XC Run Day 26

De gustibus non est disputandum.


I can not find the beauty in Alabama nor Mississippi. I know it's there, but my eye slides by it. Restlessly searching the close trees, draped with the all invasive Kudzu, the small fields peeking from tiny cracks in that green wall, the occasional garishly red scar of dirt road, it finds nothing that penetrates beyond the retina to the brain and certainly not the soul.

It is not the land. It is me. Just not my cup of tea. But it did give me the opportunity to use the opening quote -- and that, especially for those of us who suffered through all those years of Latin, may be worth the price of admission.

Memphis is a three ring circus of trucks.

Trucks own Memphis. And they drive like it.

It reminds me of La Guardia years ago, when we'd be stacked three deep in the "Allys", watching the fuel gauges, shutting down engines when we could, waiting for the sound of freedom: "Mall 57, got your power spooled up?...you are cleared for short take-off, from taxiway double Julie, runway 24 --- good luck, five seven.". (Found out, years later, the controllers used to take bets, especially on hot days, on whether we'd make it or not.)

I rolled out of Columbus, MS this morning under clear blue skies. Temps in the low 70s. Perfect. It's only about 200 miles to Memphis, where I was to meet Bear & Co. the next morning, so I looked forward to an easy day rollin' through the middle of Mississippi, on roads I'd never traveled before. And it was.

Until Memphis.

Oh, nothing terrible happened. Nothing at all, really. Except trucks. I'm certified to teach, and for a long time in my career did teach, the National Safety Council's Professional Truck Driver's Defensive and Safe Driving Course. I believe I can assert, without fear of error, that none a them *$#@*! bozos in and around Memphis ever took my class.

There, I feel better now.

Memphis is, in many ways, America's distribution center. The nexus of a huge railhead for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (probably the only time anyone will see Vermont and New Mexico in the same name) and several major Interstates including I-40, probably the biggest East-West artery in the country. So it's full of trucks. Lines and lines of trucks, in every lane, passin' each other, runnin' wherever they want. Ya just about have to run on the shoulder to see the road signs.

Obviously, I survived to merge onto 240, thence to I-40 and over the Mississippi to Arkansas and West Memphis, where I was to meet Bear at the Flying J at exit 182. Except the exits in West Memphis (which, Bear, until last night I had never heard of -- you did say Memphis, LOL) were in the 280s. So I took my life in my hands, pulled into the right lane, managed to find the Arkansas Welcome Station and got the heck off that insane road to call Bear.

Turns out he meant Nashville (heck, they're both in Tennessee) -- several hundred miles in my rear view mirrors.

Yup. I am now officially on the FMRC part of the trip, that's for sure. When it comes to runs and events, we are the most disorganized bunch on the planet and, to tell the truth, we, me included, like it that way. Drives the Gold Wing riders amongst us nuts (You were riding a quarter inch outside of your assigned place in the formation. My God, man -- look at the diagram, look at the diagram!) and makes the Harley Gods happy.

So, after Bear and I got done laughing, I pulled out onto that damn 40 -- and found a parking lot. Don't know what happened, but the few 4 wheelers had shut off their engines. Nuthin' but trucks as far as you could see and the sound of idlin' diesels. Fortunately, I was just shy of the turn off for 147, the way to old US 64 where I wanted to be anyway. Hit that aforementioned shoulder and headed Northwest.

I like Arkansas. It's soybean country in the eastern part of the state. Got some vistas -- big fields that stretch way out. Flat here, one sees, in the far distance, the hazy outlines of grain elevators miles away. I keep looking for the mountains, perhaps thinking I'm back in California, awaiting the sawtooth of peaks cutting into the horizon. But the Ozarks don't appear. They're old hills, stoop shouldered, worn down by eons. Little more than hills, really. They'll pop up eventually and they're pretty, been in 'em before.

So I ran the old road through the state, enjoying the cool of that big front moving through the country to do battle with Earl out in the ocean. And I hope it keeps him out to sea, but I worry too. This kind of collision breeds those big storms in the North Atlantic, especially off the Grand Banks. The kind that have made so many New England widows. Hope those little 'liners and draggers have found a safe harbor.

The Navy Hymn goes thus:


Lord, stand beside all those who sail
Our merchant ships in storm and gale,
In peace and war their watch they keep
On every sea, on thy vast deep.
Be with them, Lord, by night and day,
For Merchant Mariners we pray.

Ten miles out of Russellville, back on 40, I felt the wind shift and knew I'd crossed the frontal boundary. The rain came and I pushed on into town and hunkered down for the night. Right at the beginning of the "Pig Tail", Highway 7, runnin' through the Ozarks to Marble Falls, the Hub and the Brethren.

So tomorrow I'll make that run. Might be wet, hope it'll be dry but I know it will be good.

And, a thousand miles or more from that storm tossed sea, my thoughts will still go, as they often do, to those men who go down to the sea in ships.