We're now in Indiana, past our 3000th mile. I think we have about 1100 miles left. Illinois turned out to be pretty nice to ride through, once the wind stopped blowing so hard against us. For two of the nights we spent there we just asked the police or someone from the town if we could stay in their park and they were quite welcoming. Its nice to be able to find a place to camp so easily. Many of the roads we were on were small back roads with very few cars. We could ride along side by side which was fun and broke up the monotony of the landscape. I really enjoyed these roads.

We took a side trip to Streator because Ray really wanted to see a movie. So he figured out where we could go. We had a few hours to explore the town, but we didn't really find much. It seemed to be a classic example of a downtown deserted, perhaps by development elsewhere but we didn't see that either. Most of the stores that were actually open were thrift shops or pawn shops, though there were a few other things as well. We ate lunch at the Country Cupboard where the friendly waitress told us that there used to be a bike shop and there used to be a bookstore. Funny, too, because we saw a mural commemorating the man from Streator who discovered the planet Pluto. Well, what used to be a planet. There was a little movie theater called the Majestic and we sat up in the balcony to watch Hancock which we both enjoyed.

Our side trip left us traveling a bit later in the day and of course we got caught in a storm. So we stopped in the town of Cornell and they let us stay in their city park. Fortunately the storm cleared up a lot of the humidity. As usual on the days we planned to go far, we went fewer miles and yesterday when we were going to go shorter we ended up doing over 100 miles. That's the nice thing about traveling so flexibly.

Yesterday's ride was much the same. We made an unusual discovery in the town of Kempton. We came across a place called Adventures Unlimited which seemed to be a bookstore. When we went inside in search of reading material we discovered that it was also a publishing house and specialized in books on paranormal, occult, conspiracies, future predictions and mostly things of an off beat nature. It was a surprise to find this in such a tiny town -- they do most of their business by mail order. They also had some regular travel books and a lot of science fiction. Ray really enjoyed it and picked up a copy of A Brief History of Time. The place left me wondering if Aliens were going to come out of the cornfields.

We crossed into Indiana with little fanfare, it seems pretty much the same as Illinois so far. Soon we'll be in Ohio! I hope everyone is doing well and that at least a few people are still reading this! Love lots!