This is so sketchy....

It is currently 8:00 PM on Friday night, and Dad and I just finished having dinner at a small cafe that we had to walk HALF A MILE to finally get to. Let me tell you something, after biking for 6 hours of the day, the LAST thing you want to do is go for a long walk. However, it was the only food available within a 5 mile radius, so we figured it would be our best bet. I wish SO badly that you could all see the "city" of Cairo, Illinois. This is seriously the sketchiest place I've ever been in my life. As we were riding through the "city" (I have to keep putting the word 'city' in quotations because what we saw today cannot actually qualify as a city), we realized that it was essentially a ghost town. Every building is abandoned. There aren't any houses that are actually inhabited by anyone, yet there are still random people walking down the street. I don't know where they are going or what they are doing in this place because every building is closed, signs are destroyed and it's just really creepy!! The best part is there are these guys that just sit in their cars on the street. For some reason, I'm convinced that one is going to reach his hand out of the open window and grab me. Let's just say I was peddling pretty fast through the city to get to our hotel. We've also had another "This is so sketchy" moment that I wanted to share. When we were in Memphis, dad and I decided to go somehwere new and different for dinner. We saw this place called "The Pickadilly Cafeteria". We go in, and are literally the only white people in the entire restaurant. I've been on stage in front of hundreds of people in my life, but I've never felt so many eyes on me at once in my entire life. This was a pretty popular place for the locals, and I don't think they see a lot of blonde 19 yr. olds with tan lines like mine very often. The food ordering process was this weird system that we didn't really understand, and everyone else knew what was going on so that didn't help us blend in and increased the amount of staring that took place. Anyways, we eventually got our food and it was quite good! Then, we had to walk about a 1/2 mile back to our hotel, and by this time it was dark. At this point, my Dad and I are walking in a pretty run down area of town on the same path of groups of teenagers playing hip hop, hanging out with their car hoods open and chilling out. Of course, I'm trying to hurry up because I don't want to upset any of these people or interrupt their night (because they could definitely take dad and I down if they really wanted to) so while I'm hustling, Dad is walking as SLOWLY as possible because he thinks it's so FUNNY! As my father I'm expecting PROTECTION and REASSURANCE, but he just laughs and walks as slowly as he can saying that he wants to "enjoy the night air". We made it back safe and soundly, and the next day we actually went back to the same restaurant! Boy, were they surprised to see us back again. I made sure we went earlier so that we wouldn't have to walk home in the dark. :) Anyways, today we went through Kentucky and are now in Illinois. Tomorrow we will be crossing the river into Missouri. We are still having a great time, and I look forward to tomorrow!
A
P.S Last night when we checked into our hotel, a guy asked me and Dad how long we've been married. People are crazy. Life is crazy. And I love it.