DAY FIVE TUESDAY JULY 12, 2011
Day five found me awake without my
alarm at 4am. I walked over to the truck
stop and got a cup of coffee, pretty good coffee, and carried it back to the
room. I packed my gear and got it on the
bike. The motel had a concrete walkway which ran its entire length. My unit set high above the parking lot, about
3 feet, so there were a few steps poured down to the parking spot where Betts
was. I felt like Aragorn at Helms Deep as I sat on the walk, looking east and
waited for the sun to rise.
I was so intent on making mileage
yesterday, that I didn’t note the landscape.
Somewhere east of Oklahoma City, the foliage had changed from the plains
to the forest. Before OK City, there
were shrubs and a few trees with dense tree cover in gulches and creek banks,
but here in Checotah, the trees pushed themselves up in full stature and
stretched limbs out to tickle each others extended fingers. I could see where the understory area had the
look of a forest floor that the tree canopy had blocked enough sunlight that
there weren’t as many smaller plants.
As the sky brightened I could see some
cleared fields. The swallows, or
martins, were swooping and diving over the field. There was a
haze over the field where the air neat the soil, still warm from the
ground which never really released the heat of the day mixed with the cooler
air above. It was a soupy mix of
moisture, bugs, truck fumes and feeding birds.
Gradually, the sun beat back the night,
lights started coming on in the motel rooms, and the sounds of a human day grew
louder than the sound of nature. I
turned in my room key, got on the bike and added my engine to the noise.
700 miles to Notasulga, Alabama. I charted by course through Little Rock,
Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Tupelo, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama, then
down US Hwy 280 into Dadeville, then off side roads through Reel town and
Liberty City and into sleepy Notasulga.
Leaving Checotah, I was struck by the
flavor of John Cougar Mellancamp. The
kids at the Sonic, the hot, humid nights, that solid stalwart attitude of the
American farmlands all gave me a sense of peace. There is a need, in a nation, for a common
thread. The language binds us still, but
the attitude of the American still is a ‘let’s make this work” kind of
pathos. The desert southwest had a calm
in the face of an environment which was not designed for humans. California is hard to nail down because it is
so diverse within itself… childish, sincere, hard working, fun loving, hurt,
but trusting… California is an enigma.
Texans seemed the most
independent. They kept to themselves and
expected you to as well. They were
friendly enough, but they left no bones about it, they had their stuff
together, so pay mind and stay outta the way.
Oklahoma and Arkansas are the solid country folk who will help a
stranger, but they carry that same thread of strength of character as the
Texans. All the people I met knew that
it was right to help a stranger. They
all knew that level heads and clear thinking was the best course. They all agreed that hard work is better than
luck, but not luck could sink you even if you worked hard. We have that core American belief that our
futures are ours to break… other people may destroy the environment where you
can succeed, but there is no need to lend a hand in that destruction.
I thought about these people as I rode
and watched the land come into the day.
As I got closer to the Mississippi river, the land use became
denser. More cows, more fields, more
towns that John Cougar would be at home in.
I crossed the big muddy river at about
noon. I wanted to pull over, but there
was no room. I kept one eye on the river
as I rode, and then conjured the image in my mind as I left the Mississippi
behind. The great divide between the
east and the west. No I am truly in the
East again. Memphis, Tennessee is under
my tires and the Southland is in the air.
I found myself humming Indigo Girls
“Something About the Southland in the Spring Time” as I tooled past the city of
Memphis. I stopped at a McDonalds before
I got too far and looked at the google maps.
I saw where my road peeled off the bypass around Memphis. One of the men who east breakfast at
McDonalds warned me about the exit to get on US Highway 78 to Birmingham… it
looked more like a driveway than an exit.
I pulled off onto 78 and found myself on a city street wondering if I
was on the wrong road. Scanning the
road, I found the marker sign for US 78 and pressed on. At one point it was bumper to bumper with the
majority of the vehicles being tractor trailers.
I didn’t like being in stopped traffic
in 95+ degree weather while sitting on top of an air cooled motor. It turns out that a traffic light had malfunctioned
and there was a snarl in the road. No police,
no traffic directing, just the will of the drivers as they got their turn at
the intersection. It took a long time,
but soon, I was through the intersection.
I stopped at a gas station and a woman
on a Harley pulled up. We talked bikes
for awhile and she sat down at a bar stool where I ate some jerky and bought a
fountain drink. She was intrigued at the
story of the trip. I gave her a link to
the route through Yosemite, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon and the Indian
Reservations. She said she would like to
try that sometime. I really doubt she
will, but you never know.
I crossed into Mississippi and I could
feel the urge to press on and be home.
The rolling hills of the Appalachians began to rise up in front of
me. As the hills rose, the rain clouds
increased as well. I stopped and looked
at the weather radar… thunderstorms dotted the southeast. The possibility if rain didn’t really worry
me anymore.
I crossed into Alabama. I was taking in
the sight: large rolling hills completely covered in trees. There were no gaps in the tree canopy except
where an outcrop of rock might peek through.
I could tell it had been raining here recently because the air had that
fresh-rain smell that comes after a storm.
There is a musty ‘its just started to rain’ smell, then there is that
after rain that smells of pine and sweet gum resin and leaf mulch.
The sky darkened and the temperature
dropped. The tree-covered valleys had
those wispy bits of cloud hanging onto the tops of the trees and there were
some very low level cloud banks just above the hill tops. I looked forward, down the highway, and saw
the unmistakable signs of approaching rain.
I stopped at an exit and got my rain gear on, ate something and hit the
road again.
The temperature dropped from the mid
90’s to lower 70’s in the span of a few minutes and then the rain came. It was an easy rain to ride in, not the
blowing torrential downpours that make me regret being on a bike. It lasted about 20 minutes and as the rain
stopped, the temperature again climbed into the heat of summer. I got the rain gear back off and rode through
a just-washed landscape.
78 is also called Future Interstate
22. You have to exit the highway because
it is unfinished. I took the last exit
and followed the signs to Birmingham downtown.
78 runs into the Forestdale area of Birmingham. I stopped at, yes, a McDonalds to check the
weather. A couple of older African
American ladies sat at a table right next to me and struck up a conversation.
“That bike you got? What kind is it?” asked one of the women.
“It’s a BMW. Sort of a cross between a race bike and a
Harley.” I shut the lid on my laptop. “I
bought it Monday in California and rode it back here.”
Black woman have the most expressive
faces… they are great to talk with. The
lady’s eyes opened wide, then a smile went all across her face, “You serious?”
“Yep” I said.
They looked at each other and crossed
their hands on the table in front of them in a truly elegant fashion that I
believe only real Southern women can and one of them said “Well, then, you need
to tells us about it, now don’t you?”
These words were given in a cadence that says “No need to hurry through
this, just let us hear a good story open up like a rose."
“Yes Ma’am.” They sat and asked questions and laughed and
gave little stories of their own about the places they had seen. I noticed that my stories involved people and
places whereas their stories were only about people. The only reference to a place was its name,
not the color of the sky or the contours of the Earth. Each land and each group within that land has
a different set of rules in story telling and conversation and I love them all,
but the South has become, for me, my favorite place to spin a yarn. The white folk tell it one way, the African,
another, but both are uniquely Southern in the flavor. Its kinda like the tea… sweet, but strong and
made, not for the gulping, but for the long slow sipping that works best on a
porch after, or during the rain..
They looked at my laptop screen and
then they pulled out their iPhones and we all looked at the weather. It struck me that here was something which
has changed… 50 year-old something black women with iPhones blinged out checking the
weather.
“Ooooo honey, that old man weather is
chasin you! You’d better g, o, go!”
pointing wildly at the screen.
I looked at the green yellow and red
and decided she was right, “For sure… it was nice visiting with you.”
“You be careful, now.” The shorter of
the two gave me a stern look and I nodded. I believe she gave that stern 'mother' look even though our relationship was born 40 minutes ago and was drawing to a close right now.
“Yes Ma’am… you too.”
I got back on the bike as the rain
crept in, but I moved so quickly through the streets, that it slacked off and
stopped. I picked up I 65 to bypass I
459 and took the Mountain Brook exit onto US 280. It was a familiar road from there and I
hardly noticed the passage of the miles.
I got to Dadeville Alabama and took Al 49 south and wound along and
through the hills surrounding Lake Martin.
The sun was completely below the horizon and the sky was an auburn
color. Unlike the desert, Alabama has no
long vistas unless you are on top of a hill.
The tree canopy is so tall and thick that the only view of the sky is nearly
straight up. The outline of the boughs
and leaves were impossibly black against the auburn sky.
There is a section of this last leg
that runs from Reeltown to Liberty City… it runs through some prime wiregrass
hay fields. The tree canopy gave way
and, for a rare moment, a vista opens. I
rode through land like a rolling sea with no white caps, covered in Bermuda
hay. Some of the fields offer a full
mile view of the choicest hay fields I have ever seen. Round bales of hay dot the field and a thick
smell of silage was wafted off the field by lazy summer evening breezes.
Further along, past Liberty Ciy,
Alabama 14 winds through pecan groves and finally into Notasulga.
I pulled up onto the concrete pad
leading to my front door and sat back on the seat of the BMW. I looked over the bike and my hands and
thought it was strange to actually be here at the end of an epic journey. It was almost like I wasn’t really sure I was
going to make it, this trip… now I was here.
My home is an old Southern country home
with 12 foot ceilings and a 12-12 roof pitch.
It has a cozy front porch and 2 large Chinese Elms out front and 4 very
old Pecan trees on the side and in the back.
I sat under the whispering leaves of the elms and listened to the
familiar voices of the elms. A breeze
came out of the East and carried the spicy smell of the pecans my way.
By now it was darker outside than in
and I could see Trina at the dining room table with my son, Aiden playing with toy cars beside her. I could smell dinner mixing with
the smell of the Southland on the breeze as well. All of the familiar items of my life were with me
again. It’s that way sometimes, you have
to leave all the things around you to really appreciate what they mean to you
when you are back in the middle of them.
This is what home really is: home is the place that, when you have
everything removed from you, you are willing to risk everything to get back to
it.
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