Day 20
We Cross The Mississippi River

Let us be together this hour in a spirit of remembrance and gratitude...

We pause now to call to our hearts and minds Darrell and Karen Keefer; two members of our ride community who were not able to finish this adventure with us.  In just a couple of hours, Greg Light, a member of our group who left us to return home because of illness several days ago, will represent us at Darrell's funeral and will personally express to Karen our sadness for Darrell's loss and our appreciation for being able to share the early part of our ride with them.

As we continue our ride, let us dedicate it to Darrell and Karen, and promise to never forget how they enriched and enhanced our lives while they were with us.

Amen.   (Scott Alexander)

DAILY REPORT: I think the riders are starting to smell the barn as they say in the east.  The Atlantic looms a mere 7 days in front of us...hard to believe we've come so far in such a short time.  Today, we crossed the Mississippi River...officially in the east.  Our only challenge today was the weather...the wind was pesky in our face all day and we expected showers and possible thunder storms later in the day.  But the storms held off long enough for everyone to get to the motel...we may not be so lucky tomorrow...but that's tomorrow.

We had an early scheduled breakfast at a remote location which required us to load a little earlier than normal to make sit down time.  But before today's activities began, we had a short prayer circle for Darrell's family.  As the group formed the circle and joined hands, Eric read a poem he composed that was also read at Darrell's funeral today.  After a moment of silence, Scott closed the activity with a short prayer.  We left a "missing man" gap in the circle and I could feel Darrell's spirit filling that space.  His funeral was today at 10:00 in Chambersburg PA, but his spirit will be with us as we continue our journey to Savannah...he would want us to continue. 

From the motel, it was get to breakfast and expect slow service.  Last time it took them 45 minutes just to get the orders straightened out, but this year they had their act together.  I ate at the motel so I could get on the road in the van if anyone was early, but by the time I got to the restaurant, most of the riders had already gotten on the road...and it was about 45 minutes earlier than I'd expected...a nice surprise. 

All in all it was an uneventful day on the road.  Other than several riders checking in with bonus miles after missing several turns, there was nothing much to speak of.  Everyone got in by 4:30 in spite of the winds and scattered to the four corners to find food.  I like it when we just have a boring, trouble free day.

We're starting to see more and more signs of being in the south so I tell the riders every trip about the unusual things they'll see when they get here.  Aside from the obvious rusty cars in yards and graffiti on the dumpsters, I tell everyone to look out for fire ants...nasty little critters that will swarm a bike or a helmet if you lay it down in an active ant hill.  The sting of a fire ant is toxic and will smart for quite some time...and if one gets enough stings, it could be fatal.  Crop dusters are another site this time of year.  About 25 mile out this morning, I spent a few minutes watching one spread insect spray on new cotton plants.  I took a few pictures until my speech started to slurrrrrr and thought I probably should get out of there. 

This is really a beautiful portion of our ride and many are seeing several things they haven't seen before.  Besides cotton country, we are also entering the Kudzu zone...Kudzu is a voracious plant that covers everything in its path.  It was brought here by the Japanese (I think) to help stop erosion.  Well, it's done that, but it's become more of a pest than something we should feel good about.  Some say you can see it growing and if you stop to take a picture and you stand in one place too long, you will become a prop for some of its beautiful artwork as it will cover you in no time.  This time of year it's not in full bloom, but it's starting to cover low lying areas.  In the summer though, everywhere you look Kudzu will be covering entire wooded areas, fence rows, and even telephone poles with wires...it's eerie.  You'll see shapes that resemble giraffes, elephants, dogs, human faces, and just about anything else you can imagine.  The plant has taken over, but it's beautiful to view.  I told the riders not to stand by the side of the road too long or they'd become part of the scenery.

We entered our 7th state today as you can see from the first photo above...Mississippi.  The terrain today was extremely flat until the last 20 miles where it began to roll all the way to town and the roads were smooth and mostly quiet...except for about 6 miles after crossing the river at the Helena bridge (right) and into Senatobia where we popped out in the country on a bone jarring road for a couple of miles.  The traffic was fast on the road just past the bridge for about 6 miles, but they gave us a wide berth most of the time.  Gone are the smooth shouldered roads of Arkansas...welcome chip seal back roads of Mississippi and Alabama.  It kinda goes with the territory, we ride highways that are pretty smooth but have traffic.  If we get to the back roads, they will be a little more bouncy and there will be a dog or two to contend with.  What ever, we'll deal with it and continue our trek to the ocean.  Only 7 more days of this riding...it won't be long until we are home wondering where the time went.  I can wait. 

As I'm typing the final words, we are under a tornado warning with a line of heavy stuff coming right at us in about 30 minutes.  Hopefully, we'll skate this storm and our equipment will still be in the parking lot in the morning.  As for now, we are hunkering down in prep for a stormy night.  It should be through by morning and the forecast is for calmer weather for tomorrow.  Tune in again tomorrow for another chapter in the Fast South 2006...we'll be here if we don't blow away tonight.

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