Tag Archives: travel diary

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I found what I thought was a fine camping spot just inside Perryville, across the Fourche La Fave River. A lovely park complete with pavilion, picnic tables, electric, bathrooms, water, playground; in short, everything one might want or need.

I got there early in the day, and was able to wash up, make some phone calls to family who I hadn’t spoken to in a while, and cooked up some dinner. I began setting up my tent probably around 8 o’clock with a few people still hanging around the park as night was falling over everything. Once the tent is up I go about organizing my gear within, slide into my sleeping bag, and open up Thoreau’s Walden before turning off the light. About 11 o’clock a cop shows up. He does the typical cop thing, which means he shines his flashlight into, or onto, my tent and orders me out of it. A rather rude thing to do, if you don’t mind my saying. Anyway, I crawl out of my sleeping bag and tent in my boxers of course, and he just looks at me for a second, probably not expecting a somewhat clean-shaven, young man to be stepping out in only his boxers, before telling me the park closes after dark and that I am trespassing on city property. I simply stare at him in bafflement, like some sort of deaf and dumb idiot, clearly unable to decipher the words that have come out of his mouth. And, in a sense, I couldn’t—this bizarre idea that I might be trespassing on city property because I happened to either a) not be from the city, or b) be there after hours is baffling to me. He then asks me if I understand that and I sort of stutter an incomprehensible reply to which he responds by looking me over with an appraising eye. He then tells me that I have to pack everything up and move on, but then immediately asks me what it is I’m doing camping at the city park anyway. I launch into my story about how I’m cycling around the U.S. and that I had come from Little Rock earlier in the day, and that the park just looked so inviting that I couldn’t resist choosing it as my spot to stay for the night. I mentioned that I have a tendency to like being in plain view of the public in these smaller towns in order to invite conversation; I’m not some sort of maniac, just a traveler needing a place to sleep for the night. He likes my story and is impressed with what I’m doing  but tells me I still need to pack my things up, but also that he can give me a lift to the next town if I’d like. He also wants to check my ID, presumably to make sure he’s not letting a murderer, arsonist, or some other felon of sorts off the hook potentially.

I begin packing up my gear, at a rather glacial pace I might add, while he’s over in his vehicle doing the whole song and dance, whatever that might be, with my driver’s license. He comes back and tells me my ID checked out OK (very relieving!), and, in fact, that I can stay the night as long as I’m gone not long after daybreak. Apparently he appreciated the fact that I was “straight” with him. He even said he would come back from time to time to check on me and make sure all’s quiet. I don’t actually know if he did this because I eventually fell asleep, though not so quickly as I would have liked thanks to having been roused from my tent and confronted in the manner that I was. Needless to say, I was exultant when he told me I could stay put for the night.

It is now about 7:30 am, the following morning and I’m sitting here at a picnic table writing this after having strolled the park, said hello to the few people out for a morning walk, and taken a number of pictures of morning sun and sky through the trees and flowering bushes. I did wake up early as I promised, packed up most of my gear and, most importantly, my tent, but really couldn’t resist the temptation to wander about the dewey field, and along its wooded edge with my camera. During this entire time the police officer never showed back up, so I figured what the hell, I’m going to make a cup of coffee, cook my breakfast, and relax. If someone else shows up and tries to give me a hard time it doesn’t look as though I camped out there, and I can just say that I rolled off the street to relax for a bit and make a cup of coffee.

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So far, a lovely day. Sun shining in a crisp, blue sky; the occasional cloud; mountains striding along beside me, left and right; the Arkansas River winding along beside me too. Little Rock is full of cycling and walking paths. Truly a city that wants its residents to be able to enjoy being out of doors. From the perspective of a traveling cyclist there could be little better a thing than that.

In one small area just outside of the city, where the paths peter out, I spy rows of garden plots with small cabins, similar to what one might see around Europe. I am amazed and impressed; it’s hardly a sight one expects to see in the States where so few people have any understanding, or desire to learn, how to garden and grown one’s own food.

Further along, deeper into the valley, beyond Pinnacle Mountain, life here becomes an idyll. Fields of yellow, inhabited by cattle and the occasional few horses snuffling about amongst the grass and flowers, stretch towards those emerald green mountains towering on either side of me. The only sounds are the hum of my tires on the asphalt, the warning cries of unfamiliar birds as I pass by, and the roar of the few automobiles on the road along this stretch. It is warm and, at one point, I espy a small herd of cows, twenty or thirty of them, crowded around the base of a tree, keeping cool in the shade of its canopy.

Truly a spectacular region.

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Leaving Little Rock. A last breakfast at Mylo before I depart. A good time was enjoyed, and I think the neighborhood where James, my host, lives is exceptional: a couple miles outside downtown, and perched atop a hill. It contains everything one would need to live comfortably, and more.

One day James and I ventured into the city because I wanted to see a Dorothea Lange exhibit at the Arts Center. Touching, emotionally gripping photographs of dust bowl era farmers, women, children, and migrant workers in towns across parts of the mid-west. These photographs were all shot with support by the Farm Security Administration in an effort to bring to light the issues that these people were facing in the face of absolute devastation. I thought it pertinent to my own project of traveling and photographing the U.S. It has perhaps encouraged me to photograph people more…. I shouldn’t write the word “more,” because I have effectively photographed no one.

 

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Camping, unbothered, hopefully, in Hazen, AR., another one of those small towns with little more than a single main street running straight through its heart, on one side of which is nothing, and on the other side of which is really nothing. Well, there are a series of brick buildings, inside one of which is an antique store, but everything else is vacant. I found a lovely spot for my tent—a grass plot with a few small trees situated between two old buildings, one of which being the aforementioned antique store. It is much less obvious than many a camping spot I’ve chosen, I must say.

I’m setup alongside one of the buildings, beneath a Mulberry tree which, fortunately or unfortunately, is laden with berries that are not yet ripe. I say fortunately because they won’t be dropping and making a mess all over the ground and my tent, but unfortunately because they’re not available yet to be eaten.

Earlier, upon arriving in town, after observing what there was around me, and taking a few pictures of whatever happened to catch my interest up and down the main thoroughfare, I found my way to a small grocery and picked up some fruit as well as extra veggies for my lentil & rice dinner. After leaving, and about to be on my way to find an appropriate spot to camp—where I am now writing this— I was approached by a young man who was curious about my rig—he, actually, unlike many, had some idea of what I was doing, as he himself was interested in doing something similar. This boy and I got to talking when his friend came out and joined our conversation. To make a short, uninteresting story even shorter, I may have two new blog readers, but, perhaps more importantly, they gave me something like two quarts of water when I mentioned that was next on my to-do list. Very grateful to them for their generosity and the pleasant conversation.

This morning I’ve decided to eat at the only diner in town. They like to call themselves a cafe but the coffee is the worst thing here. Mainly it tastes like it was brewed through a mildewed sock, and the packets of non-dairy creamer (one actually has to request half and half) and sugar don’t in any way improve it. It is only $.91, though. Ninety-one cents! Free refills to boot, though why anyone would want a second cup, let alone a third or fourth, is beyond my understanding. Even at that price, and with the refills it’s still overpriced. At least the food is somewhat palatable, though everything tastes a bit like it was cooked on a greasy, dirty griddle, and is obviously of low quality, probably trucked in from a warehouse somewhere.

At the table behind me sits an ancient man. He’s only just toddled in a moment ago. He is trying to say something to his waitress about an employee who offered to pay for his meal on a previous occasion, however, he doesn’t know her name, and he is having an awful problem attempting to spit out what it is he is trying to communicate to the girl. His way of talking is a combination mumble and stutter. He sounds as though he’s had a topical anesthetic applied to his tongue and lips, and so is incapable of moving them in any coordinated action, thus making it impossible to give voice to his request that would seem likely to go unheeded perhaps, anyway. His voice and way of speaking sound a bit like a tumble of rocks bounding down a slope of loose scree—each individual sound of rock hitting rock melded together to create one, single, indecipherable sound.

This is a diner full of locals, all come together at one place—this tiny, no-account town, like so many others of its kind, could only support one place like this. Many of them come and go singly, yet sit at various tables joining friends who are already seated. I like that. The men are all bearded or mustached, and relatively progressed in age—I would estimate most of them to be in their sixties, though some, perhaps, are even older than that. The youngest I see here would have to be in his fifties. All are grossly overweight and mainly farmers I would guess, as that’s the predominant industry around these parts. “These parts,” being the Arkansas Delta, which, thank God, I am nearly free of, as it’s a flat and featureless area most known for growing rice, cotton and soy.

I like the relaxed, comforting, friendly, homey feel of the place, but deplore the low quality of food. Of course this isn’t the only small town in the nation serving bad food from ingredients that may have been grown here, but were then shipped elsewhere to be processed into a food item, then shipped back in a state that is supposedly fit for eating and requiring very little further processing, i.e., cooking, in order that they may be listed on a menu and served to hungry guests.

Finally, this old man, gripping his check in his bony paw, has meandered over, and is staring into the kitchen, irately inquiring about this mysterious woman who has offered to buy him a meal, but no one on staff seems to know to whom he might be referring. Neither does anyone seem to know what to make of this man, nor what to do about the issue. There doesn’t seem to be a manager in.

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Leaving Oxford today. I would say I’ve been here too long, but it’s allowed me to see much and meet some great people. I’m at Bottletree penning this: a twenty-one year old bakery that produces the most delectable pastries and breads. It’s a beautiful specimen.

Sitting at the low bar and looking around I have the sensation that the food here is hardly the focal point, though it is absolutely delicious and quite obviously is the focal point. Yet, on this low, square stool I find myself gazing down the length of this long bar. It runs from the cash register near to me at the front, to the back wall, with a break in the center for employees to enter and exit. Its surface is a faded brown-black all over but for the gouged up nickel trim and at each place in front of each stool where the surface has been worn down to the bare metal beneath that shines with the glow of an old, old, beaten mirror. Surrounding these shining patches of metal, and between those and the brown-black of the surface of the bar, is an area of transition, a fading-to that looks like rust but can’t be.

All these spots at the bar look like Rorshach blots. They look a bit like whole galaxies seen through a telescope. There are specks of red rust scattered like seed around these nebulae, like stardust flung off in their myriad convulsions. This mirrored surface, too, when I look into it and see only a vague, grey shape that is my head, I think about the countless thousands of people who may have sat here over its tweny-one years of existence, and been part of this slow wearing away of a once brightly lacquered blackness into this shimmering, silvery surface.

There is a near-clutter of stuff scattered around the space—bric-a-brac collected over years—hanging on walls, leaning against walls, sitting on shelves. She, the owner, could open an art gallery-cum-antique store with all the collected here. An ancient, naked filing cabinet stands against a wall; enormous quilt yellowed with age hangs on another; painting of a watermelon by Mose Tolliver (perhaps) on the wall, over a toaster oven, directly in front of me; a large bowl of icing on the counter, for cinnamon rolls, also opposite me; a Christmas tree in a small cask, vaguely in the shape of a tall ship, lights on; photographs of the space prior to opening… I ponder over the collection of all these things, and I look at the Faulkner book in front of me, and so think about him and his stories, and I think about the South and the Mississippi Delta and all that has sifted through this region in its long, storied history, and I wonder whether that has stopped today, or if it has just changed, or if anyone cares anymore…

There is so much more here than the food, but it’s the loaves of bread on the shelves, and the pastries, brownies, cookies, etc. behind the glass counter and on top of it that the people come for, but I wonder if they’re missing everything else that gives this place its charm, its story, its own personality of a sort. I wonder if people pay much attention to anything these days that isn’t their intended focus of attention….

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A very hilly introduction to Oxford, but I’m here. I’m also still waiting to hear back from several CS’ers, so I have not yet a place to stay. But!, I may be saved as a woman at a local cafe has offered me a couch, so long as her girlfriend OK’s it. Swell. And very generous of her.

The battery compartment door to my camera was found mysteriously open when I arrived here. Perhaps I inadvertently slid the catch while repositioning it on my back. I must be more mindful from now on.

However, on to what matters, like this morning. This morning was glorious, or, perhaps not glorious, but very much fine. I awoke early, around 6:30. Startled a woman as I opened my tent—she hadn’t notice it! Though she did see the bicycle. This is what she tells me, anyhow.

A soft sunrise behind some trees. Pastels obscured by a vague, cloudy, glaucous sheen, like I was staring through an infinite number of powder-white dandelion heads floating somewhere a ways away up in the ether. Dewey grass, dewey tent interior, every bloody dog in the neighborhood barking, the single Mockingbird unable to sing a single song but alternating from one obnoxious noise to the next… All the people so friendly, so friendly though.

I remove my gear from the damp tent leaving it to dry, and transport my bicycle and everything over to the covered area with picnic tables, by the bathrooms, and begin to make a cup of coffee, then some oatmeal, musing all the while on this bike trail. This miraculous bike trail! that runs from Houston clear up to New Albany—43 miles. How wonderful it is. How it is necessary that there be more of these spread all over the nation in one interconnected spider’s web so that pedalers near and far can make their way safely from anywhere to anywhere. Anyway, on this trail, in the town of Algoma is a small shop of food and sundries. The man there tells me he gets visitors from all over the continent—from as far north as Canada, and even Alaska once, criss-crossing the United States. He even gets group rides of twenty strong coming out of Memphis some weekends. “Must be good for business,” I remark. He agrees. Though I guess that doesn’t mean more quality product. Can’t fault the man’s amiableness though.

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Stopping at a gas station just outside of Macon, MS the sun begins to reveal itself, or, shall I say, the clouds begin to thin out, to depart, one or two at a time like a multitude of veils gradually being lifted from a face. And as the sun—the stunning, single eye in a face without imperfection—in the multitude of moments beat down upon me, and seemed to increase the level of humidity by several percentage points, I could only think that things might get very uncomfortable today, and that I’d likely be very wet when setting up camp tonight. But, later—not long later, either—pedaling along the highway 45, on the little wedge of shoulder left me between the rumble strip and soft, shifting, gravel bed I thought how wonderful it is that at last, after four days, the sun is finally made visible and all the world shining under its radiant light, and how miraculous it is that I am in Mississippi even though it is entirely meaningless because, what are these lines that draw boundaries around the masses of land that are really only one mass of land, but which we have felt the need to separate and call them states, anyway…

I’m camping tonight at a cemetery about a mile and a half outside of Starkville. According to Google it is a park, well, it is named Memorial Garden Park, so it’s not Google’s fault. A bit misleading I think, however, it provided a quiet place for me to set up my tent undisturbed, and the adjacent property is a smallish farm—mainly brilliant green, hilly pasture with a smattering of trees, and cows grazing contentedly. In the center of the cemetery stands a statue of Christ, his hands broken off. I’m uncertain how that might have happened, whether it was intentional or unintentional, but there he stands sort of gazing off, down the hill, across the road, into nothing. It is perhaps not the most inspiring statue I’ve seen, hands or no hands. Hell, I’ve seen more inspiring statues without heads or arms, just a torso, or a fragment of a face. What’s important is the feeling and talent of the sculptor. This just reminds me of some dumb knick-knack one might pick up at a souvenir shop. No matter. When God, or the Tao, or whatever is within you and all around you, whether any particular statue or sculpture is good or bad makes no significant difference. It just provides material for thought and speculation, for having opinions and writing about them….

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Larnie’s BBQ, Selma. Massive portion of food in front of me—ribs, fried okra and sweet tea. I’m awed, though concerned about how I might continue cycling after filling my stomach so. The two pieces of white bread with the ribs so that I might make a sandwich are a nice touch.

I did the 90km from Montgomery in about three and a half hours. I am excited, partly because I’m eating delicious BBQ, but also because I will likely be able to put in another twenty or so miles today. I should arrive at Dale and Amanda’s in Gainesville tomorrow evening.
Selma has a rough history, as many southern towns have. I’m referring of course to racial discrimination and Jim Crow law, but Selma has a particularly storied past when it comes to the south and the civil rights movement.

Throughout the early twentieth century, before, during, and after both world wars Selma, as well as many southern cities and towns, enforced Jim Crow laws ruthlessly, and with violence if necessary. During the period after World War II there was a movement towards equal freedoms and rights for blacks (largely because it was due, but also because many fought in the war, so to come back after fighting for one’s country only to be treated as lesser than another because of one’s skin color was a slap in the face and a punch in the gut, and that’s putting it lightly) that only strengthened as the years went by and nothing was done. Essentially, among a number of smaller, though no less important, protests and acts of defiance by blacks across the south, this led to the the Selma to Montgomery marches, led in part by Martin Luther King Jr., and which are most well remembered for, aside from the successful march on the third attempt, the police brutality events of “Bloody Sunday” (the first attempt at the marches when local and county police accosted the marches at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, beating many of them with billy clubs, and throwing tear gas), and the killing of a white minister by members of the KKK the night after the second symbolic “march.” The third and final successful attempt at the march would eventually lead to the passing of the Selma Voting Rights Act of 1965, and laws that would give the same freedoms that whites enjoyed to blacks.

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There seems to me something disingenuous about all these towns, streets, and rivers named with the Native Americans’ language, names which the natives once used, in these places they once called home. Words which are foreign to us, and were foreign to our ancestors who pulled there boats up on these shores, but which fell from the mouths of the natives like apples fall from an apple tree, or the way an oak tree arises from an acorn.

Here we came and murdered them in droves, swindled and stole their land from them every time there was something on it or under it that we wanted, pushed them from one place to the next, and finally once we had roamed and despoiled the land from coast to coast we bestowed to them a few swatches of it on which they might reside. And yet their language we kept for our own! In short, everything that was possible to take from them was. Their rivers were taken—the rivers that sustained them, that they fished from, that they paddled in their canoes, that they swam and bathed in, that they named in their language which was the language of this Earth—we took the rivers for ourselves but left their language hovering ethereally—a specter from the past. We took the land from them—the land that they roamed far and wide on, the land that they farmed peaceably, sustainably, and with great love of, the land that they hunted on, the land that they built their homes on, the land they named in their tongue—we took it from them, and kept those names too.

The image, and if not the image, a name or word, of the Native American is emblazoned on everything from banks, to sport teams, to motor vehicles. One can find it on clothing, cups, bowls, keychains, shot glasses, toasters, tooth brushes, bracelets, any bloody knick-knack that can be sold so that these honest, American corporations can turn a profit. And if that isn’t bad enough, there are still oil and mining companies today trying to remove protections on the Natives’ lands in order that they may exploit them.

In short, we’ve transformed this proud race of humans into ghosts, and we pay false homage to them by naming our towns, rivers and roads after them, and by marketing junk in their name.

Fine consolation.

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Crazy winds. Crazy, crazy winds all day. Hills for days too. Despite all that, not bad. Columbus, GA. Stayed at a Super 8 last night. $75 after taxes ($5 + 16% city tax). I’m a little sick of this. I’m going to have to endeavor to stay away from cities if I don’t have a host. Columbus, however, was enroute to Auburn, so….
Leaving Columbus now. There is some sort of festival downtown. Streets packed full of pedestrians. Tables setup along the sidewalks selling a whole variety of things: soaps, oils, clothing, jewelry, furniture, antiques, tchotchkes, so on…

I stop at Iron Bank Coffee, named for the fact that the building was once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away a bank, for a shot. It’s bad, despite the roaster being Counter Culture. This is an unfortunate regular occurrence in the so-called “specialty coffee” world. Lack of education and knowledge. Laziness. The space the cafe occupies is marvelous though. Enormous; voluptuous; high, high, ceiling; loads of windows to let in that light that is loved so much; long communal tables, or variously shaped tables pushed together or pulled apart; whatever you can sit on; separate rooms in the old bank vaults (doors still attached) in the back; a glorious array of various chandeliers suspended from the ceiling; original hardwood floors.

Speaking of old things, so much of the city is. It’s not surprising. It was obviously once a hub of industry on the Chattahoochee River. Now many of the buildings are abandoned and falling into ruin. They provoke a certain sadness in me, but there is also something beautiful about these disused, dilapidated churches, factories, houses, apartment buildings, etc. The decay, the negligence, the faded bricks, the worn paint, the broken windows, boarded up windows, the tall weeds, the shattered signs, the signs that now only glow with a dull, attenuated light when the sun is at the correct angle with the Earth are wonders to behold. Is it because they tell a story? Or do they simply provoke questions, wonderings about something that once was but now is not? What were these buildings like during those years when production was at a high? What was the city like? How were the people? It seems to me that these buildings and signs are incapable of telling a story at all, these silent buildings and mute signs. They’re like a blind man with his lips sewn shut, resigned to his fate, unable to control his own destiny. But, it is very easy for one to create a story for himself simply by imagining, and that is something so easy to do if one stops to look, reflect, allow the mind to wander.