This post is Rusty's take on the ride.

I've been trying to come up with some profound or witty comments about our adventure along the Mississippi River, but my mind is not coming up with such thoughts. This being the case, I will just give you what I have.

I have been amazed at the contrast between the small towns we rode through this time and those we did last year. The towns from Arizona to Louisiana in large part were vibrant and alive, particularly in Texas. The ones we visited along the river were mostly dead - hardly any had even a semblance of a grocery store or a gas station. What passed for their main streets were about 3/4 boarded up. I am glad that our little city on the Oregon coast, while having its share of closed businesses, still has the essential services for life and we don't have to drive ten or more miles to buy groceries, etc.

I noticed a lot of segregation on the trip. It may be unintentional, but it is there nevertheless. Black neighborhoods are generally poorly maintained, while white ones mostly look nice. Talking to people, we found that the public schools are mainly filled with minorities while the white kids are going to private schools. As we moved further north this seemed to moderate and mostly the minorities were a smaller proportion of the population. It was an interesting sociological journey. I need to read more about blacks in the South and about the civil rights struggles of the past. It appears to me that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream is still not realized. East St. Louis was a real eye-opener for me - not boarded up houses, but acres and acres of empty lots, where housing and buildings that were once businesses have disappeared. The attitude of residents (of all colors) about crime in their neighborhoods was surprising - a kind of despair that nothing can be done about the bad part of life in some of the areas. This is not the fulfillment of the American dream, more like an American nightmare.

I saw a lot of rich, black soil as we rode near the river. This fabulous farmland is not all being used as there were fields lying idle, particularly in the South. This great soil comes at a price - periodic flooding of the Mississippi and other rivers along the route. We saw a little bit of that flooding from St. Louis north for about 100 miles. At times, the river was lapping right up to the road we were travelling and then others it was totally covering up roads close to the river. This is not the devastating kind of flood that we might have seen last year had we come up the river.

I found out the difficulty of crossing big rivers on a bicycle. Mostly, the bridges are for Interstate highways that don't allow bicycles or older narrow (really narrow) spans that have barely enough room for two lanes of auto and truck traffic let alone a bicycle hugging the right side. It was a real tough decision for me to make an optional crossing of the river to see something interesting on the west side.

Roads. Louisiana - consistently poor. Mississippi - only a step above Louisiana. Arkansas - the best of the trip, but we rode less than 100 miles in the state. Wide shoulders for cyclists and in the best repair of any of the states. Tennessee - generally decent. Kentucky - decent, but again less than 100 miles ridden. Illinois - next to Arkansas the best roads, but little shoulder for cyclists. The cities in Illinois had generally poor roads compared to the county roads and state highways that we travelled. Wisconsin - hard to say since well over half of our travel through the state was on bike paths. Can't say enough good about the paths, except that the literature we had didn't have the up to date info on some of the paths. City streets that we did have to ride could be improved.

I will close with my admiration for Georgia. I am grateful to her for getting me off of the couch and onto a bicycle. I feel stronger and better than I have felt in many years. She is a continual example to me of perseverance. We were carrying comparable loads, but she could power up hills that stopped me. This could be a blessing in disguise since I got some cross training pushing the bike up those hills. She is continually optimistic and happy, even when I misread the map and we go five miles out of our way up some heavy duty hills. I am so grateful to her for sharing her life with me. There is no way for me to repay her, but I will try to by writing little paragraphs like this one.

I am grateful to have made this ride and even more grateful that it is finished.

rh

Side Note by Georgia: I want to remind Rusty and everyone that this ride was his idea! It was great to be "invited" to join him! Wait! Does this mean that it's my turn to come up with the next ride?