From the Ground

On my way to the public library in Macomb, I was walking down the main street, and a girl, about 10 years old, with braces, caught up with me and offered a snow-cone from a place I had passed a couple of blocks back without seeing it. That was an astonishing bit of generosity that left me feeling better about humanity all day long. I didn't manage to specify where I was going next before I left Macomb last night. I decided to go down highway 67 through Industry, Rushville, and Beardstown to Jacksonville. I got about 5 miles out of Macomb and found a space in a cornfield where I could lay out for the night.
This morning I got up and headed for Industry. A couple of miles before I got there, a couple stopped and offered a ride through there and about 5 miles past. Another few miles down the road, after I had stopped for lunch, a K-9 officer from Schuyler county stopped to check me out, and offered a ride into Rushville. He suggested the possibility of also going past Beardstown, and calling a deputy from Cass county to take me into Jacksonville, but I declined. I'm not in trouble with law enforcement, but I could do without the continual stop and check in every other county I go through, because deputies aren't all very friendly. My route through Illinois is already going to take me by more prisons than Nebraska and Iowa combined, which gives me more reason to be a bit nervous.