In Bradford, 18 miles outside Kewanee, I chatted to a young woman who was working at an unexpectedly hippyish health-food store. I asked her about the yellow ribbons I'd seen recently in the lawns and windows of many of the houses I'd cycled passed. She said a lot of local soldiers had just returned from Iraq, including her brother. She said it was difficult, because there were no jobs for them to come back to, and some couldn't adjust and even if they didn't think the war was achieving anything positive a lot of them ended up going back, because at least out there they felt they belonged to something. She looked sad, pretty and a little bewildered, and Bradford felt a long, long way from Washington and Baghdad.
On a more mundane topic, my motel tonight was the typically tidy and efficient (if characterless) Super 8 with a waffle-iron in the breakfast buffet and… a huge Walmart across the road. Time to stock up on Clif Bars and those fabulous hand-wash sachets for clothes! And so, tomorrow, I leave Illinois. Looking back to my note at the beginning of 28th July's entry I have to say, with regret, that the spirits of Sufjan and Obama have been illusive. Maybe they're somewhere over Chicago. Here, it's all about agriculture and while that counts for a lot, it's not the only sustenance the soul and body need.
