The Crooked Letter State

After spending a couple of days in Arkansas, hanging out with friends and family, we finally got across the boarder into Mississippi this morning. Last night we holed up in a small park on the bank of Lake Village, resting up to battle the heat today. Getting there mid-day, we had sun light to burn, filling our time by playing horse on the neighboring basketball court and organizing our bags with all our new food.

The heat here is unlike Florida, I've never seen it this hot in this area. We found some cabins to hide under for a couple hours but you sit there and sweat pours off you. We probably drank over two gallons of water a piece just replenishing what we were losing and hydrating for today. After the sun went down, we got our sleep because today we were waking up at 3 AM to ride out at 4 AM.

Our route is on Highway 82 that crosses Mississippi from east to west and will take us into Alabama. This morning we hit the road with all our lights on but had the road to ourselves. After about 6 miles, we came up on the Mississippi River and a massive bridge. To motorist, bridges are cool. There's stuff to look at, it makes neat sounds when you drive over it, you watch the river run under your tires...its the bees knees. On a bike though, it means no shoulder, no divider, and a climbing sprint. The thing about the bridge crossing at Lake Village is that it turns so you can see trucks coming at you but they won't see you. So there we were, 4:30 AM, lit up like a Christmas tree, sprinting at 35 mph up this bridge and I spot a semi coming up behind us.

We both jumped off our bikes, stepped up on a foot wide walk way on the side and pulled our bikes towards us, flashing the truckers windows so they see us. We did this a couple times on that two mile bridge but it worked pretty well, the truckers give us some good morning honks.

Because we started so early, we got about 30 miles done before sun up and beat the heat. 82 is pretty nice for biking, the shoulder sucks but the traffic is low and slow so you can take the right lane for yourself. Our only rest stops were two Wal-Marts in Greenville and Greenwood to get drinks and escape the heat, I think the heat index is 105 here today.

Tonight we have a small camp site and a long day tomorrow. We hope to get to Mississippi State in Starkville tomorrow about 90 miles away. If we have the clear roads and zero wind like today, we can average around 21 mph and get there before the heat hits.

Since we haven't posted anything in a while, here's a couple of pictures from Arkansas. The first of of Cotton's house. Cotton bought this large piece of property and started filling it with random antiques that people drop off for him. Anything from pool tables to dishware, chess pieces to guns, this guys got it on his walls, and he still lives there! It was so hot and crouded but very cool at the same time. He said we're not aloud back unless we bring something to put up, see you soon Cotton!

The second photo is of Petit Jean Mountain. The story of Petit Jean started in France in the 1700 with Chavet the explorer. Chavet and Petit Jean were engaged to be married but Chavet was to explorer the Louisiana Territory before the wedding and had to leave Petit. Wanting to join in his adventure, Petit Jean disguised herself as deck hand on Chavet's own boat and made it all the way to Arkansas. After the party had hiked to the top of this sacred Indian mountain, Petit Jean became ill and her true identity was reviled. Her last request was to be buried on top of this mountain overlooking the new Territory and her grave still remains at the top.

The last photo is of our camp site last night in Lake Village. It wasn't much but we got creative and made a cool day out of it.