Cycling Across America #26
Part 26 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 listening to Country music in Alabama:
27 August, Tuesday, 5.20 am, Pell City“Pell” is pronounced “Pale”. Basically vowels in the South have a fada on them e.g. Pólíce
Thunderstorm came last night and knocked out the power. Hopefully that’s used up the rain and lightning. Today’s forecast in the Birmingham area is 88 degrees F with scattered showers and thunderstorms. Foggy at first with chance of rain equal to fifty per cent.
Forecast now : No fog which at least will make the start of the day safer. With the potential storms I’ll be doing well to get as far as Jasper which in itself is one hundred and ten miles from Tupelo.
I have to try and find a way to skirt around the north of Birmingham. There’s no way on my map or on the maps in the shop I looked at last night. That means asking people every couple of miles. If I do get going early that could be difficult - there mightn’t be people hanging around to answer my queries.
I also badly need a new tyre for the back. I was thinking I could do that in Mississippi as there I’m planning on hitting sizeable towns - after Tupelo, Oxford and Clarksdale.
Spent ages last night looking at maps but today is going to be tricky to get to lodging a good distance away - and that’s without thunderstorms.
Forecast now : One to three inches of rain locally - yikes, and a greater chance of storms tomorrow. Tupelo for tomorrow night looks so unlikely.
I think I’ll go indulge in the free breakfast here and get going. It’s almost bright outside if a lot cloudy. If I do get caught in a storm I suppose I could write some postcards. Bought four from here last night and still haven’t written a single one on the whole trip.
Later…
[Country Music]
Jasper, Alabama. A motel by the Black Warrior River. They nearly didn’t let me stay because I didn’t have a driver’s licence, but I persuaded them that my passport was as important, and I had a bicycle.Today was what? Thunderstorm. Thunderstorm from hell.
I left early enough, 7.20 Alabama time. Just switched from Eastern Time I was going over to Argo but there was a bridge down so I had a detour. And this was more climbing than I was doing even yesterday.Basically I spent ages in the suburbs. Trying to climb up suburban hills and, almost mountains. Finally made it to U.S. 31. And then just struggled, and I was on what turned out to be, or can only be the new Freeway to replace 78. But it was raining so I was taking shelter by I-65.
And then I saw it was only light rain so I went on and on. Then decided for speed to get on 78 itself. It had no shoulder so I was in gravel and grass. It was incredibly busy. And then the rain started coming, and it was big and quick, and I realised what it was. And I crossed the road immediately –there was a McDonald’s.
I had to eat anyway. I’d done sixty-five miles and the day’s planned destination was thirty miles away.
I rolled out of McDonald’s when the rain stopped. And it dropped again. So I just pulled off again on the far side, about two hundred metres down. There’s a garage, a Chevron garage, and it just dropped and thundered and lightninged. And it just kept on doing it for hours. And it’s still doing it as far as I know. And at one stage it was raining sideways. There was just a sea of water on the ground. All the traffic on the highway, which was incredibly busy, had to stop and pull over. All pulled over into the garage. There was just tons of cars in the garage, because they couldn’t see.
Anyway lots of people asked me who I was and what I was doing and what have you. Your one in there wanted me to just put it in a truck and that’s that. I couldn’t say,
–Well you know I have to cycle. That’s the whole point.
The garage was open twenty-four hours so I knew I could just sit there –I did actually get a seat, I had a hot chocolate –but I’d be wrecked tomorrow.Some black fellow in a fast sports car, he was chatting for ages to me and telling me I’d make it to this place and I might make it before dark. And I kept saying I wouldn’t, it’s an hour and a half away. It was dark, even if it wasn’t raining. Then finally he’s gotta go. He said he’d take me if he could fit the bike in. And then I kind of thought, what the hell, I was in a life-threatening situation, there was lightning all around, I was going to be stuck outside, I was going to be tempted to cycle in the dark. It was time to break the line.
His name was Tony. He said he reckons some day he’ll need a hand and someone will help him so he helps people. When he got to the motel and it came down even heavier then, just as heavy as it could be, he parked the car and stayed in the car, and told me to check in. So if you’re a distrusting person you’ll think he’ll drive away with your entire life on his back seat, but he waited for the fifteen minutes it took me to check in because they were refusing to let me. And then when they did accept my passport they were then just looking at my passport, looking at all the stamps on it. And then I told him,
–Stay in the car, you’ll get soaked.
And he said no. So he got out and took everything in with me. We got drowned. My feet were like sponges. Just in the six feet from the door we were parked. He came in and towelled off, and dived back in his car and drove home again.I’m now going to write postcards like I said I would, because I’ve got to do something. I might just re-do the plan. Throw in say, two days, maybe three.
My hands are still filthy from these gloves. I cannot get them clean. It’s a pity there’s no bath here. The bath last night was fantastic. When I sunk myself into it, the water rose up to two inches from the top.
A woman in McDonald’s today said to me,
–I don’t mean to offend you sir, but what nationality are ya?When I tell people I started this cycling trip in Boston, they ask me,
–So where are you from originally? Are you from Boston originally?
–No, I’m from Ireland.
And today I was asked the follow up,
–So you cycled all the way from Ireland?I don’t think there’s a restaurant near here, so I might have to make do with some odd bits of food on me. I’ve got my Power snack bars somewhere squished up in me bag, given to me back in the wonderful Ridgely, Maryland. I also have half a Hershey bar, the one that went through the crash with me. I’ve a Honey Bun. Those things are sickly things. They’re covered in gunk, and they’re real kind of almondy flavour, even the Apple Ugly, which is something similar. I’ve got a King-size Snickers, and I’ve got a 5th Avenue, a milk chocolate crunchy peanut butter, and starting to melt. And a pint of water, which should be warmed up now.
I’ve turned the air-conditioning off. It’s a problem these damp nights because it’s not that warm at night that you want the place cool. But when you turn it off it is too warm. So I have to put them on and off.
I’ve got a good bit of plan for tomorrow. I’d like it to be a plan where I aim for something but if there’s thunderstorm I aim for something else. How do I know there’s thunderstorms? Today there’s a 50% chance, tomorrow I think they said a 40% chance, pretty much the same. And again the next day.
I saw a documentary on organised crime in America, as well as the HBO film about John Gotti. It gets you thinking about prison, because Gotti ended up in a Federal prison in Illinois, where he’s locked up, solitary confinement, twenty-three hours a day, and he’s restricted phone calls, visits, everything, with no chance of parole ever in his life. And they’re saying that’s what they’re going to do to all of them for a sustained period to have a chance against them. Now that’s a very definite curtailment of, freedom.
I’ve gone past a couple of low security correction centres, and in one of them, as I came into Aiken, the guys were wearing their uniforms and walking around. A couple were walking the perimeter. Others were walking around. And they wave at me. The fence was maybe five-foot high. There was no barbed wire that I recall; though there was on the other one I saw, a token amount. This one just had a fence and they were just on that side of it, and I was cycling on this side of it. And it just makes you think of freedom and liberty and all things related. Back in Atlanta I had gone up to the very doors of the Federal Penitentiary.
Let’s go through a few stations. Channel 6 has comedy I don’t recognise. Channel 5 has ice-skating; it’s ESPN. Channel 4 has HBO, and there’s Denzel Washington. Channel 2, CBS.
[…resolved as we speak. And let’s continue this discussion now about Hilary Clinton. We go to Margaret Warner.
–Thanks Jim. I’m here with Georgia’s Governor Zel Miller, Sheila Jackson Lee –who’s a Congresswoman from Texas, and Louis Slaughter –who’s a Congresswoman from New York. Why do you think Hilary Clinton is such a polarising figure? What do you see in Texas?
–You know I’d like to call the name of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Rosalyn Carter, several of our Democratic First Ladies, and say that it’s really a new interpretation of mis-interpretation of a First Lady…]I can’t see anything local. I suppose I might as well watch Network stuff. Let’s take a time out for the moment. I want to apply ointment. I’m halfway through my Vaseline. But I’m not using that; I use that in the mornings for when I’m on the bike. I actually use the anti-septic stuff for the night-time to fight the germs. And I might write some postcards. And have a look at these maps for ever and ever, and come up with plans A, B, C, and a few more letters I can think of.
Read the Next Entry in My Bicycle Trip Across America
Read from the beginning of the Cycle Across America
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