Kentucky for a few more days... we hope

Well it has been a while, but we are safe and sound. We made it out of Missouri, through Illinois and are now into Kentucky! Yes we skipped a whole state of blogging. Illinois was the friendliest state in that we were given places to stay every night in the state, but the worst for Internet in that they wanted $5 per hour for access.

It is hard to remember all of the places and names, but out of Houston we rode through the hills of the ozarks and saw lots of historical places... from the bike. You get so focused that you often miss out on sights that you might stop at in the car, but then again you see places in a way you can't in a car. We camped in several national and state parks. We got our first significant rain while riding. We ate great BBQ and sat in a river, under a bridge while it poured around us. Missouri was fun.

Illinois was great too. You could feel the difference in culture right away. The history of who settled what and where shaped that. We cruised across the Mississippi into Illinois and made our first stop the 17th street grill in Murphysville. They have won national championships for BBQ a few times and I could see why. We met a very nice man at the grill who asked us to join him for some conversation... Well several hours later we were sleeping in his parents house in town. it was a nice blessing.

The next day we made it like 45 miles when the sky opened up. We were lucky in that we were sitting in a cafe eating lunch. A local man named John sat with us for a while and discussed our trip... little did we know that several hours later we were still pinned down by the weather and john came to our rescue. We had a blast with him. He is a very interesting man who I think enjoyed us as much as we did him. Well he drove us back to the spot where we last had pedaled from and off we went for Kentucky.

We got the river ferry last night and cruised into Kentucky like two guys who have almost 3000 miles under their feet. (maybe because we do!)

Thank you all for the comments and well wishes. Keep them coming they help.