The impossibility of representing the happenings of each day is becoming obvious now. Just too much has left its impressions, not to mention coffee shops and internet are not exactly prolific in the south. Anyhow, rolling through the monotonous highway scenery in Illinois was getting pretty old so I took a state route through the country side on toward the hills of the Shawnee National forest. I went on a quick hike to get my legs moving but had to get back in the saddle if I were to make it to Nashville. I passed through small bricked downtowns where cowboy hatted men conversated on porch stoops. Going south the air was sticky, insects reverberated above the engine noise. I passed through another miniscule town when the road dipped away into a river. On the other side of the Ohio River was Kentucky, the gateway to the old south. I suddenly had that I'm not in Kansas anymore moment when I saw the Loni-Jo idling at the banks, a crew man waving me in as the last vehicle on the ferry.
The Ohio stretched out into the haze of the late afternoon, flanked by low hills of hardwoods and and some rocky bluffs. No better way to cross a legendary American river than on the humming and bumping Loni-Jo. 
On the Kentucky side it became apparent that the Ohio may be more of a border than I had imagined. I stopped to get gas and the southern drawl startled me into my senses. I was down there now. I made it as far as ten miles outside Nashville where I slept in the back of the truck. As much as I would have loved to have seen Old Crow, I knew no to attempt a big city on a Friday night.
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