for a complimentary tasting, and inside we met Brent and Beth, a couple from Illinois who enjoy traveling to local wineries. They were curious about our trip, and offered to house us if we ever found ourselves in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Foreshadowing? Read on!

Even after a wine tasting, free lunch, and our FIRST FLAT TIRE OF THE TRIP (congrats to Iris) we somehow made it to Evansville, Indiana, where we stayed with a professor named Chris whose phone number we got from Evan (in Louisville.) Chris took us out to dinner at a GREAT German restaurant, where I ate more fried pickles and tried a Rueben for the first time in my whole life. It was delicious. Afterwards, he took us to 80's night at a bar in downtown Evansville. As Indiana IS the birddogging capital of America, Jon pulled out all the stops, and even wore a normal shirt, but he lost to a total Bro and ended up dancing with me and Iris to "Shout." We passed out in Chris's living room in front of Arrest Development and got on the road around 11 this morning, after stopping at WalMart for breakfast and our daily map meeting.

WalMart has become an integral part of this trip. Anytime we pass a Supercenter, we go in, do our seperate shopping, and meet in the attached Subway for a team meeting. Iris usually brings some sort of fruit and deli meat combo, Jon buys a giant sandwich, and I have some strange combination of snack food. This morning, Jon had one of the "Sunday Supreme" sandwiches, Iris had turkey and fruit, and I had a bag of bagels, a tub of cream cheese, six Odwalla bars, and an apple. Obviously, most of that food was not comsumed in one sitting, although the bagels are already half gone because I was silly enough to let Jon carry them.

So. It turned out that Mt. Vernon IS on the way to St. Louis, so we called Brent and Beth, who were wonderful enough to allow us to stay with them tonight. They have four adorable daughters, and Jon, Iris and I are sleeping in a Hannah Montana themed room with bunk beds on one side and a single bed on the other. I let Jon and Iris have the bunks, since my childhood years were spent in bunk beds.

I simply cannot get over the willingness of the people that we meet to help us as much as they do. Every single place we go is marked by people who are so incredibly generous. It is very overwhelming.