Madison, on the banks of the Ohio, is a heartbreakingly lovely place: small town America personified. Its main street is lined with preserved Victorian buildings and the avenues off each side are tree-lined. There are barber shops and small cafes. I bet you mom even makes her own apple pie. We spent an hilarious evening there having dinner with John and Kay, two Harley riders from north of the state.

We joined up at the Key West Shrimp House, overlooking the river. John had been in the special forces in Vietnam, and had a gun licence that would let him buy a tank (only kidding). Both he and Kay packed 45s in their saddlebags. Their bikes were customised, covered in chrome and leather tassels, and they had through exhausts which made a noise that could loosen your teeth at 100 paces.

John drank whisky and told jokes and managed to end most of his stories with "and that's why Americans have guns." He told us about the time when he tried to break up a fight in a motel lobby. One of the guys pulled out a nine-inch knife, so he tackled him and got in a few punches (this was before he got his gun). When we asked what happened to the man, he replied casually "Oh, he died the next morning."

Most of his jokes were too dirty for a family website, but here's a clean one:

A man arrives at a house and rings the bell. He gets no reply after repeated ringing. As he turns away he sees a little boy hiding in the bushes.
He asks the boy where his mom is.
"She's busy," the boy whispers.
"And what about your dad?"
"He's busy too."
" What are they doing?"
"They're helping the police."
" And what are the police doing?"
"They're looking for me."

We ended up drinking too much whisky before John and Kay roared off into the night, shattering the evening calm.

Our trip that day had been through the rolling farmlands of southern Ohio, including one place called Londonderry where the sign on the gun and ammo shop announced that the town was "too tough to die." The last 50 miles into Madison was a detour off US50 onto 56, a scenic ride down the Indiana side of the wide Ohio river. It was beautiful on a Harley on a sunny evening, the temperature in the low 70s. So far, apart from an hour's rain in the Appalachians, we have missed the worst of the weather - the storms which have been moving in from the west. But we don't like the look of the threat of tornadoes on the great plains, the forest fires raging in the Rockies, or the heat of the desert on the other side. Watching the weather channel is not an activity for the fainthearted.

Breakfast the next morning was a little later than anticipated as we peered into cafes wondering why everything was so late getting going. The answer was that by crossing the river we were in central time and the clocks had gone back an hour.

Our waitress was a pretty 21-year-old. She had never seen the sea (or an ocean, as she put it) and had never flown. We are approaching middle America.