Today was an unexpected treat. I never entirely left the clouds, but I also never hit rain or even still-slicked roads. Being prepped for a rough day, I sped through the great one across the rest of Tennessee, Kentucky, and into Ohio.

Tobacco is everywhere, not just trailing out of open car windows, in the many warehouses of varying ramshackledness, or county history museums, but fields ranging from huge lots to small gardens and even at church cutting contests (rescheduled because of the rain for later this month). There are far more small tobacco crops here than I know of heirloom tomatoes being grown in cities or chickens raised in backyard roosts. Maybe the urban farming movement should shift focus from localism and subsistence to cash crops.

Southern Ohio along the eponymous river is beautiful. When I left my hotel in Tennessee, the clerk told me how he loved riding and this time of year was usually best. It’d be pleasantly warm, but then you’d swoop into a valley and catch that one cool pocket before winding your easy way through: “That’s the closest thing to heaven I know, man.” My day was plenty cool, but the Ohio River Valley was warm and filled with houses of all shapes and colors. What practical Midwesterner, I wondered, was painting his house robin’s egg blue or hers sunflower yellow? It all fit the sky, which grew gradually less cloudy as I moved east in the evening. The sun first grew brighter as the day wound down and then appeared to set in the east, turning it a pale pink yo match certain houses while the western sky loomed dark and broad. It’s a peculiar feeling — and one against most narrative from Arthur on — to ride east into a sunset.

One last observation: the people of the Ohio River Valley love archery. Stores and repair shops spring up almost as often as churches. Sometimes there are more bowsmiths to a small town — just a string of houses — than gas stations. The state park even has a range set up five feet from the road. No rest stops here. Just places to practice archery. In the event of a technopolypse meltdown, come to Ohio. They’ll protect you against the zombies.

I wound up camping east a bit from Decatur, home of arm wrestling champion Steve Cooper. The state park is more of a resort — explicitly and in style — than I’d usually like, but my campsite is a short walk up a hill and through the trees, away from where the RV campers and others who want electrical hookups are. I’ve got a small fire going, just enough for faint light, heat, and comfort. As I was eating my dinner, I realized just how perfect of a last night out it was. I only wished the clouds would break a little to let the stars in. Then I noticed small lights moving occasionally across the ground. They’re small insects, I’m not sure what type. No fireflies are in the sky. I always thought glow worms were just toys from when I was a kid.

I’m sure I’ll figure out what they are when I get home or even tomorrow, but right now they’re just a nice mystery.