Generosity, long horns, deep dish and more

After writing the last post we were rolled into Marion, KY. As we came into the town Boss said to Pick, "Nothing interesting has happened yet today, this is weird." That's when the most interesting night of the trip began.
Still 3 strong, we stopped at a local cafe which had just closed, but the owner got on the phones and started calling a church in town that was rumored to house cyclists for free. After 20 minutes of waiting with no luck, the Zoo was still HUNGRY so they went down to the only place still open in town for our first trip to a McDonalds. As we were finishing up a couple came up to us saying, "we've been looking all over town for you boys." Steve and Phyllis, from the Methodist Church in town, came and told us that they usually house bikers in the church, but that tonight the church was full with a youth group sleeping overnight. Then, they told us that they were going to put us up in a Bed and Breakfast!! Our jaws hit the floor and we all said "what!?" at the same time.
Myers Bed & Breakfast proved to be awesome as we slept in an air conditioned cottage and took showers (both of which have been rare). Thank you Steve and Phyllis for allowing us a little luxury on our journey. Around 5 am, the Zoo was joined by Davo, Ana, and Julie who arrived after a 13 hour drive (yikes) from Harrisonburg. The next morning we were treated to a delicious breakfast and then hit the road with Julie and Ana riding their own bikes with us. After about twelve miles we crossed the Ohio river on a ferry leaving Kentucky behind and entering the Land of Lincoln, Illinois. Once over the Ohio, we pushed on toward a town called Golconda. As the day wore on, the heat began to rise, but we were only getting a small taste of what was to come.
Once in Golconda we found a brief bit of shelter from the heat in the Golconda Gas Station Beer Cave. At a chilling 35 degrees we stood in the cave with only shorts and t-shirts on and felt totally content. While in the cave, we decided to end Prohibition on the trip and treated ourselves to a delicious six pack of Coors. Sadly, as the mountains on the bottle lost their blue tint, so too did we lose our chilled climate in the shelter of the gas station. That night we slept outside in a pool of our own sweat as a multitude of insects danced around our tents in the grass. In the morning we headed off toward Carbondale, home of the Southern Illinois Salukis. Along the route we came upon a very peculiar site. In a pen alongside the road were three cattle with the thickest horns we had ever seen! These bulls looked menacing as they stare at us and kicked their heels into the dirt as if to say "I dare you to jump this fence." Wisely, we didn't take their dare and continued on toward Carbondale. In Carbondale we treated ourselves to some Chicago style pizza recommended to us by a local along the route. Davo was preaching all about how much better NY pizza was then Chicago, but he ate his own words as he ate the slice of pie. It was written all over his face that he enjoyed each bite and afterward he admitted that Chicago has got something to boast. Now while we enjoyed a break from the ride and some delicious pizza, the humidity was still kicking strong. We spent our night at Carbondale on the SIU campus. Sadly we couldn't find any students to let us in the dorms and were relegated to sleeping on benches next to the campus lake. Barely any of us got any sleep as the temperatures still hovered around 72 degrees with 80% humidity. We would later find out from Jeff that CNN said that the temperatures during these last couple days had a heat index of 105 upwards to a 115 degrees. The next day of riding was a scorcher. Riding into the town of Chester we were hot, we were sweaty and we were tired. The thought of another sweaty night forced us to take action. Boss and Davo went to the local church and managed to get us access to their youth annex, fully furnished with A/C (our new favorite two words) blasting we were in heaven. Before we called it a night we headed to the local Chester pool where Pick described gleefully "this is the Perfect!" It was the perfect as Pick impressed the locals with his diving skills off the 1 meter board, Davo massaged his butt with one of the pool jets, and Ross did what he knows best...chilled. During our stay in Chester we also met a fella from Texas named Chase who was making the trip by himself. We invited him to join us at the youth annex and today he joined us as we headed across the mighty Mississippi river trading the heat of Southern Illinois for the heat of Missouri.