It's a Doggone Good Life, in Louisiana

From Janie (second of two posts today):

Wednesday, October 31.  Happy Halloween!!

Between us, we got chased by dogs four or five times today.  None of them particularly serious.  A big brown hound ambled and barked after both of us.  I went by first, chased the full length of the yard.  The dog stopped, I coasted, the utility locate workers were laughing, asking if I was ok.  'Yup.'  'That'll get your heart going, won't it!' one of them said.  Yes, indeed, it did. 

Beautiful back roads early in the day.  Some shoulderless riding with traffic later in the day.  Jody chased hard to catch me.  Gotta say, I'd much rather hear him coming up on my shoulder than the four-legged hound dogs!

66 miles of today's route for Jody, plus another 10 of the beginning of tomorrow's.  Tomorrow will be a long day.  87 miles, even after the 10 Jody knocked off today.  56 miles for me in just under four hours.  Pretty much flat all day. 

Fabulous lunch today - hummus, avocado, raisins, cheese, spinach on whole wheat bread.  Camp chairs.  Sodas and chips.  Sitting in the Louisiana sunshine.  You'd never guess it'll be November tomorrow.

It matters not what road we take but rather what we become on the journey.
     ~Janie's fortune cookie at dinner tonight

Riding from Mississippi (can't remember where we are) into Louisiana

 

 

 

From Janie:

 

Tuesday, October 30.  From Natchez MS to St. Francisville LA.  70 miles.

 

Jody rode from the hotel.  Nicole (welcome back!) jumped me ahead about 5 miles.  I rode 5 miles on a side road, in beautiful woods, rolling hills, then came to the gravel road.  Called Nicole, rode back another 5 miles.  Jody continued on US Highway 61, a four-lane, divided highway.  I rode in The Little Darkness for awhile, catching up with Nicole.  When we came to a stretch with shoulders, I jumped out and got back on the bike.  The shoulder ended in about 200 yards and I decided 'why not'.  Rode on down the road. 

 

When we got to the Louisiana State border, there they were - beautiful, broad shoulders.  I rode the rest of the way in to the hotel.  35 miles in about 2 1/2 hours.  Pretty good ride for me.

 

We took very quick showers, then jumped in the car, headed to the Louisiana State Prison Museum, located just outside the gates of infamous Angola State Prison.  We'd missed, by a couple of days, the last rodeo - yes, you read that right - of the year.  Every Sunday in October, the inmates participate in a rodeo.  We watched a film clip at the museum.  One of the strangest rodeo events ever involved men on foot trying to grab a poker chip tied by string to the forehead of a bull.  No kidding. 

 



Bull's head in the Louisiana State Prison Mueum.

Note the red poker chip on the bull's forehead.

Can't make this stuff up!

Jody, just outside the prison gate.

Janie, outside the prison gate.

You'd never know this is the front gate to Angola.

 

Concertina wire along the fence, top and bottom.

 

We talked to a woman in the gift shop at the museum who had worked at Angola for 40+ years.  Her children and grandchildren worked there, as had her now deceased husband.  Her great grandchildren lived on the prison grounds.  Four generations, in all, had lived there.  A very good job, she called it.  Her co-worker at the museum had retired after some 35+ years working there. 

 

Fascinating museum.  All about prison movies, prison reform, the rodeo, the death penalty (hanging, then electrocution, now lethal injection), prison breaks, women in prison, women in prison administration, inmate-made illegal weapons.  We had only about 45 minutes before the museum was to close.  More than we could see and read in that time.

 

We bought matching sweatshirt there that say:  'Angola.  A Gated Community.'  Pictures to follow in the next couple of days.

 

On the way back to the hotel, we passed a junkyard full of old equipment, boats and trucks, rusting away to nothing.  Stopped for a photo.

Old truck, rusting beside the road to Angola.

 

The prison, the largest in the US, is nicknamed Angola after the plantation that once stood on its site, worked by slaves shipped in from Africa.
     ~BBC

On the Trace



From Janie:

 

October 25 and 26, on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

 

According to the National Park Service, The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history.  We rode about 165 miles of the southern part, from Koscuisko to Clinton, then Clinton to where the Parkway ends at Natchez MS.

 

Two lanes of pavement, no shoulders, no commercial traffic.  Few cars.  No dogs.  Beautiful scenery.

 

 Early morning on the Trace.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

Thursday morning, Jody and I rode 0.3 miles from the hotel, turned left and were on the Parkway, riding into morning fog.  It was cool, but not cold.  Quiet and beautiful.  We rode together for most of the day.

 

Jody and Janie, riding the Trace. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

The pavement was smooth, the grades gentle and the curves constant.  At no place on the Parkway can you see for more than about a quarter of a mile.  That, combined with the low speed limit of 55, diverts all but casual traffic off the Parkway.  We saw some traffic near Jackson, but not much.

Jody, Janie and the morning fog on the Trace. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

There are many working farms along the Trace.  We saw cattle, hay fields, horses, a few houses.  Occasional side roads.  Many historical markers and other informational signs and sites posted by the National Park Service.

 

Jody and his new friends. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Curious cow. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

On Thursday, we rode for about 45 miles, then diverted to Canton, Mississippi, where Peter and I ate at the buffet then lounged in the sun, while Jody attended the local Rotary meeting.  We then got back on the Natchez Trace Parkway to ride the rest of that day's 75 miles ride.  Temperatures rose into the low 80's.  Jody and I rode an unsupported eight mile stretch which was closed to cars because of roadbed erosion under one of the lanes of the Parkway.  Peter and The Little Darkness had a quick detour around on adjoining highways, while Jody and I rode where only cyclists were allowed.  I got in the car after 67.25 miles, rode the rest of the way into Clinton.

 

Jody and I then went to the Visitor's Center, where we met a lovely couple working there.  They are probably ten or so years older than Jody.  The husband is a cyclists, so we talked about the Parkway, gave him the web address to this blog and hoped to see him the next morning.  His wife gave us her map of Louisiana when we said that's where we were headed.  Very friendly folk.  We looked for him on the Parkway the next day, but were probably down the road earlier than he was.  He had the luxury of waiting for the weather to warm up - Jody was looking at a 90 mile ride.

 

We had overcast skies on Friday, with the temperature hovering around 60 degrees.  Good riding weather.  I rode three separate legs, with Peter jumping me ahead and Jody chasing.  Ninety miles to ride, followed by a nearly four hour drive to New Orleans for a rest weekend.

 

We stopped at one of the roadside picnic areas for a quick lunch:

Where lunch was served on Friday. 

[Photo for my sister and her family]

 

We saw only a couple of spots of kudzu on the Parkway.  As we got farther south, we saw more and more Spanish Moss, which is not really moss, hanging in the air, draped on Live Oaks.

 

Spanish Moss in the Live Oaks

 

Along the Parkway, there were many places to stop and look and explore.  Along one stretch of swamp, there were several women painting outdoors.

Thinking of LaVerne.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

We've seen lots of Halloween decorations in the small towns and small cities we've passed through, and we would see more costumes in New Orleans over the weekend.  But nothing has rivaled the field of tall grass, cottoned with spiderwebs, glistening in the morning sunlight, that we saw along the Parkway.  Jody and I were flying along when Peter flagged us down to see this:

Halloween comes early on The Trace

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Two days of quiet, peaceful riding.  Mississippi at its most beautiful.  We also saw Mike Ehredt of Hope, ID, who is running across American in honor of Americans who have died in the war in Afghanistan.  He's pushing a stroller filled with flags, which he is leaving along the way.  We didn't get a picture (we didn't know who he was when we passed him), but here is a link to his website:  Project America Run. Very interesting project.

 

Janie and Jody, riding out of the morning fog. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi... has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.
     ~Thurgood Marshall

Not Sandy

FYI - we are far to the south and west of Hurricane Sandy, although we do know people in its path.

We're safe.  And thinking of our friends and family along the Eastern Seaboard.

Speak No Evil - Can You Hear Me Now, Part II

I'm hearing back from some of you that you can't post on the blog. 

I've looked at the settings, and now don't have a clue what else I can do.

If you can't post here, you can drop me a line at janie001@hotmail.com and let me know you're following along.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!
     ~Noam Chomsky, American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, political critic, and activist

NOLA

From Janie:

Today is Saturday, October 27.  We're resting in New Orleans, LA (a/k/a NOLA) today and tomorrow.  Driving back to Natchez on Monday, back on the bikes on Tuesday.

We've got stories to tell and pictures to post from Thursday and Friday on the Natchez Trace Parkway.  I'll post sometime in the next couple of days.

A nap is calling me right now.  Gonna go answer.

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.
     ~Barbara Jordan, American politician and civil rights leader

Can You Hear Me Now? Just Wondering . . .

From Janie:

One of the things that BlogSpot does for us is tell us how many hits the blog gets each day.  What it doesn't tell us is who's looking.

As we wind down toward the end of our journey - our last day on the bikes, before we head home to Iowa City, will be Sunday, November 11.  After the election, but sooner than you might think.

If you're a regular reader, or even an occasional reader, would you please comment on this post - or any other post - just to let us know who you are?  Comments should be available to anyone who can see the blog.  Tell us what you liked, what you didn't like, what tickled your funny bone, or tell us nothing at all - but please sign your name.  (Or, if you really don't want to respond in public, drop me an email and let me know you're reading.)

Thanks, folks!

From Grenada to Kosciusko

From Janie, the second of two posts today.

Wednesday, October 24.  From Grenada to Kosciusko.

A pretty unremarkable day.  More rollers in Mississippi.  Long stretches of two-lane state highways.  A sign that offered a place that would butcher deer and wild boar.  Another sign warning of long timbers on trucks.  Multiple trucks carrying just such long pine timbers.  Jody's Garmin was temperamental.  So was my stomach.  I rode about 12, which felt fabulous.  Ate an apple.  Rode another 3, which didn't feel so fabulous. 

In the space of about a quarter mile, got beeped at by a truck, had another blow by me closer than he should have, and got chased by a dog that looked like a golden retreiver mix.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Give me a minute and I'll be out of your territory.  Not so scary today, the trucks or the dog.  Thinking about elephants.

We are all very much looking forward to getting on the Natchez Trace Parkway tomorrow - our hotel is about 0.3 miles away.  Preview of coming attractions:

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
     ~John Drybred, retired journalist from Lancaster PA

The Amazing Shrinking Ferocious Canines of MS

From Janie:

 

Tuesday, October 23.  From Oxford (home of Ole Miss) to Grenada Mississippi.

 

I started the day on the bike, riding through the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford MS with Jody.  Very hilly.  Some confusion about the route early on.  A bout of nausea that had me off the bike and into the car.  Yes, I think I would have felt better if I'd thrown up.  No, I didn't manage to do that.

 

Jody found the route again - a bike path closed to unauthorized (read that 'non-University') motorized vehicles.  Peter drove to where the end of the trail came back to the road, and we waited there for Jody to rejoin us.

 

Here is part of why Peter is such a good photographer:  size matters.

 

 Looking east across the hay field, with the large lens on the camera.

[Photo of Peter Doran]

 

The hayfield, outside of Oxford, Mississippi.

 

The route followed county and state roads through a number of small towns.  Parts of Mississippi are so impoverished it's shocking - even if you think you know what to expect.  Parts are not impoverished, particularly as we got farther south.  Much of Mississippi - outside of the cities and bigger towns - is quite beautiful.  And remarkably less hilly than Missouri and Tennessee.  Rollers all.  Not big climbs.

 

Jody, riding through small town Mississippi.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

Jody, out in the soon-to-be harvested cotton.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

After lunch (PBJ out of the car - no restaurants anywhere), I decided to get on the bike.  Not feeling great, but it doesn't make sense to let the days slip by.  After this route, we have only 15 more routes.  The end of the ride is rolling nearer.  (And sooner than we would like.)

 

After being chased by three dogs last Friday, I was aware of all canines.  Way too aware.  Hyper-aware.  Uber-aware.  Stupidly aware.  Did I mention I was aware?  Dogs were barking everywhere.  Well, of course they were.  We were, after all, riding through rural and semi-rural Mississippi.  Jody had just passed me on the bike, Peter had just passed me in The Little Darkness, when I came around the corner and spotted three huge, ferocious dogs.  And just as quickly, they spotted The Little Darkness going by.  They raced along the edge of the road, barking.  Did I mention that they were huge?  And barking?  And three of them?  Three is a pack, right?  Did I want to be set upon by a pack of Mississippi hounds?  No, I certainly did not.

 

I stopped.  Backed up the road.  I could see Peter stopped in the road up ahead.  But not coming back.  Waiting.  I called him.  'Don't laugh.  Just come give me a ride past those three dogs.'

 

'I didn't see them.'

 

'Just come back.'

 

'OK.  Be right there.'

 

And back he came.  And drove up next to me.  Laughing.  'Janie,' he said.  'Those aren't dogs.' 

 

I looked again.  They were much smaller.  Amazing, shrinking, ferocious canines.

 

'Come on,' Peter said.  'I'll drive right by you.' 

 

I did.  He did.  The three ran by the car, barking.  Then a bigger dog, some kind of hound, paced the car for a hundred yards or so.  'I've got your back!' Peter called out the window.  And he did.  The dogs on one side of The Little Darkness, me on the other.  Peter laughing hard enough, it's a wonder he kept the car on the road.  Here they are, the little monsters:



Amazing shrinking ferocious canines, behind the electric fence.

Caution.  Objects in photo aren't much bigger than this.

[Photo by a laughing Peter Doran]

The third and most ferocious canine.

[Photo by a laughing Peter Doran]

 

By the time Peter pulled over, I was laughing, too.  Not as much as Peter and Jody, who had stopped to watch, but still.  One of the most fucking ridiculous moments of my life.  Geeze!  Seriously?  That's what scared me?  They didn't even come into the roadway!  And not so big, either!

 

No photo of the hound.  He was bigger, really.  Ask Peter, when he stops laughing, he'll confirm that.  Bigger dog.  But running with his head up, tail up and wagging, not barking.  Not so scary . . . yeah, yeah, yeah, not so scary because he was on the other side of The Little Darkness!

 

Cars and trucks went by, but I wasn't afraid of traffic anymore, because I'd moved on to dogs.  Next I needed something to keep me from being afraid of dogs.  (If you don't remember Eddie from the movie American Flyers you're missing one of the all time great dog-chases-cyclists scenes of all times.  'He got my shoe!'  'Wanna go back and get it?'  'No!') 

 

'Elephants,' Peter recommended.  'If you see an elephant, you won't be afraid of the dogs anymore.'  Jody just laughed some more.  Smart asses.  I'm riding with smart asses.

 

No, I didn't see an elephant, but thinking about them got me to reconsidering dogs.  Maybe I didn't need to be so scared . . .  Then another quarter of a mile or so down the road, I watched Jody get chased by another dog.  I stopped and watched.  He rode back to get me, getting chased again.  Encouraged me on.  No, really he egged me on.  Laughing.  So, less afraid now I was thinking about elephants - and watching Peter in The Little Darkness, making a silent statement that no, he was not going to come back and guide me past this next dog - I rode on.  Jody rode behind me, yelling, 'Ride faster!  Ride faster!'  I rode faster.  Peter jumped out of The Little Darkness with his camera, but by then the dog was in the road behind us, and he couldn't get a clear shot.  He had to settle for this:

 

Job well done.  Those pesky cyclists are gone, gone, gone!

[Photo by Peter Doran, one of the smartasses]

 

Wish I could say I rode a lot on this day, but I didn't.  The adrenaline helped for awhile.  ('Dogs scared the crap out of you,' Peter joked.  Yeah, they did.  Ha, ha, ha!)  A deer ran across the road in front of me.  I wasn't scared.  Squirrel, too.  Not scared of that either, despite Jody shouting out warnings between laughs.  Ha.  Very funny guys.

 

A little farther down the road, Peter stopped to put my bike on the car.  Jody was too far ahead, I was riding pretty slow, and there was a mangy stray on the highway.  And that was the end of the riding day for me.

 

Jody had a frustrating Garmin day, but that's really his story to tell, not mine. 

 

There was more wildlife to be seen, including this guy, who was circling generally over the area of the ferocious canines.  I think he figured that if the little dogs ever actually caught a cyclist, she would be too big for the dogs to eat and there would be plenty left. 

Buzzard.

[Yet another remarkable photo by Peter Doran]

 

One of the things we've seen a lot of in Mississipi is kudzu.  Nasty stuff, climbing up and killing bushes and trees.  Taking over fields.  Climbing telephone poles.  Covering abandoned buildings.  Without vigilant effort, this invasive species would take over all of the south.  Can't handle the cold northern winters, and we Yankees should be grateful for that.  

Janie, by the kudzu.

At least this wasn't chasing any faster than I could ride!

[Photo by Peter Doran]

Jody, on a rural Mississippi bridge, fall colors in the background.

Note the swamp you can see through the trees.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Janie, those aren't dogs!

     ~Peter Doran

Road Food

From Janie:

Monday, October 22.  From Memphis TN to Oxford MS.

With all the road food we've eaten in the last two months, it's a wonder this hasn't happened before.  I had a day of feeling really crappy.  Mild food poisoning crappy. 

Spent part of the morning sleeping in the car.  Spent more of it looking out the window at the kudzu, which is clearly trying to overgrow the entire state.  Rode about 45 minutes this afternoon, which was all I could manage today. 

There are three stuffed lions (taxidermy not toys) in glass cases in the lobby of the hotel where we're staying.  It's a Hampton Inn, so we weren't expecting anything so exotic.  Interesting in a weird kinda way.  Even more interesting trying to check in - they had us booked for November 22.  Lucky for us, they also had rooms available tonight.  Had we been here a day earlier, we would have been out looking for rooms elsewhere. 

We got to our room, and I went to bed.  Jody did laundry. I feel better tonight, expect to feel fine in the morning.  And so it goes . . . another day on the road.

I'm a lucky woman.
     ~Janie Braverman

Resting in Memphis

From Janie, the third of three posts up today:

 

Sunday, October 21:  a rest day in Memphis Tennessee.

 

 

Rest day in Memphis Tennessee.

About two thirds of the way through the trip.



Jody and Janie playing tourist on our rest day.

 

Sleeping late, breakfast, Graceland, lunch and football, a couple of museums (for Jody), catching up on laundry and blogging (Janie), shopping for tubes, tires, gas and groceries (Peter), watching football (all three of us), massages (Jody and Janie), dinner, bed.

 

And tomorrow morning we get up, and get back on the bikes again!

 

Rest and be thankful.

     ~William Wordsworth

Going to the Dogs

From Janie:

Friday, October 20.  From Dyersburg to the outskirts of Memphis.  Also our 11th anniversary.

Jody and I rode from the hotel together in the morning.  He rode with me for about 42 miles, until we stopped for lunch.  Highlights of the morning?

Janie and Jody riding together, on their 11th anniversary.

[Photos by Peter Doran]

Janie and Jody, laughing about something.

Life is very good.

Jody, riding the rollers.

Another long ride for me.  (42 miles before lunch, another 9 after)

I got chased, for the first time ever, by dogs that I think really meant it.  Talk about a jolt of adrenaline.  I didn't know I had that kind of acceleration in my legs.  Lizard Brain was a big help here.  So was yelling:  "NO!  NO!  NO!  Go home!"  But mostly it was luck and traffic.  Cars going by both ways.  I didn't get hit.  The three dogs didn't get hit.  And the last one gave up before he caught me - or maybe I was out of his territory by then.  I don't know.  The mystery to me is why they chased me, then let Jody go by? 

A house with its porch, steps and roof still attached, sitting in the side yard.

Rolling hills and lessons on spinning faster up and down.  All the miles to ride that we wanted.

Jody, happy on the bike.

 

Jody was briefly delayed in Ripley TN, due to a police barricade.  We thought it was a bank robbery.  We didn't know it until later, but it was a murder.  The third shooting in seven days.  Not a bright spot in the day.

 

A day with less wind.  Balmy temperatures reaching the 70's.

Janie, in warmer weather and short sleeves. 

Watching the train run parallel to the road.

We checked into the Peabody Hotel, in downtown Memphis.  First hotel where we've had to take the bikes off the car to get to valet parking.  First hotel (since the one at the airport in Los Angeles at the beginning of the trip) that even had valet parking.  Ducks in the lobby fountain.  Inside the hotel.  No, I'm not kidding - check it out: 

Ducks in the lobby fountain.

I can't make this stuff up.

A perfect anniversary day.  Lots of miles on the bikes.  The dogs that chased me didn't bite me.  The dogs that chased Jody later didn't bite him either. 

Eleven years and counting.

 

Showers, a romantic comedy (because the Iowa Hawkeyes were a tragedy yesterday, losing to Penn State by the shameful score of 38-14 in prime time), and room service.  Celebrating eleven years of marriage.  Looking forward to more.

I'm a lucky man.
     ~Jody Braverman

"They Done Blowed the Levee"





From Janie:

 

Friday, October 19.  From Marston MO, through Kentucky, to Dyersburg TN.

 

Where to start the post about this day?  With the Bates Motel Revisited (where we did not stay)?  With the breakfast of Cheerios, no coffee, and yogurt from the car?  With the four hunters on the side of the levee, waiting for the hounds to scare up . . . what?  Racoons?  Birds?  What season is it in Missouri anyway?  Or how about the farm with the miniature donkeys?  Or the dead snakes on the road?  Or the petting zoo with zebras, a camel, emus, a peacock and dozens of other animals?

 

Lots of pictures and some politically incorrect, but absolutely accurate and heartfelt, language.

 

We rolled early from the motel, anxious to get back on the road while the winds were at our back, and not blowing so very hard.  We had a county road route planned, which in some states can include gravel roads.  Guess what?  Yup.  Gravel roads, lots of gravel roads.  Then paved.  Then the four mile stretch along the top of the levee - beautiful pavement, good tailwind, swift cycling.  A bald eagle in the top of the tree to the left of us.  Gorgeous countryside.



 

Jody, riding on the first of many gravel roads.

 

Then . . . we hit the "Road Closed in 8 Miles" sign.  Jody flagged down a pickup truck, just coming from behind the barricade.  "What's up?" we wanted to know.  "They done blowed the levee," he said.  "Back in the spring."

 

The US Army Corps of Engineers had indeed deliberately breached the levee, back in the spring, when the Mississippi was flooding.  The breach was located in a rural area, to avoid flooding in a more populated area.

 

"Can we get through?"

 

"Well, y'all can prolly carry them bicycles and walk across, but I don't know about the car."

 

We decided to drive down and take a look.  See where they done blowed the levee.  See if we could walk across.  If so, Peter would leave us with extra tubes (Jody had flatted twice the day before, and Peter had changed out the thorn-filled tire as well) and drive around the long way to meet us at the ferry.  Yes, I did say ferry.  Off we went.

 

The road to the worksite was gravel on blacktop, then gravel on mud, then mud.  Jody rode as far as he could.

The 'done blowed' levee.

 

Jody, riding through the mud up to the levee. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

 

Peter and Jody, assessing the route.

 

Jody is on top of the newly constructed segment of the levee.  Hard packed, but no way to get The Little Darkness up there.  None of us had phone service.  No one at the job site, which was both good and bad.  They couldn't chase us out, but if we were going to get stuck, it was really going to suck.

 

Jody's brakes, after riding through the mud. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Jody walked on top of the levee, knew that he could get through.  Peter walked down the road a bit.  Have I mentioned that Peter lives in Vermont?  Where you either learn to drive in the mud or you don't go out during mud season? 

 

Jody picked up his bike and trekked the length of the levee down to where the road picked up again.  Peter got back in The Little Darkness.  "Are you ready for this?"  "Sure."

 

There comes a point when you either trust your team or you don't.  I trusted.  Peter drove.  Drive fast and don't stop - that's the key to driving in the mud.  That, and knowing that it was slop on top of a pretty hard surface.  Whooping, slip-sliding, and casting rooster-tails of mud up behind us.  Right out the other side, then down the gravel road and past the other road closed sign.  Muddy, but triumphant.

 

English is a wonderful language.  Expressive, rich, idiosyncratic.  The graduate seminar I taught when I got my MFA in Creative Writing (Queens University of Charlotte, 2007) was about how there are no synonyms.  Each word has its own meaning - so, pick the one you want and use it.  Even if it's politically incorrect.  Here is the view looking back at the done blowed levee:

 

We don't need no stinkin' road!

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Then we were off to the Dorena Hickman Ferry to cross into Kentucky.  We knew we were close when we saw the signs that read: "Road Ends in Water". 

 

Note the signs:  "Road Ends in Water"

 [Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Waiting for the ferry from Missouri to Kentucky.

 

Where the road ends in the water.

Looking east toward Kentucky.

 

The Dorena Hickman Ferry

We've got a ticket to ride . . .

$14 for The Little Darkness

$2 for Jean-Luc

 

Driving onto the ferry was no big deal.  We spent some time talking to the ferry boatman.  (And bought Theo a shirt.)  It was a windy (surprise, surprise!), but relatively short ride.  Getting off, however, was another story.  Big dip from the ferry boat plank to the sharply rising road up into Kentucky.  And The Little Darkness hasn't got a lot of clearance.  No matter how slowly we went, it was going to happen - we bottomed out leaving the ferry.

 

Jody rushed up to the car to tell us to stop - we were dragging a piece of the car behind us.  Sure enough, the sporty part of the bumper - the plastic lower trim piece - had broken and was dragging under the car.  Jody broke the rest of it off, tossed it up in the Thule box on top of the car, and we were off again.  Shit happens - we should be so lucky it,s always simple shit like this.

 

The Little Darkness is not a pussy.

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

Despite the gnarly headwind, I wanted to ride across Kentucky.  Well, at least the 7 miles stretch of Kentucky that we were crossing to get to Tennessee.  Out of the car, onto the bike, rode about 200 yards.  Flatted.  Jody rode by, headed for the border.  Peter changed my tube.  Flatted again.  Changed the tire.  The wind picked up.  I got back in the car - having ridden all but about 7 miles of the Kentucky crossing! - and we were off to catch Jody before he got to Tennessee. 

 

Jody rides across the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. 

[Photo by Peter Doran]

 

We lunched on PBJ on the roadside, then set off for Dyersburg.  Beautiful roads, but again with the gnarly winds.  Kudzu was everywhere - fields, bushes, trees.  Cotton and soybean fields.  Probably tobacco, but I'm not sure any of us would have recognized it if we'd seen it.  I didn't ride as much as the day before or, as it turns out, as I would the next day.  We wound through northwestern Tennessee, Jody fighting the wind, and into Dyersburg.  Hoping for less wind the next day.

Soon after, I returned home to my family, with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune.
     ~Daniel Boone