Cycling Across America #31
Part 31 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day, exactly ten years after it happened. (Read from the start in Boston)
Ten years ago today I was in Arkansas for my first full day having crossed the Mississippi the day before. And I was talking to a tape recorder while watching television:
This morning I left Helena, It’s not Heleena –it’s Helena. There’s a place in Mississippi spelt the same that’s pronounced Heleena. Then made my way through West Helena, and did some climbing in the Ridge, because Helena is after all the place where the Ridge meets the River.This is the Ridge that runs from right up on the Missouri border right down to Helena. It’s about a mile wide. It doesn’t really feature on the map actually, but anyway I climbed over it and –my innkeeper was right – it was all flat.
Sixty-two miles to Brinkley. On the back roads. I didn’t go on 49. It rained, a lot. And when it didn’t rain, it was quite cloudy. In the last hour the sun tried to come out. Not blue sky stuff, just tried to come through the clouds, so I knew where it was.
Most of the day in the flat roads. In the last stretch from U.S.79 to Brinkley, which is about eighteen miles, again I saw about five or six cars the whole way. Huge expanses of space. We’re getting bigger than the Phoenix Park’s “fifteen acres” at this stage. And then you’d come up to some trees and you’d go through into another big expanse of space.
Great big clumps of trees. Lots of cotton. Some soya stuff. And a few crops I didn’t recognise. A good thing about the rain was that it kept the, them fuzzy-wuzzy caterpillars that are called Wollybears, away. As they were annoying me having to slalom around them.
Ahh, –yok! I just had a grasshopper in my mouth. He’s a bright green fella. Yuk! He’s on my bed. Ehhh.
Anyway, I’m very tired. My legs are actually in good nick. –Ehhh! Why did he go straight for me mouth? It was all black country I was cycling in. All the people were at service in the Baptist churches. Huge crowds of cars there. So the second place I stopped at people were on their way home coming in for something to eat ‘cause there was a small cooking part in this shop, and they did food. So I got some myself. I asked for a barbecue sandwich, a large one, and she said,
–Do you want coleslaw?I said yes because my friends in Helena had told me that when you eat barbecue you don’t have all the dressing on it that they gave us in the casino –you have coleslaw. So I had that outside and it was lovely getting something hot because it was actually quite cold with all the rain. I wanted something hot. And I drank some water.
There’s Bill Clinton playing golf. He was in Little Rock last night, talking.
I’d a great time in Helena. When we were eating food another guest was telling me about barbecue. Every year he takes a week off work because he’s in a barbecue team –there’s twenty-one of them. They enter a competition in Memphis, where they do the whole hog. There’s competitions for the whole hog, for the shoulder, for the ribs, for the sauce.
He told me drank thirty-two kegs of beer last time. With the help of a lot of friends. He makes his own beer also, not from kits; he has his own brew that he makes up. I mentioned the beer that I had in Oxford, from Louisiana, and both huim and his wife said “Abita”.
And he described barbecue in different States and how it is in Florida where he lived for a short while. While he was away he missed the barbecue.
–But do they not have it in Florida?
–Yes, but it’s not the same, he saidThe lads come up with a different sauce every year. He said they might as well as they haven’t won it so they change it. He said his was chosen last year. Out of one hundred and forty-eight entries it came 100th, so they won’t be using his again.
I wasn’t charged in the Bed and Breakfast in Helena, which was great, and I slept fine because it wasn’t that warm despite the lack of air conditioning. I can’t complain at all, for a free night’s accommodation. This is expensive but it is a holiday weekend. A Super-8. There’s a pool here but you wouldn’t get in it –it’s cold and raining yesterday.
All I did was walk across the bridge, over the Interstate to a restaurant called Old South, a pancake house where I had a banana stack of pancakes, which was tons of pancakes –which are very bready, I would’ve preferred them more doughy actually –and pancakes with some hash browns for good measure.
Today was the easiest cycle of the whole trip so far. Once I’d got out of the Ridge, which is a couple of miles out of Helena, it was just flat and very little traffic. Sunday of the holiday weekend. Spoke to a couple of people in Helena, just trying to get out. To a chap in West Helena, who told me,
–Go all the way to Walnut Corner. There’s a shoulder on the road.
He actually said to me,
–Jeepers! I wouldn’t even cycle to Helena.
I says,
–Oh.
‘Because that alerted me to the fact that we weren’t in Helena anymore.
–Is this West Helena?
–This is West Helena.He was on a bicycle. A black fella going to work. I didn’t talk to nobody else then. Not even in that shop witht he food. They were all in their Sunday best. When I got to the Super-8 there was a young fella in the back by the counter. He saw me, and came around the counter and goes,
–Hey! You were on 38! A camper van passed you?
–A few things passed me, I said.238 was a small road the last so many miles. I stopped to a jogger at one point just to clarify which is the quickest way to the Inter-state and he told me the cheaper motels were there, and turn left, owned by Indians –and I don’t mean Cherokee, he says.
Country Music Television. It’s great for a shower or a bath. Trisha Yearwood. Again.
[Believe Me Baby (I lied)]There’s Saddam –they’re talking about action against Saddam. […Later today President Clinton will attend two Labour events in Wisconsin, one of several…] Oh he’s going up to Wisconsin. He gets around. St. Louis Bob Dole is in.
Look at this map –what counties am I in? Helena is in Phillips County –the historical county. I went very near the Louisiana Purchase Historical Monument actually today. After that I went up to Lee County. There’s so many. I was in Lee County in Mississippi –that’s where Tupelo is, and I was in a Lee County somewhere else. And after Lee County I went into Monroe County, which is where I am now. Now next I will go into a Prairie, a –in the middle –Lonoke. North Little Rock is in –I don’t know what it’s in. Is that Pulaski, or is that next door?
Read the Next Entry (#32) in my Bicycle Trip Across America
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