Oh, the Midwest...

The mentality of the midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Missouri) is really beginning to stress me out. I grew up frequenting the south, but I haven't truly experienced the bible belt until this trip. It's so different from what I am used to! While I do believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, I dislike how they are thrown on me as I pedal past on poorly paved roads. Just today I passed a pro-life billboard. Like, seriously? The churches we stay at frequently have pamphelts concerning homosexuality and abortion, and every time a priest makes a prayer, we all hold our breathes, afraid that something he or she says will make us all uncomfortable. I know the saying "when in rome..." but wow. It's tough. I guess I just don't get the restrictiveness of everything. If that was my religion I would feel so suffocated! Too many rules. For instance right now I am on a computer that has bible quotes all over it. And there are more on a board over the computer, including one that says "Jesus knows what you are thinking." UMMM creepy. And there's a TV here but 90% of the channels are blocked, even the news. Seriously? Plus today a man asked me if I had seen the "oriental" boy walk by and I was like, are you kidding me?! What the heck year are these people living in?! It's disgusting, like living in a bubble. I am just blown away by it.

The towns here are pretty creepy, too. We pass thru several during each day, many with populations under 200 people (right now the record stands at 44). The weird thing is that there are never any people around! The streets are dead quiet and we all feel like we're invading a movie set. Plus you can bike down Main Street and look down each side street and see a cornfield at the end. Kind of like when you're on Atlantic Avenue at LBI and you look down each street and know it leads straight to the beach. Kind of...but not. It's weird -- so not my style. But it makes me SO happy that I didn't grow up here. So happy.

Today we biked 68 miles from Hannibal, MO (boyhood home of Mark Twain) to Mosberly (I think that's where we are), MO. The ride wasn't too bad...I rode sweep with Eric. It was slow because we couldn't go our own pace, plus it was super windy and hilly too, but overall it was fine. People are really starting to emotionally break down though. There was a lot of crabbiness this morning that is pretty disheartening. I however would still rather be doing Bike and Build than anything else!

Yesterday we got into Hannibal early which allowed us to go play around town and enjoy Tom Sawyer Day. I've never been to MO before (thank you Mom and Dad for never taking me here as a kid!) but actually my first glimpse of it wasn't too bad. Maybe it was because Hannibal was in the middle of Tom Sawyer Days, maybe it was because I legit like Mark Twain books...I don't know what the reason is, but having the Mississippi right there, being able to see the jail, Widow Douglas's house, Tom Sawyer's house and fence, being able to watch a fence painting contest, being able to see a Tom and Becky Thatcher look-alike dress-up contest, seeing a man in character playing Mark Twain...it was fun to be touristy like that for a few hours. Also Becca, Roshan, Erin, and I found a cute coffee shop (the first one west of the Mississippi) that reminded us of our beloved northeast. We were able to get frozen and iced coffees (with soy milk, something we couldn't find in IL) and sit and read Time and art magazines and Roshie even got her hands on an US Weekly. We all pretended we were at our respective schools or in Boston and it was just so fantastic! Of course today...we were thrown right back into the heartland.

Tonight we'll be watching Crash on the church's TV. I'm sure if they watched it with us they would somehow be offended, kind of like when we watched Rent on a TV in western Ohio. These are two of my fave movies though (so i obvi recommend them to everyone) and everyone in my group appreciates them too. Tomorrow we bike about 90 miles to I don't know where and in a few days we'll be in KANSAS. We've been building up Lawrence for a while now, so we'll see if it lives up to it's expectations.