Tennessee is close to home

Day 22 – July 1, 2009
Around 4 AM this morning I heard someone knocking on our hotel door. I thought it was Bernie but couldn’t figure why that early. Don opened the door to find a young black boy standing there asking for money. He said his wife and 5-day-old baby were in the car and they were heading home to Conway AR about 20 miles west of Little Rock and they were out of gas and out of money. I had noticed when we went to dinner earlier in the evening the area seemed very poor and the young man in the KFC seemed almost afraid to talk to us. We covered 371 miles today and have stopped in Lebanon, TN just east of Nashville. The weather was really nice today – temps in the low 90’s and low humidity; perfect for riding. We passed corn fields in various stages of maturity from full tassel to only 3 or 4 inches tall; soy bean fields and rice fields. As we approached Nashville we began to climb mountains again. Bernie said who would have thought we would say Tennessee is close to home? I think he is ready to get home too. Just had a great meal; did some laundry and ready to settle down for the night so we can get an early start in the morning. We have had so many people come up to us and ask if we are really from Delaware after they check the tags on the bikes. Then they want to know where we are headed and what it is like to travel on a motorcycle.