Southern Tier

On Sunday morning, Eric cycled off early; it was his last big day of riding and it would be a very long day for him. He rode something like 130 miles that day. The final day he would only ride 40 miles or so, so we could get to his mom's down in West Palm Beach in time for dinner. Anyway, after Eric rode away, I got working on my conference paper once again and finished it up. I decided that I would drive to the Barnes and Noble in Gainesville, which was a about a half-hour away. I got there, felt uninspired, and went to Target instead, and was again uninspired there. So, my little shopping venture was fruitless so I cruised along towards Orange Springs, where Eric and I were scheduled to meet for lunch. The drive there was very pretty on that Sunday morning. There were lots of farms and I saw something I had noticed a lot in Florida: people were cruising around on the weekend in all kinds of classic cars. I saw many on that day.

I ended up passing Eric right before we were scheduled to have lunch and I pulled over on the side of the rode by a T intersection. I ended up throwing it in reverse and backing up really fast on the dirt shoulder, which was something of a trick driving move, of which I was proud. We decided we'd turn on the road we needed to head on and find somewhere to park the car and make some lunch. We found a gas station and parked right under a tree. Across the road from us was one of those signs with lights and letters that someone can change as needed, you know, the ones like with the blinking arrow. The sign was advertising a restaurant that purported to have the best food around, and it might have. Eric said he ran into another cyclist that day who lived around there and told him all about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, who was from the area. This cyclist, who Eric described as a very friendly hippie riding a nice bike, was insistent that Eric visit the town where Rawlings was from because she was so important to the area, as the originator of what is called "cracker culture." That phrase was even used on a faded restaurant sign on the building adjacent to the field where we ended up eating lunch. Eric did not have time to go back and see Rawlings's town.

I went into the convenience store by the tree under which we were parked and I asked to use the bathroom. The woman behind the counter was eating something so she couldn't answer me right away. She did seem, however, to be in the middle of some kind of conversation with some customers whom she knew. One of them said to her "Whachu you eatin' that's so good you can't answer?" I don't remember what it was, but I eventually used the bathroom.

During lunch that day, Eric sat in the camp chair which had been tucked in the trunk since he left Albuquerque. We hadn't used it on the whole trip and he'd brought it for me to sit on. So, we finally busted it out and used it, sort of as a throne on his second-to-last riding day. Lunch in the shade that day was nice.


Eric in the camp chair and me happy it's the second-to-last day!

I drove along to Palatka and found our hotel, a Best Western. Many misadventures thereafter ensued. The hotel was nice enough, but I cannot say the same for Palatka. Like so many towns, its glory days were clearly in the past. They had so much misused waterfront, and again, that is reminiscent of my fair Detroit. Anyway, so I checked into the hotel and was feeling pretty pleased that I was there, that I would only have to lug our bags one more day, and that I could crack open my computer and work a little before Eric rode up. So I unpacked, opened my computer immediately, and then realized that their advertisement of free high-speed internet was erroneous. I called the front desk and the woman said, "Oh, the room you're in doesn't have it -- come back and I'll get you another room." So, I gritted my teeth, loaded the car back up again, drove to the reception area, and received the keys for another room. The woman said that that room would have wireless; it was in another building, so I figured this might be true. So, I unloaded again and opened my computer; the Airport icon did not illuminate like it should've had there been wireless. I called the front desk and she was like "Oh, ah, call the 1-800 number" -- so I did that. It turns out that wireless was not what was available, but just a high-speed connection. The cable was in the nightstand drawer and once the tech on the phone and I realized that, we both felt kind of dumb, so I plugged in and was on my way.

By this time, Eric had arrived and he took a nap and then we went to the hotel pool At the pool we met a family that had been living in the Best Western for a year. Their house had been ruined by the hurricane and their insurance was paying for them to stay in the hotel, or at least it had been until two months prior to when we were there. So the total amount that had been spent on the Best Western, between the family and their insurance company, was some insane figure like $140,000. So, a friend of this family was with them that day in the hot tub. I can't remember his name, but Eric socialized with him in the hot-tub for a while. He and his friend had just finished a bottle of Andre and the reason this man was in Palatka was because he had to come home to bury his father, who had just died. He had gone to three funerals that day. He had inherited some land in Alabama I think and he was very clear that he was going to use the land and the inheritance wisely, unlike what some of his friend had done. Eric really liked this guy and actually talked about him many times since. The guy had gold teeth.

That night Eric and I went in search of food. We went to a Golden Corral, because it suited the size of Eric's appetite and my need for salad, and I proceeded to watch Eric consume a great deal of food and nearly every dessert offering at the place. That Golden Corral happened to have THE nicest waitress, who was perhaps a manager. She was a 40-ish Asian lady who just appeared to be bending over backwards to make sure everyone was happy. She appeared to know almost everyone there too. She said to us, "You're not from here? I haven't seen you before. Come back and see me sometime!"

After the Golden Corral, we went to this park beneath a huge bridge in town. I will let the pictures of this do the describing. It offered a view of a nuclear power plant and the sky that night at dusk was the most amazing cloudy grey. There were people fishing on the rickety dock; looking out over the river was my most powerful memory of that day.


Power plant I believe owned by Seminole Electric

When we awoke on Saturday, June 11th, it was indeed raining but there appeared to be no hurricane raging outside. There were, however, rambunctious boys running the halls of the Holiday Inn because their baseball tournament had been rained out. So, by 8 a.m., the boys were super-charged with sugar energy from the free cereal and cinnamon rolls at the Holiday Inn breakfast. This made for some tension on Eric's and my part because we were kind of tense as it was about how his riding was going to go that day.

Eric decided that we should drive to the next stop, High Springs, which was where his ride was to end that day. The reason for this was that if he had cycled in that direction not only would he have to deal with the rain pounding on him but he would have a 25-mile-per-hour headwind. So, riding with that caliber of wind in one's face would make for a very slow ride in what already were bad conditions. I was for taking that day off entirely, but we plodded ahead and arrived in High Springs at around 11 a.m. We swung by the hotel at which we'd be staying that night and I wouldn't be able to check in there for an hour. So we drove through the little downtown of High Springs and at this time it was actually pretty sunny outside and not really raining, so Eric made the most of it, hopped on his bike, and cycled off. I would pick him up back in Madison in about five hours; it was 85 miles away. So, needless-to-say, Eric had a big day of riding before him and I wasn't going to be meeting him halfway for lunch.

As you might have guessed, the prospect of driving back and forth to Madison again was not exactly pleasing to me, so I did what any girl in her right mind would do under such conditions -- I sought out the nearest reputable-looking salon and marched my butt in there and asked if they had time for a manicure, pedicure, and haircut for me. I was told that in fact they would, in an hour. So I did another thing that any self-respecting girl with a bad attitude would do, I went to the nearest coffee shop and got myself a tall one (and some cookies for Eric, because I really wasn't that ticked). I sipped my coffee in the cute little cafe and then walked around High Springs, talking to my mom on my cell phone, until my beautification time arrived.

The salon, The Hair and Nail Depot, was full of people who knew each other. It seemed like it would be a good subject for a sit-com. I got my hair cut my a young gal, blond, whose boyfriend and her were doing some home repairs and he called while she was trimming my bangs and they were making some decisions together about a purchase. She did a nice job on my hair and I was done in a flash. Then I hopped over to the manicurist's booth and she was lucky that she had her pedicure stuff with her because she'd taken it home not long ago to give her husband a pedicure, which never actually happened, and she wasn't sure if she still had her pedicure tools in the truck or whether they were in her house. She did, happily, have them with her. So, I had a nice long chat with her about her life in High Springs, her early years of traveling around, her time as a young (and I mean YOUNG) bride, the divorce that followed that, and her current marriage. She told me all about her daughter, her oldest one, who was a lot like her and who she didn't expect to stick around in High Springs for too long. But she was a very good kid, and from what she said, I believed it. She gave me her card when we were done and said that if I ever came back through and I wanted my nails done, to call her and if they said she was booked, she'd make room for me.

I went to the public library after my salon hour and cracked open my computer for a while before hitting the interstate (and thankfully there was an interstate I could use) back towards Madison. I arrived without much ado and found Eric on the porch of the B&B that the night before had had no room for us. He got in the driver's seat and off we went, back to High Springs. That night we crossed the main drag from our hotel to a chrome-exteriored diner, Floyd's, and we had quite a fine time there. Next to us at a table was a man named Jim, who commented on the proportions of the meal Eric ordered, and he said he was getting fat just watching Eric, ha ha. This man grew watermelon in Florida and Texas and had property all over and while he was hard to understand, because it was loud and he had a drawl of some kind, he was kind and loquacious as can be. His produce empire seemed to be treating him just fine.


Me outside of Floyd's Diner in High Springs, FL

The next night would be our last of the cycling part of our trip and we would reach Palatka, Florida.

On Friday, June, 10th, I awoke and went down to the treadmill. I thought the rowing machine and the elliptical might be working but again, they were not. So I just ran and ran and watched TV for a while and then it was time to go back up to the room and get our stuff packed up to leave the hotel. As usual, Eric had left early and I was the luggage caddy, which typically isn't a huge problem. Well, our room was in the corner of the third floor and while there was an elevator, my job was made more difficult by the fact that there was no luggage cart available. Someone -- or two -- had them sequestered in their hotel rooms, so it took me twenty minutes to lug all of our crap down to the car. That was probably Friday's low point. So, really it wasn't that low at all.

I met Eric for lunch in Monticello and we ended up dining next to a trash can (again), beneath a big tree. Our lunch of left-over Indian food (for him) and watermelon and strawberries (for me) was divine and we had plenty to watch on that overcast day. The clientele going into and out of this convenience store was uniformly working class and since school is out, there were children milling around the parking lot. At one point, a car pulled up in the alley behind us, waited a second, backed up four feet, and then the door opened. We wondered what was afoot, but all that was happening was that the overweight mother wanted to be right in line with the sidewalk before she got out of the car. As soon as the reached the store, someone in the car started yelling, but we couldn't make out the words.


Eric and I at lunch in Monticello

I cruised along to Madison, and went to the post office in that cute-as-pie town. I mailed my dad a father's day present and then went into the drug store. It had a restaurant in it and I whiled away some time while I waited for Eric to arrive. I had popped into the public library to check on lodging options, but it turned out that for the third time no one at the B&B in town, The Manor House, was able to tell me whether there was availability. That was getting old. So, I looked into other options and figured I'd run them past Eric when he arrived. I was sitting on the court house steps when he rode up and we walked over to the B&B and finally got the decisive answer that there were no rooms available. We went back over the courthouse and were loading up the bike and then a man and his wife stopped to talk to us. The husband was a bicyclist too and told Eric all about how their county was THE county for bicycle riding in Florida. I in fact had seen a poster on the chamber of commerce's window declaring such a fact. This man was very eager to hear all about Eric's travels and which roads in the county he'd rode. He told us to go down to I-10 and stay at the Holiday Inn Express -- the owner is a cyclist, he said. So, that's what we did.

We checked in, surveyed the darkening clouds, it started to rain, and we lamented the fact that we could not go swimming. We got in the car and headed off to dinner, after I worked on that ol' conference paper for a few hours. We decided to drive thirty miles to Valdosta, Georgia. And boy, were we glad we did! At first, when we drove over the bridge to Valdosta, it looked like all formerly industrial, fallen-on-hard-times cities. We went to the Family Dollar and Eric helped a man put the door back on track and then we headed through "downtown." That produced few dinner options for us. We drove to the other end of Valdosta and went in to a Winn Dixie where I asked the woman at the photo developing counter if I could see a phone book. There we looked for dining option, and found that in Voldosta there exists a location of Eric's favorite $3.99 wonder, Cici's Pizza. So being the classy people we are, we chose to locate the restaurant and dine there with all of the other Valdostans who know a good value. This Cici's, it turns out, was located in an area that pleased me, right near the mall, the TJ Maxx, a book store and a used book store, and other shops that I would've liked to have gone in to given the time. We had a grand time at Cici's and it happened to be a very busy night there. Families with children love it there and when we were at the Valdosta location, a group of championship cloggers were doing a fundraiser. They had made it to the Junior Olympic nationals (and we had no idea there was such a thing for precision clogging) and now needed to raise the money to go. They were doing it by bussing tables and wearing matching t-shirts at Cici's that night. Eric, in his traditional fashion at a buffet, "tore it up" (this is one of our favorite quotes from last year, when in El Centro, California, we heard this large family goading each other on at a Golden Corral to "tear it up"; "we didn't come here to eat salad!" one said).

We returned to Madison and our Holiday Inn Express and by that time the rain had started to come down heavily. There was a tropical storm afoot and there was concern that it might develop into a hurricane. That meant that Eric decided that we'd get up at 7:00 the next morning rather than 6:00 and that we'd then assess the situation. We went to sleep amidst the screaming, hooting, and hollering of a family of three young children with their mother in the room next door. The boys were there for a baseball tournament that looked like it was going to suffer a rain postponement.

Our day off in Tallahassee was pleasant. We did not have to get up early, but we kind of did anyway because we’d both slept horribly the night before. I probably only slept an hour at a stretch. I wasn’t too pleased with that.

After we got ourselves together, Eric and I went back over to the strip-mall of our dreams and I was having a bit of an attitudinal moment and so we went to Ross and I bought some shoes and new sunglasses and felt a lot better afterwards, even though we had to wait like 25 minutes in line because there was only one cashier. I didn’t mind so much though. I was very happy with my shoes. And ever since I bought these sunglasses Eric periodically has been calling me Bono. Which is so hilarious, right. Anyway, after Ross, we went to AAA and picked up another New Mexico/Arizona map because Eric’s is in several pieces now and then we went over to the thrift store and as soon as I walked in there and started perusing, my phone rang and it was my sweet Amanda! She lives with her husband and two daughters in Seattle and we play a seriously rough and world-class game of telephone tag. So it was nice to chat with her and make some plans to get together when she’s visiting her parents in Sandusky, Ohio. I’ll drive down to see her from Detroit. Anyway, nothing in the thrift store called my name.

Eric and I went to have lunch at Curry and Wine, the Indian restaurant adjacent to the thrift store. Eric loves Indian food so he was happy as a clam with this. The soft-spoken and attentive waiter/owner came up to our table and we learned a little from him about his life. He and his family immigrated to New York about ten years ago but they only have been running the restaurant in Tallahassee for three years. He was a bit of a taciturn guy I think; he said that running the restaurant isn’t very lucrative and that it is the hardest work in the world. They do have a liquor license, which I thought would bode well for him, but he said no one comes in there to drink cocktails. And in order to have a license for more than just beer and wine, he has to have seating for more than 100 patrons. So the place did actually look a bit cavernous and had kind of weird wood floors, big pieces painted red. Our food was yummy and Eric of course ate a mammoth portion (his and much of mine) but a guy who rides as much as he does can put all that food away no problem.

After we ate, we went over to the Indian and British grocery, and wouldn’t you know it, they had my very favorite British candybar, Picnic! I often see stores that have a British foods section but they rarely have Picnic. They always have the Cadbury ones I don’t like. But this place did have the heavenly candybar that is Picnic. So I bought some tea, three Picnic bars, and two tins of condensed milk infused with cardamom. We walked from there over to Borders and I bought a music magazine for like the first time in eons.

That evening we drove through FSU and man, that is one big campus and it is a school that makes its goal of sporting excellence well known to the eye of the untutored. The academic buildings look nice and all, but the sports facilities? My heavens. Their stadiums look amazing and there are just so many buildings for sports. I won’t get going on this, but FSU, they sure are good at providing for their athletes. (And this is coming from a girl who went to University of Michigan. So I do know a thing or two about the lavish sums spent on athletics by big universities.) After leaving the FSU campus, we drove around looking for a dinner spot and we saw a placed called Cypress and decided to go there and I owe Eric a million thanks and kisses of gratitude for taking me there. What a champ. It was fancier than he probably would’ve picked but I was impressed with it and felt like it was a special evening to get to go to such a place. Our meals were beautifully presented, delicious, and of the highest quality indeed. The waitstaff was so nice and everything there was simple, clean, not fussy, but still imaginative. Like the reviewer for the Tallahassee paper, I give Cypress my top praises.


Me considering the deeeelish-looking entrees at Cypress Restaurant in Tallahassee

After our fine, relatively hip, and satisfying meal, we walked out into a rainstorm that might’ve penetrated every fiber of my clothing had I not been told to wait under the awning while Eric went across the street to get the car. I did wait, and then I dashed out in my new shoes across ten feet of parking lot to hop in the car and go back to the Comfort Suites to prepare for the next day, Eric’s fourth-from-last day of cycling.

On Wednesday, June 8th, Eric left the Hinson House B&B bright and early at 7 a.m. as usual and I got up and started getting our things together before heading down to the B&B’s breakfast at 8:30. I needed to leave by 9:00. So I collected our things, carried them down to the car, and then it was time to join the other B&Bers at the breakfast table (after I talked for a minute with the proprietor, who was so nice).

Seems that lots of evangelical Christians stay at B&Bs. I am not sure if I mentioned it in an earlier entry here, but my first B&B breakfast, at the Mariposa Ranch near Gay Hill, TX, was shared with a couple of Christians (don’t get me wrong here, I am just pointing out that their faith was Christianity and that they made it known). That couple was from Marietta, GA, and they were on a weekend trip together, without their three kids. The husband in that family was leaving his corporate job to start a ministry for men in the workplace. He felt that God would provide for them and that it was something he needed to do and he felt fervently that men needed strong support of faith and to be nurtured in Christ while they worked. He said he had had a lot of corporate interest so far in his project. Anyway, back to the Hinson House. Once I met in the dining room with the other couple, we sat down at the table, and the proprietor said to the man who was staying at the B&B with his wife (who had just come to the table), “Would you like to say grace?” I was pretty happy that they didn’t ask me because I would’ve had to make something up on the fly. Anyway, so grace was said, the Lord was thanked, and we dined on biscuits, eggs with cheese, fruit with yogurt, and coffee. I was interested in my breakfast-mates more than I was in my breakfast though. They had at least three children, all of whom were married I think. I couldn’t gather what they were doing in Marianna. They lived in Milton though, which is right outside of Pensacola. I think they were in Marianna for something to do with their church and they had been there before for the same reason. The proprietor, the husband who did the cooking, came up to table to chat with us and explained what my “husband” and I were doing with the cycling trip, and wow, did that precipitate conversation. “How far are you going? What roads? Do you have kids?” I didn’t let the cat out of the bag that Eric and I are not, in fact, married, but I thoroughly explained our trip and where we’d been and where we are going. At that point, I had to dash out the door and hit the highway to meet Eric in Quincy for lunch.

Quincy –- another cute town. All of these little towns have a court house with a clock tower. I found Eric easily and we ate on the lawn of the courthouse. I made him a peanut butter, banana, strawberry jelly, and honey sandwich. It was very messy, but by all accounts (his), good. I am getting so proficient at driving a standard transmission, and I am already a good parallel parker, that when I pulled up in front of the large park in front of the courthouse and saw one spot open parallel to the park, I took it. I squeezed into that thing like the parallel-parking pro that I am.


Eric and I in front of the Quincy, Florida, courthouse

After lunch, I scooted on down highway 90 until it ran into I-10 and I headed to Tallahassee, in which we would spend two nights and one full day off. I arrived at the Comfort Suites in Tallahssee with no trouble and that was a sign of good things to come and felt like a triumph over the problems I had the previous time I was in a Florida city of over 100,000 people (that would’ve been Pensacola, and you can refer back to that entry if your memory needs jogging). I checked in and chatted with the desk clerk for a few minutes and he was very nice and told me about some restaurants nearby and he said, I guess based on what I was dong on the road with a cross-country-riding cyclist, that there were a few salad and health food restaurant-type places directly across the street. That was, indeed, music to my ears.

Eric arrived, I went down to the treadmill, and then we went over to the strip-mall across the street. Now, don’t fault me for not searching farther a-field and for falling prey to the whiles of the strip-mall, but as Eric said, if we don’t move to Lafayette we might very well just move right into that strip-mall in Tallahassee. We loved Lafayette so much and have been talking pretty regularly about how it suited us and how taken we were with it -- but hello, this strip-mall! In it, there was a salad and soup establishment (where we ate the first night, and later regretted that we didn’t look further into what was there before we decided. It was fine, but not excellent), an organic grocery store, a Walgreens, a Ross, an Indian and British grocery, a nail salon, a hair salon, a AAA, a thrift store, and an Indian restaurant! We sampled them all, except for the salons.

So on our first night in Tallahassee, we ate at the above-mentioned salad establishment and then we went into the organic grocer and bought some fruit and dried cherries and yummmmmmm –- Haagen Dazs dulce de leche frozen yogurt and strawberries and a bottle of Australian shiraz and then we went back to the Comfort Suites and sat by the standard-issue hotel pool and ate and drank happily in the early evening.

On Tuesday morning, Eric woke up at 6 a.m. as usual, in DeFuniak Springs, so he could get on the road before it go too hot. I woke up at 7:30 and realized that there was no Eric -- and he did not say goodbye. I panicked a little and wondered what had happened. I was sitting on the couch moping and then the door to the room opened and I thought maybe it was Eric after all, and that maybe he hadn't left yet, but no, it was housekeeping. The woman opened the door, said "Ooops! I thought you'd checked out!" and I said "Oh no, he only left. On his bike." So my moping continued. I took a shower, and then happily, the phone rang and it was Eric saying he thought I needed my sleep because perhaps that was what was behind my several-day-long bad mood. I think he might have been right. After that, I felt pretty much all better.

I checked out of the Hotel DeFuniak and went on to Cottondale where Eric and I were meeting for lunch. I passed him on the road and pulled in to a Tom Thumb convenience store. There we sat on some milk crates under the shade of the roof and had the company of a cigarette-smoking worker, who was on the other side of the trash can from us talking on her cell phone, and a Spanish-speaking young man in dirty white clam-diggers who was busy conversing with someone on the payphone, rattling off several numbers. He talked on the phone for a long time, our whole lunch. When he got off he began to talk to Eric. He kept asking Eric if he had any numbers. It came together slowly -- he was asking for like taxi-cab phone numbers or something. We didn't have any. We suggested that he go to the service station across the street. He did that. Eric and I also observed all kinds of people coming and going from the convenience store, toting fast food with them. Oh yes, and then we saw a strange transaction between a man in a UPS uniform (not in a UPS truck though) who met up with a man in a white sedan and received several large boxes from him. What do YOU think?

From there I drove to Marianna and went straight to the public library. Again, it was a noisy library day. Since school just got out, within a few weeks ago, in many of these towns I've been through the public libraries are starting their summer reading programs. At the library in Marianna, it was the first day of the reading program. That made for a lot of kids and a lot of talking and organizing.

Eric called after I'd been at the library for about an hour saying that he was down by the freeway and that the Comfort Inn looked suspect. He said that maybe I should come get him and we'd look for other options. I drove down to I-10 where he was, seated on a bench by Country Inn and Suites, and we borrowed their wi-fi while we sat outside and looked to see what Marianna had to offer in terms of lodging and B&Bs. We could've stayed at the Country Inn and Suites, which was nice, but we really wanted to stay on the route (I-90) so I wouldn't have to drive Eric back to it in the morning. We found a B&B right on I-90 and we went right over there and rang the bell. It was called the Hinson House. At the Hinson House, it is Christmas all the time. The woman who answered the phone was in the basement and had just gotten out of the shower; she said she'd be right up. We sat on the porch swing and whiled away the time. She opened the door about ten minutes after we got off the phone and welcomed us in. And in the foyer was a Christmas tree and the stairs were bedecked with lighted garlands. She showed us the room and gave us the price and I even heard a very impressed Eric say, "You know Judy, I do think you could stand to raise your prices." I about fainted. Anyway, the rates were low and we were very pleased with the pretty room, the pretty house, and the nice demeanor of Judy, our hostess.


Me on the stairs at the Hinson House B&B

Eric took his post-ride nap and I read. When he got up we got in our swimsuits and headed to Florida Caverns State Park (we missed the last caverns tour though, sadly; they are the only natural caverns in Florida!). We were told there was a swimming hole there and sure enough, the park ranger said "yes, go right ahead, follow the road to Blue Hole." We passed some bogs, some swamps, and some areas that looked like they would be happy homes for alligators, and we arrived at "Blue Hole," and believe you me, it was BROWN, not blue, and you can see for yourself in the photo.


Eric in the "Blue Hole." He is trying to ward off bugs with our orange noodle floaty-thing.

The air there in the late afternoon was also full of insect sounds and we saw some spidery bugs scooting across the pond's water and some buzzing bugs and dragonflies and some horseflies too. Eric was brave enough to get all the way into cold water and he swam across to the dock. I was stricten with trepidation and went no further than thigh-high in the water. It just got too buggy for us to stay there long and we drove through the rest of the park and then drove around Marianna for about an hour and stopped in at a drive-through carwash. There was a man in a maroon Cadillac in front of us for about five minutes. Eric got out and helped him and then we went ahead and cleaned the very dirty car.

We met another man who was staying at the B&B. I cannot remember his name but he made me a little suspicious. He and his wife and son were moving to Milton (by Pensacola) because he got transferred there from outside of Atlanta. He was nice enough but boy, he let us know how he felt about unhygienic ice-cream store clerks.

For dinner Eric and I went across I-90 to a salad/buffet place, Jim's, and Eric was amazed that it was in business. He had some "cabbage-infused potatoes" that were labeled "squash." I had a salad and watermelon and was pleased as punch that I got to eat as much watermelon as I did. Eric had three desserts, so I don't know why he would ever complain about Jim's. He loved their banana pudding. One of the waitresses' families came in for dinner while we were there and her kids were darn cute.

After dinner we hung out on the porch swing and talked to the business man who I said I was suspicious of. This is when we learned that he flipped out when an ice-cream clerk put his cone right down on the counter. Bad form, I agree, but it happens. Eric and I drank some of the complimentary white zinfandel and that was that for Marianna.

On Monday, June 6th, my bad mood persisted. I had not had a good library day in a while. I was tired. I was tired of moving from place to place. I was tired of lugging luggage. I was tired of the heat and of people not being able to read my mind. Basically, I was disconsolate.

So I drove to Crestview and tried to find the public library there. No dice. I could not find it and Eric could not find it on his bike. So we had lunch at the Tom Thumb convenience store at the gas station. We had tuna, avocado, hummus, and tomato sandwiches (actually, in sprouted grain tortillas) and I didn’t even like mine so I gave the rest to Eric. The people who kept driving up to the Tom Thumb were a varied bunch –- white, black, Hispanic, in trucks with junk in the bed, in new SUVs, in late-model sedans, without shirts on, lacking teeth, and all suspiciously looking at the weird duo -- the surly looking girl and the guy in the spandex garb with a bike. We didn’t linger in Crestview.


Eric and I at the Tom Thumb convenience store in Crestview

I arrived in DeFuniak Springs at maybe noon or so and stopped into the B&B there and then went on to the library, which is the oldest library in Florida. It may also be the loudest small library in America and features a three-year-old girl who will scream her head off or you. So, I worked there for an hour or so, on a conference paper, and spent a little time looking through the 1965 DeFuniak Springs phonebook. I also looked at some DAR book that was published for their centennial and listed families and lineages by last name. See, the place where I found to sit was apparently the genealogy and phone book section. An older woman kept walking past me –- I think she wanted to get at those DAR books and I was blocking them.

The screaming toddler finally drove me away. I wanted to give her mother a piece of my mind.


Site of screaming toddler: The DeFuniak Springs public library

DeFuniak Springs is very cute. Eric arrived, we checked into our room (which was lovely), and we talked to the proprietors about wireless internet and our need for a WEP password from them to use it (which they didn’t quite understand). So Eric took his post-ride nap and I took my Willa Cather book and hit the streets of DeFuniak Springs. I walked out of the hotel and was soon stopped by another comment precipitated by my Yankees shirt. A man about fifteen feet in front of me on the sidewalk said “NEW YORK?!” I was like, uh, yes, the Yankees. I was in a bad mood and didn’t really want to talk to the guy. But it actually helped my mood to do so. He was like “You’re a long way from home.” I explained that I'm not from New York, but from Albuquerque and sort of Detroit, and that I cheer for the Yankees because of my dad. He then went on to explain that he is the bartender of the bar attached to the Hotel DeFuniak, where we were staying, and that I had a pretty face and that someone “must be taking care of” me. Ha ha. He was like “You’re so purdy you must have a boyfriend.” I said that I did, that he’s a cycling across the USA and is currently upstairs sleeping off 85 miles of riding, and that we’d be out on the town later and might stop in to the bar. This man was very tall and looked like a member of ZZ Top with no beard. He said my boyfriend must be a strong man or something, based on all of his cycling, and I don’t know how we got on this next topic, but I said that Eric is a pool shark and then the ZZ Top guy was like “Look over there at my bike” –- meaning his Harley parked across the street -- “What do you see on the handlebars?” And what did I see? A pool-cue case strapped to the handlebars. So we got to talking about pool for a few minutes and how it’s a game that women can be very good at because it doesn’t require physical strength. Then I said I had to be going, to the park, somewhere, away, and he was like, “well, I’ll be seeing you, you got nice pins! I’d like to write a story about them. Whoooboy, it’ll be a long one.” You know, I did not feel threatened by Mr. Drunk ZZ Top Bartender, who was two hours early for work, and I thanked him for the compliment and walked away. That sure was a real-world challenge to the set of feminist values inculcated by graduate school, undergraduate school, and the Albuquerque Academy. But really, his objectification of me rolled right off my back.

After that, I went into a flower shop, a health food store, a drug store, and then a book store. I found several neat books, including a Dover Thrift Edition of Russian short stories (most of which I’ve read already but a few I hadn’t and those were worth the $1.50), some books for my niece, a coloring book of famous ballets for my friend’s daughter, three postcards of DeFuniak Springs, and a couple of cookbooks (one from the famous Greens restaurant in San Francisco). I walked back to the Hotel DeFuniank after that, feeling much better, and then Eric and I went out on the town. We walked over to the pond, went out on the dock, and then went to eat Mexican food at a restaurant with a transsexual host/ess and with a staff of waitpeople ordering pizza from another restaurant while seated at the booth next to ours. The food there was very good though, but I do understand getting tired of the food in the restaurant where you work. I became immune to the seductive influence of buttery pastries after working for a long time at Le Chantilly in Albuquerque with Ingrid, Ari, and Amy. Except for Chinese Chews. LOVE them.

That night, Eric and I watched the Pistons triumph. Go Pistons!!!!!!

So, while Eric was riding a long ride, which started late because of the unexpected drive around Mobile Bay, I was busy getting lost and spilling coffee on myself. My attitude started out just fine as I drove back down through Gulf Shores. I found my way to the highway and then discovered that I was very tired, which necessitated a coffee stop. So, I pulled into a Shell station, which was new and flamingo-themed, and decided to fill up the car while I was there. I was met by a chorus of Harley mufflers and that went on for a while and really began the nerve-grating. After getting my coffee and wondering why my eyes felt so hot, I drove off and was having a merry old time. Then for some reason I decided it would be nice to spill hot coffee on myself, so I did. Really though, I didn’t plan that. I decided then that I should not be allowed to drink coffee and drive. I pulled into another gas station and then attracted local attention by dousing my chest with water to try to prevent stains. I did succeed, you’ll be happy to know, and my shirt is fine now. But anyway, I drove on and tucked a paper towel in my shirt to prevent further spillage idiocy and all was going well. I arrived in the Pensacola area relatively easily. However, I thought I was done with spilling episodes so I removed the paper towel and then spilled on myself again. So at a stop light I poured bottled water on myself and was given suspect looks by the people in the neighboring car. Still, I managed to forestall the development of coffee stains.

I was trying to find the Comfort Inn in Pensacola and drove in the direction that I thought was the correct one. It was not. I ended up going over a very long bridge and found myself in the suburb of Gulf Breeze. That was not right. I turned around and ended up taking 101 north to I-10 and getting right off and finding the Comfort Inn without event, or without further event. It was at that time noon I think and I was ready to chill. The Comfort Inn, however, was not. They had been sold out the night before so I could not check in so this pushed my bad mood to new heights.

Eric called with a tale of triumph. He had run across a triathlete and rode with him for a while and showed him who was boss. That made him feel good. I expected Eric to arrive soon after that. He did not. When he did arrive, he was met by me and my bad attitude. We had just been allowed to check in and Eric napped and I went and ran on the very noisy treadmill and watched Headline News (but could not hear it because of the din of the treamill). We then went back to downtown Pensacola, walked around, and found somewhere to eat. I, for one, was not blown away by Pensacola. However, to be fair, my bad attitude prevented me from giving it a fair chance.

One funny thing did happen though at the Comfort Inn breakfast buffet, which I popped in to to get some coffee. As I was standing in front of the coffee machine, I heard someone say “out of the way big guy.” And then a chuckle. I turned around and a man was standing there and made some joke about Derek Jeter hogging all the coffee or something -– and then I was in on it. I was wearing my Derek Jeter shirt and I love it when people talk to you like you’re the guy in the shirt (“Hey Jeter! Nice game yesterday!” or “Jeter, you bum!!” or some such thing). Anyway, I talked to the guy for a minute about the Yankees and their woes, found out that he’s actually a Cardinals fan and that I have no problem with that, and that I am actually a Tigers fan but have a familial obligation to root for the Yankees. So that was all nice and then soon after that I drove to the next destination.

Eric and I stayed at a B&B on Dauphin Island called the Dauphin House. When Eric arrived there he was a bit concerned about how I’d react to its exterior -– which was cinder blocks painted yellow with those electric Christmas-type lights in tubes (you know the ones?) bedecking the place. But I did arrive and liked it. Our room was lovely and looked out on the water, northward. Dauphin Island was totally bizarre.

Some good things first –- not that the island being bizarre is at all bad. But first -– Eric loved how the two ladies working at the Dauphin House had a very good banter back-and-forth between them and called him “baby.” When I got there they gave us information on where to go to the beach on the island and we took their advice, kind of. We ultimately went to the public beach, which really was amazing. Not picturesque necessarily or possessing waters redolent of Cancun’s tropical blue ones, but the beach had soft sand, happy people, and warm, warm water. That was wonderful. But I’ll return to the beach description in a minute.

Before we went to the beach we drove around the whole island, starting on the east end. There, we saw an Exxon, I think, office, and off-shore you can see, all around the island, oil platforms. On the east end of the island there is also a yacht club (and don’t think South of France here –- think something much more low-rent as far as I could tell) and a historic military fort. There is also a bird sanctuary and a trailer park for people camping in their trailers. We also saw many, many people fishing off of the rocky coast there. So then we drove to the west end. On that side of the island we saw a kind of cottage I, for one, had never seen and could not frankly comprehend in terms of insurability. As you’ll recall, hurricanes hit the South in catastrophic ways, as Ivan did last September (or August?). These cottages are on STILTS. The floor of the cottage is about twelve feet above sand-level and I tell you, they looked precarious as all get-out. We hadn’t talked to any locals about the cottages at this time, so we just couldn’t imagine WHY someone would spend the money to build such a thing on land so vulnerable. They were interesting in terms of their architectural style. For those of you familiar with southern California’s “dingbats,” I think you’ll agree that there’s something to the Dauphin Island cottages that is dingbattish. Anyway, we did see some remains -– meaning, some stilts with no cottages on them. This, I am sure you can surmise, is the result of the cottages being BLOWN OFF OF THEIR PLATFORMS! Yes, the hurricanes just blew some houses right off of the slits. Now, would you turn right back around and build again? These cottages came in all kinds of candy colors though and shapes; some were in the purple-pitched-roof-ski-chalet style, others in the yellow-cube-with-metal-shuttered-windows style. We actually drove on a road that went down the center of the island that had several inches of sea water on it –- and that kept us thinking about the viability of such living.


Dauphin Island beach cottage on stilts

Anyway, on the beach, we played in the surf and lied in the sand. We met a family from Oklahoma. Next to us was a family from Mexico. But as we walked up to the beach initially, we saw Dauphin Island’s Finest arresting some kids, one was a girl in a Corona bikini and the other was her suntanned boyfriend. There were cuffed and sitting on the hood of their car. We surmised that maybe they were arrested for fighting. She looked like a scrapper. Anyway, the beach was fun.

That night we drove around looking for somewhere to eat and ended up at the country club’s restaurant, The Palms. Don’t go to the Palms. The tablecloth was stained, first off, and then my shrimp cocktail left much to be desired. Eric has sworn off of alfredo since and the waitresses were reprimanded for gossiping while we were there. But we did venture upstairs to the bar, lured by a sign advertising that “Dr. Bob” would be performing. We couldn’t resist the mystery of Dr. Bob. And we did want to find some locals to talk to about the strange features of Dauphin Island. So I went right in and sat at the bar and started talking to three local men, one of whom we discovered was Dr. Bob. He would be doing a set at 9:00, for which we couldn’t stay, but I tell you what, I don’t know what Dr. Bob plays or what he is a doctor of, but he was 100% entertaining.

We learned from Dr. Bob that some of the houses on the island we blown from the south side to the north side during the hurricane. He was also a master-something-captain for the ocean oil rigs and told us wild tales of the splendor and luxuriousness of the oil platform life. Some platforms have glassed-in dining rooms with “top-shelf” foods-aplenty, with waiters and cooks to serve the crew, with audio-visual equipment to while away the long lonely hours out at sea. He also told us about the buildings on the oceanfront in Biloxi. According to him, the Beau Rivage is a boat itself, and when there’s a hurricane, they attach it to several barges and drag it away. I am still suspicious of that information. Dr. Bob had lived in California, was in the military, and his friend told us that Dauphin Island is the most laid-back place on earth, “more laid back than Hawaii.”


Beautiful sunset on Dauphin Island

The next morning, since the ferry was not operational, we had to drive all the way around Mobile Bay so Eric could start riding again at Ft. Morgan, 22 miles west of Gulf Shores, Alabama. As we were leaving Dauphin Island, I said, "So long Dauphin Island! You were weird!" And that is as true as it gets. The drive to the other side of Mobile Bay was interesting in itself and as we drove further west on that isthmus, we saw the damage the hurricane wreaked there too. Still, there were piles of rubbish, dead tree limbs, and battered furniture stacked by the roadside. But it appeared to me that this side was wealthier than the Dauphin Island side. There were resorts and fancier houses and more people in general. So at Fort Morgan, Eric hopped back on his bike to ride again and I drove off, for a fun day of getting lost and spilling coffee on my pale pink Lacoste shirt.

On Saturday morning, Eric and I drove back to the Chevron in Wade and it was much quieter there than it had been on Friday at lunchtime. I again got a coffee and sat in a booth, after noting the burning trash outside and the consistent stream of relatively fit blond young girls coming in to buy donuts. Different people were working on Saturday morning. I stayed there for about an hour and then headed to the Wade Post Office to mail a package and buy some stamps. A nice woman, who made it clear that she was new in town, was working and when I arrived there was a man leaning with his elbow on the counter, half-flirting with, half-heckling the woman worker, who really was cute as pie. He, however, was not cute as pie. He told me he also worked for the government so he and this postal worker lady pretty much did the same thing, so he was keeping her company and chatting with (I thought maybe annoying) her as a sign of solidarity. He didn't even really have any pressing business to do at the post office. He kept letting people go in front of him, a few people who'd forgotten their P.O. box keys and a woman with her three wide-eyed girls in tow. The littlest one, who was the blondest of the three (who ranged up to dark-brown-red-headed), kept looking at me -- she was maybe three years old -- and trying to squeeze herself between her mom's legs and the counter. They were well behaved while waiting for their mom to mail a pretty big box, which I learned was full of purses she'd made out of Kool-Aid packages. Some of the women in the post office were saying how cute the purses were and the postal worker wondered if the purse-maker sold them on Ebay. No, she said, she sent them to a woman upstate who sold them for her.

I went then to the library, which actually opens at 8:00 on Saturday (not 10:00, as the Mississippi library website says). It was a nice library and I spent about an hour there trying to clear up space on my hard drive. It was a fruitless task. In the process of trying to do that, I rifled through my old emails, sorting them in new folders by year, and that caused some distress because then I read some old emails that were upsetting. Anyway, I thought it would be good to clean up, clear out, and so I tried to burn a few folders (with like 1000 emails each) onto some CDs, and no, I was foiled. I tried again, and was foiled again. The process went along fine all the way to the indexing part, and then some stinking error code came up. So this was frustrating. I am in the process of trying to make more room on this here Mac and it is trying. I think I need different CDs. I think Eric will figure it out for me. After that, I started reading Willa Cather's "O Pioneers!" and if that book doesn't have one of the saddest sentences about a kitten in the first two pages, man oh man. So, this is the kind of criticism a Ph.D. in American Literature gives about an early novel by a foundational woman author in the American literary canon --- sad story about kitten, page two, hard to proceed beyond . . . but I did. Kitten was saved. Then I moved into the even sadder real storyline.

I left the library so I could drive to Dauphin Island and hopefully make it there by 1:00. When I left the library, I wanted to take a picture of it, so I set my camera on top of my car and went and stood in front of the library. I heard a car coming and looked (as you can see below) and then I went back, got the camera, and started to put my stuff in the car and grab an apple. I then heard someone say something and I looked up and around and this is the exchange:

Older man in truck: "Yeah YOU. You want to buy a fried catfish dinner?"

Me: "Ah, what?"

Older man in truck: "A fried catfish dinner. You gotta eat don'tcha?"

Me: "Ah, I have an apple here and I really have to been hittin' the road right away for Dauphin Island"

Older man in truck (with some audible consternation): "Well okay, (sees two young guys coming out of library) You two want to buy a fried catfish dinner?"

Two guys: "Ah, what? Where?"

Older man in truck: "A fried catfish dinner; I gots some right here in my truck. But there's more at the hall, so come on down there today"


Me right before the man drove up and offered me a fried catfish dinner

So after this went on and I was little amazed by it, I drove off. I did not get lost on my way to Dauphin Island, which has become something to make note of. I drove through Bayou LaBatre, Mississippi, just before heading over the very long bridge to Dauphin Island. Bayou LaBatre is a port of some kind and I stopped on the "scenic route" to take some pictures of boats and Eric called me while I was parked to say he made it to Dauphin Island and rode a bit of the final way with a woman cyclist whose AOL name was Red Hot Kestrel (which, I learned, is a make of bike). Apparently, Red Hot Kestrel wore an Iron Man jersey and Eric said she was a pretty good rider and a very nice person. She nearly hit 40 miles per hour coming down off of the bridge to Dauphin Island. And if you see that bridge, you can see how that might happen. It is a little terrifying when you're heading up to its apex. It kind of looks like a gargantuan version of a Dukes of Hazard launch ramp. You just can't see the descent on the other side.

Eric was to take to the ferry off of Dauphin Island the next day and start the ride on the Gulf Shores side of the water, but as he learned and as Red Hot Kestrel might've told him but didn't, the ferry was closed and had been since the hurricane. Anyway, Dauphin Island deserves a post all its own, so until then . . .

So on Friday, Eric and I packed up our gear at the Garden District Hotel and drove to where he'd ended the ride. I went on my merry way and tried to find a library in Pascagoula, Louisiana. Turns out I wasn't even in Pascagoula, but Moss Point. I went to a Wal-Mart there, and if you're noticing a pattern, I think you're right. Wal-Marts are everywhere and when a girl needs licorice while traveling cross-country, sometimes there are few options. Anyway, so I popped into the Moss Point Wal-Mart and asked the greeter where the library was and she didn't know so I went about my shopping (licorice, bananas, miscellaneous tzotchkes) and then asked the checkout girl. She gave me some interesting directions, which included a lot of "go thisaway" and "go thataway when you get to the red light." I discovered, or rather got corroboration on, a suspicion. It appears that a "red light" simply means a "traffic light" (which, to my mind, could very well be green or yellow). In Louisiana, Eric and I heard the expression "feeder," which means frontage road. All kinds of new terms I'm learning. So anyway, I tried to follow the girl's directions and got as lost as I could tolerate (but I did get a nice tour of Moss Point) and then I worked my way back to where I started and tried to get back on Highway 63. To do that, I had to stop at a gas station, where I bought a piece of grape bubble gum and used the restroom. The gas station has a bhudda altar and was brand new. I asked another man in line where the highway was and he said "you can't miss it." He had no idea the kind of driving luck I'd had the previous days.

I didn't miss it, so that was good. I drove straight to where I was supposed to pick Eric up, having not gotten to a library, so my mood was a bit sour. I thought I would maybe come across something on Highway 63, but I am telling you, there is essentially nothing on Highway 63 between Moss Point and Wade, Mississippi. So, I got the Chevron in Wade, got a coffee, lugged my backpack to a table, and got started on sitting for two hours. I wrote several postcards, looked through my planner, looked at the customers, and wondered when Eric would arrive. I kept thinking I should bust out my laptop and work on an abstract I needed to email that day, but I thought that might make me look even more out of place than I already did. So I just sat there, sipping away at my coffee. I ended up really enjoying my hours there because I overheard lots of neat covnersation by the men sitting behind me. Seems the Chevron, which is also a Subway, Krispy Kreme, fried chicken place, and pizza shop, is a local hub and gossip station. A table of middle-aged women met up for lunch there and were sitting in the booth in front of me and the fire chief (or just a fireman) and some cops and other local officials were sitting in the two booths behind me. The firechief seemed to be in the know about everything going on around Wade area and I gathered that his wife was quite impressed with the house one of her friends' husbands had built on a three-acre lot in the vicinity, and then the firechief's wife let him know all about it. Also, it appeared that one of the police men who drove up was in a car that had a different number on it than the men were used to seeing him drive, and that produced some discussion. Another man who sat with them was griping about what had just happened at the bank, where the lady there had given him some crazy wrong information about a loan, a consrtuction loan of some kind, about which he was not happy at all and he was going to go back and speak to someone else. About this time, Eric was I assumed a half-hour out still, so I asked where the post office was and it was about three miles into Wade, so I drove there. Turns out the post office is closed on Fridays between 12:30 and 1:00. So if you're in Wade on a Friday at that time and need to mail some letters, keep that in mind.

Eric called while I was at the post office, so I went back and met him. I guessed that upon seeing Eric and I together, the people at the Wade Chevron probably figured out why the out-of-place-looking gal (me) had been sitting there for so long.

Eric and I drove from there to Biloxi and checked into a Best Western across from the Beau Rivage Casino. The Beau Rivage is awesome, in that word's real meaning. We walked around Biloxi, went to the marina, walked through a public park in which they were having a Race for the Cure relay in the heat of the late afternoon, and then went back to the Best Western and floated around in the pool. And then I finished and mailed my abstract. Then we went over to the Beau Rivage. I thought I could replicate my $31.00 success from the Paragron in Louisiana. But no. After spending $8.00 at the Beau Rivage, I gave up. The real highlight of that evening was the buffet at the Beau Rivage. I am not kidding. You have never seen anything like this in your life, unless you've been there. The reason why Americans eat so much is no secret. There were fifty feet of desserts. This was the Land of Plenty configured as an all-you-can-eat buffet. American Opportunity means you can gorge yourself on an inexhaustible supply of cocktail shrimp. They had sushi, crab legs, every kind of meat and fried thing imaginable, Chinese food, soups, breads, fruit, a chocolate fountain, grilled fish, and I cannot even remember what else. And complimentary drinks -- beer, wine, daquiries. I tell you, it was intense. The decadence was gross . . . enjoyable and happy-making, but still kind of gross. There were actually all kinds of people in this casino/hotel -- thin and fat, hip and dowdy, old and young, people at weddings and retirees whiling away the time, happy-looking and frustrated-looking. We saw a lot of women wearing what seemed requisite casino attire: tight long jeans and high heels. Actually, come to reflect on it, most people looked happy. I think Eric and I looked happy. We were even happy when we left $8.00 the poorer.

On Wednesday morning, June 1, Eric and I had to drive back to Bogalusa from Covington so he could start riding again. The drive was uneventful. I worked at the Bogalusa library for a few hours and did some job application stuff. I bid a fair adieu to the nice ladies at the library, after watching a few memorable tutoring sessions transpire at the tables nearby mine and some children sign up for the summer reading program. I then headed on my way to a stop 10 miles south of Wiggins, Mississippi. That is where I was to pick Eric up so we could head to New Orleans for two nights. Meeting Eric at the destination was not as easy as it might sound though because there was really only an Exxon station off the side of the highway and he wasn't there when I arrived. He called soon after though and I met him on some road called 10 Mile Road. We drove off towards New Orleans after that and it took us two hours. We passed by something that had to do with NASA on the way.

Once we were checked in to the Garden District hotel (which, really, was a rip-off), I called my dear friend Ingrid and we met up with her to go to dinner, at La Crepe Nanou. We waited a while to be seated but that gave us time to talk and look at all of the people dining and to make some friends with another group of people waiting. If we'd wanted to sit inside we could've been seated right away, but we wanted to sit outside. The people who were sitting near us, also waiting, were with two little girls (who were friends, not sisters) and a son in sixth grade who had a bit of a surly attitude because he wanted to go to McDonalds. Eric made friends with them though and by 8:30 we were seated for a fine feast of salads and grilled fish and escargot for Ingrid and crepe desserts for all of us. It was deeelish. But Eric and I were totally pooped and Ingrid had to head off to work at the mortuary, so by 10:00, our evening was done.


Ingrid and me waiting to be seated at La Crepe Nanou in New Orleans

The next morning, Eric went to a laundromat/bar called Igor's to do some wash, and I headed to the treadmill. After that, we went by streetcar to Magazine Street, to an Indian restaurant named Nirvana. Eric wanted to give the waiter a piece of his mind because he was not very helpful or very inclined to ever come back with more water, but the food was good and the chairs had upholstery that was pleasing to the eye. After that we walked up Magazine to a new vintage-y clothing store, which had just opened two days before, and I commended the proprietress on her fine selection of vintage slips. We then went back to St. Charles Street and took the streetcar to Audubon Park and to Tulane, where Eric's dad went to college and medical school. Before we made it back to St. Charles though we overheard a woman in a screaming/crying match with someone on the other end of a cell phone conversation. It was clear that it was a break-up gone very badly. She mentioned the other party having sent the new lover to be "the messenger" and there was also discussion of "my values." It was intense.

After Tulane, we walked for a ways back up St. Charles towards the hotel, but it was too far to walk the whole way given our footwear, so we popped into the JCC and got change for the streetcar. Once back at the hotel, we regrouped, met back up with dear Ingrid and headed to Whole Foods where we saw a girl wearing a bandana-print and denim pair of what looked like diaper-covers, but were shorts, and some kind of halter top. She was tattooed and tall and wanted to show everyone her tattoos and skin. It was kind of gross (don't get me wrong, I am not anti-tattoo), but Ingrid and I were thus given the opportunity to talk about it and ponder the notion that it is a free country so that girl CAN walk around that way -- but it being a free country, we should be free not to have to look at it. After Whole Foods, we went back to Ingrid's so I could see her mom and so we could pick up her boyfriend Noel -- and we also saw her kitty -- and then Eric and I headed back to the hotel.

On Friday morning, Eric and I hit the road out of New Orleans and without ado, we made it back to Ten Mile Road in Mississippi, near Wiggins, and I dropped him off for another day of riding.

I drove to Bogalusa, LA, from Clinton. I drove around Bogalusa looking for the library and actually the drive to Bogalusa was eventful. I was pleased as punch to be driving through the pretty countryside, so much so that I neglected to look at the gas gauge. The low-gas indicator icon came up, as a rain storm moved in, so I pulled into a grocery store/gas station in Easleyville and got out. I got drenched and went in and gave the attendant $20 in cash for gas and saw what the people also in line were buying. One man had white bread, ground beef, and beer. Another yummy lunch in Louisiana. I went back out to the car and pulled the handle on the pump and went about my business, got out a Luna bar, checked my MP3 player, fiddled around, stared into the rain, figured the gas would be a-going along, but then I looked at the old-style pump, where the numbers spin around and click-click, and there they were, still at 00.00. I pulled the handle again, and then they started turning. When it got to 20.00, I went on my way to try to meet Eric at an intersection, to no avail (he called to say he was riding faster than expected, so I missed him). Then I drove off to Bogalusa.

Once in Bogalusa, I drove around, as I said, looking for the library. I was unimpressed by the town, and, I learned later, so were some of the residents. I drove around looking for the city center, where the public libraries usually are in towns, and what I found was the high school football stadium (for the Bogalusa Lumberjacks), the Wal-Mart, and the Temple-Inland environmental contamination factory (ooops, it just looked that way--it was a big, spewing, mammoth, well-lit, Metropolis-looking site). I should correct that though, based on research. According to Bogalusa.org, Temple-Indland "ranks as one of the outstanding manufacturers of pulp, paper, boxes, bags and other paper products," and I am also sure that they provide lots of employment for the residents of Bogalusa. But the factory was shockingly large and would be right at home on Zug Island in Detroit. And right on the corner where the factory sits is a sign that says "Welcome to Bogalusa."


The Bogalusa Public Library

I did find the library after asking a guy in a Rite-Aid. You'd be surprised how few people know where the public library is in the town where they live. The Rite-Aid guy did though, after looking skyward for a minute. The library was very nice and so were the library employees, two old ladies and two young ladies. I asked one of the young ladies where she recommended that we stay in Bogalusa, and she made a face and said "there is nowhere nice to stay in Bogalusa." So when Eric cycled up, I told him that, and we did manage to find a listing for one B&B, which he called, and they had no vacancies. In fact, the B&B man said, they have no vacancies "for two months." Nice rooms MUST be hard to come by. So we drove off to Covington, LA, for the night. Covington is north of Lake Pontchartrain. We worked ourselves into relatively good sprits by the time we got to Covington and we looked for our hotel, which we'd booked on the phone using Choice Hotels points as we drove there, and looked and looked and it was not where we thought it would be and neither were the roads we were looking for. This went on for a while, for such a while that we busted out the GPS. Turns out we were exactly as turned around as one can get. We were going south when we thought we were going north. So I called the hotel and asked them where they were. We got there soonafter. We were very tired and hungry. And I was very much in need of getting some work done and some applications out for academic jobs. So we ate, and then I worked. And that was that for Covington.

On Memorial Day, Eric and I checked out of the Sportsman's Motel (about which I was pretty glad) and he cycled off, headed towards St. Fransville, Louisiana. I drove off too, and headed to New Roads, a town on the bank of the Mississippi river. It was about 8 a.m. when I got there and nothing was open. It was overcast and there had been a powerboat race there the previous two days. There were still signs up thanking everyone for coming and the competitors for participating. New Roads was a nice town and it had many cute-looking shops and cafes, none of which were open, much to my chagrin. What was open though, and to the consternation of some maybe, was Wal-Mart. There really is a Wal-Mart in every town we pass through, or in most, and it seems like the presence of a Wal-Mart is really an indicator of the size required for a town to be considered viable by some in the business world. Anyway, in New Roads I went to the Wal-Mart and got a coffee and walked around there for about an hour. Eric and I had planned to meet at the loading area for the St. Francisville Ferry, which would take us across the Mississippi. I drove there and realized that I was immediately in the queue and so I just went for it. It was exciting to drive the car onto the ferry and be shuttled right across the river. I'd never done that before.

On the other side of the river, there used to be a town. It was destroyed by fire and flooding and then its industries were wrecked by the Civil War and the boll-weevil. I cannot remember its name. Something with Sara in it. So soon after driving off of the ferry I found myself in historic St. Francisville. It was still very overcast and raining some and I turned on a street that had a sign denoting that there were historic homes there, and my word, there WERE. I saw homes that dated to the late 18th century. It was amazing. I went into a shop called Grandmother's Buttons, which had jewelry made out of antique buttons (all with certificates of authenticity) and other gifts too. From there I drove around the town some more and then went walking to through the Episcopal churchyard. There were very old gravestones there and that really gets you thinking. It was amazing there with the trees streaming Spanish Moss overhead, canopied, and the sunlight shooting in as much as it could on such a day. I liked that people were still being buried there, among the nearly 300-year-old graves. It gave a sense of continuity to the place, which I like. I left the churchyrad after seeing some blue hydrangea, like the ones my grandma Rose had dried on her glass etagere.


The Episcopal cemetery in St. Francisville


Eric and I met in a park in St. Francisville and had lunch. Later we met again in Jackson, Louisiana, at the Old Centenary Inn bed and breakfast. The Old Centenary Inn was lovely; it has eight guests rooms on the second floor and was operated by an innkeeper named Bonnie, whose mother was the innkeeper before her. A Jackson native owns the inn and he is very invested in improving and refurbishing the small town of Jackson. Eric and I drove to Baton Rouge that evening and nothing was opened it seemed because it was late in the day on Memorial Day. We did find a health food store called The Daily Bread, about which we were very pleased, and we bought some vegetarian dinners and drove back to Jackson where we sat on the back porch of the inn and ate, with a cat named Jackson there to keep us company and meow to us. After dinner we walked around the little town and imagined what people there did.


Me on the back porch of the Old Centenary Inn


The next morning we got up at 6:00 as usual but it was raining pretty hard so after watching some of the Weather Channel, Eric decided to wait a while before heading out to ride (and I encouraged this because I thought it was dangerous to ride on the narrow roads with all the trucks and the spray and all that). So he went back to bed and I went down to breakfast. He joined me later. I ate grits for the first time. After Eric cycled off at around 11 a.m., I talked to Bonnie a little and told her about how I did find Jackson similar to Detroit. Nature had taken back buildings in both places.

I drove off to Clinton, Louisiana, the neighboring town. It used to be an important hub for lawyers in the area. I went to the public library, which was built in 1860. It was cramped and well used. There were a few children in there looking for books about horses.