On the lighter side…

The last few days have been a whirlwind of riding and sightseeing. Since Saturday in Ohio we have buzzed through 3 more States: Indiana, Illinois and now in Iowa. My American geography is becoming much better but admittedly that is not a high bar. 

Somewhat ironically we found ourselves driving through the quiet, beautiful roads of Indiana on Sunday morning where they have recently enacted a Religious Freedom Law allowing private businesses to refuse service to GLBT people on religious grounds. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/what-makes-indianas-religious-freedom-law-different/388997/

Perhaps more ironic is that at around lunch time when we stopped to fuel up in the tiny town of Burnsville, Zandra asked the gas station owner about places for lunch in the area. He pointed back down the road and told us there is a “white house about 500 yards back, no sign or anything, but good food”. Sounded like the perfect recommendation to us. 

We found ourselves in a little hole-in-the-wall diner that had wonderful homemade food and the friendliest service. We had parked our 5 bikes all in a row in front of the building that only had a small open sign in the window. One of our crew went to check if it really was a restaurant. 

There was just one group in the tiny place when we arrived in our leather and jeans – all women. As with everywhere else they wanted to know where we were riding from and riding to. We laughed and took pictures and shared stories with the next table. About 15 minutes into our meal the place started filling up with the after-church Sunday lunch crowd (ok crowd might be a bit of a stretch). The family next to us started telling everyone who we were and the ride we were on and before we knew it we were the talk of Burnsville. The older ‘church-ladies’ were smiling and laughing and talking about us all being ladies and how exciting this was. I suspect we will continue to be the talk of the town for at least a week or until something else out of the ordinary happens. 

Thank you Indiana – you made us feel very welcome.