October 6

I had a 5:30 wakeup call, and had the bike loaded and ready to go by the time the hotels breakfast started at 6.  Sadly, no waffle iron, so I had to suffice with a banana and some yogurt.  It was still dark when I fired up the bike, so I switched out to my clear visor and headed for I-30.  I had decided last night that I would take the interstates today.  It was longer, mileage-wise, since I had to head north to Memphis before I could run back south.  My other option was to take US-65 south and cross the Mississippi at Greenville, MS.  Less miles, but a lot more miles on local roads with towns and stoplights.  Today was about making time, and that meant interstates.

My thermometer showed air temperature of 72 degrees, so I started out in my summer jacket.  Mistake!  With the high humidity, I was cold, and stopped after a few miles to switch out to the Kilimanjaro jacket.  MUCH better!  Rush hour traffic in Little Rock was heavy but moved right along, and I cleared the city shortly after sunup.  After a few exits I was back in familiar territory…Eric and I had been on I-40 the second day of the trip.  The skies were a leaden overcast, and I wondered if these could be clouds from Tropical Storm Tammy…sure seemed like a long way, since her center was in south Georgia today.  Then I remembered that there was a cold front coming across the country right now, and figured that I was on the edge of it.

About 100 miles out I made my first gas stop of the day.  As I was beginning to saddle back up, a red BMW R100 pulled up to an adjoining pump.  The rider was wearing a blue Aerostitch that was badly faded.  I walked over to chat.  He was from Austin, headed for a BMW rally in Shelby, TN.  He had camped in Little Rock that night and said that the mosquitoes nearly carried him away.  I took a quick look at the bike, he had well over 100K miles on it, and had it set up nicely for touring.  After a few minutes he headed off to McDonalds to grab a bite, and I headed back to the slab. 

Just outside of Memphis, a sea of taillights appeared.  That could NOT be good.  Traffic slowed to a dead stop.  RATS.  On a day when I was trying to make time.  I looked at the clock, it was 9:25AM.  A few minutes passed with no movement, so I shut down the bike and walked into the median to see what was going on.  Traffic was stopped as far as I could see.  DOUBLE RATS.  This could take a while.  I consulted the GPS and saw that there was a road just to the south of the Interstate that paralleled it, and ran right into Memphis.  I looked in that direction and could see the road, and noticed that there were a lot of 18-wheelers on it…they had probably heard about the backup and going around.  So now I just had to get there.  The median was probably 60 feet wide, with a ditch about 5 feet deep, covered with grass that was almost knee high.  I walked back down to the lowest point to make sure that the ground was firm…it was.  The challenge would be the grass.  The sides of the ditch were pretty steep, and that grass was going to be really slick.  I decided that if I lost traction trying to climb out the other side, I would just ride along the bottom of the ditch until it shallowed out a bit.  I mounted up and pointed the front wheel towards the median.  Just as my front wheel dropped off the pavement, I caught motion in the corner of my eye.  Traffic was moving!  Just my stinking luck!  I pulled on the bars to back the bike up and get back into the traffic flow, but I could not get the front wheel back up on the pavement…. the drop-off was just a tad too high for me to muscle the bike back up.  I tried rocking it, pulling as hard as I could, everything…no luck.  I decided to turn the bars full lock to the right and do a 180, using the power of the bike to get back on the pavement.  Remember how I said the slopes of the ditch were really steep?  Well, by the time I got the bike halfway around, the foot pegs on the right side were digging into the dirt, and my left leg was extended all the way, and I could barely touch down with my toes!   As I applied a dab of power, the rear wheel broke loose on the slick grass and spun downhill.  But finally, feathering the clutch and using the throttle lightly, I was able to get the bike turned around and back on the pavement.  I was sweating!  It would have been really hard to pick the bike up on that slope!  What I SHOULD have done was stayed out of the ditch, and just turned the bike around and motored slowly along the shoulder or in the emergency lane, on the pavement.  I won’t make that mistake again!

Traffic moved slowly past the obstruction.  The police were cleaning up after a bad wreck.  It looked like a semi pulling a flatbed trailer full of huge iron girders had blown a tire and lost control, and that one of the girders had come loose and hit the truck behind him.  That second truck was obliterated.  The girder had wiped everything off of the chassis…engine, cab, sleeper, everything…then it had burned.  There was no way that the driver could have survived.  I felt sad and stupid.  I had been irritated about being delayed.  But there was a trucker that had just been out doing his job this morning, trying to pay the bills, that would not be coming home…and another one that would have to live with the memory of this accident for the rest of his life.

Later, Lana told me that this accident had made national news, that one trucker had died, and traffic had been backed up for over four hours.  I guess I got there long after the accident, and was just delayed by the cleanup crew.

As I crossed the Mississippi, I came out from under the leading edge of the cold front.  The skies cleared, and the temperature rose.  Another big city with its heavy traffic, but once again it moved well, and I soon found my southbound road, US-78, which would take me to Birmingham.  78 was my first of two non-interstate stretches for the day, meaning that I would have to stay in the saddle and stay focused if I wanted to keep my schedule.  I was happy to see that it was a divided 4 lane with a 70 MPH speed limit.  But when I crossed into Alabama the limit dropped to 65, and the route alternated between divided 4-lane and regular 2-lane, with 55 MPH limits, towns, and traffic lights.  The skies began to darken again, and I occasionally hit a sprinkle of rain.  I was seeing the outer edges of TS Tammy in the distance.  Around 1PM I stopped a McDonalds east of Jasper, where the staff had obviously lost the concept of “fast” food.  It took about 10 minutes to get my Quarter Pounder, and about 2 minutes to eat it!  Back on the road, I joined I-65 in Birmingham, and had not quite cleared the city limits when the rain started.  It alternated between light sprinkles and heavy downpours all the way to Montgomery, where the rain ended, but the overcast remained.  I fueled again on the south side of Montgomery and headed home on US-231, another divided 4-lane with 65 MPH limits.  This was the home stretch.  The GPS showed that I had an overall average speed (my average speed from the beginning of the day, including stops) of 57 MPH…not good enough to get me home by 6:30, for a total of 12 hours on the road.  I estimated the remaining mileage and did some quick head math, and decided that I MIGHT make it by 7, more likely 7:30.  I usually called Lana by 6, and hoped she would not begin to worry, or worse yet, suspect that I was striking for home tonight!  I thought about stopping to call her and tell her that I was holed up in a hotel somewhere, but decided against it…I would probably say something that would blow my story.  Best to stay on the road and burn up the miles. 

Time passed quickly and soon I was approaching Dothan, AL.  There had only been a few radar rabbits today, but about 20 miles out, a blue SUV with dark tinted windows passed me, doing about 15 MPH more than I was.  “You will make a good radar screen”, I said aloud in my helmet.  He stayed in the fast lane and was quickly overtaking an 18-wheeler, so I moved into the left lane and rolled on the gas, feeling that wonderful, effortless WHOOSH of power that is so intoxicating on this bike.  Just as the SUV came up on the rear of the truck, I noticed that the truck was drifting left…sure enough; he crossed the centerline, and was drifting over to the SUV!  The SUV jammed on his brakes and horn, and the trucker, who must have dosed off, jerked the truck back into his lane, braking hard as well.  With both vehicles in front of me hard on the brakes, I thought it best to slow down, too, so I checked my mirrors to make sure I didn’t have anybody closing in my rear and bled some speed off.  By the time the SUV and truck quit slowing down, I was only about 4 car-lengths behind the SUV.  Suddenly, a row of blue lights flashed from behind the dark tint of the SUV’s windows.  He was an unmarked state trooper!  He pulled in front of the truck and forced him over, and I cruised on down the road, wondering how long that trooper would have let me tag along with him at 15 over before he got tired of me and taught me a lesson. 

Be careful of radar rabbits with dark tinted windows, you just might get a surprise!

The sun was setting as I headed south out of Dothan.  I pulled over at the Florida line to switch from my tinted visor to the clear one.  I also noticed that the gas station on the Alabama side of the line was $2.99, and pumped dry.  Not a good sign, since Florida is always a few cents higher.  Hard to believe that gas was $1.50 a gallon a year ago. 

During the last few miles of my run on 231, the skies cleared enough to expose a delicate crescent moon and the North Star.  They were only out a moment before the clouds covered them again.

I rolled into my driveway at 7:30.  I had covered 720 miles in 13 hours.  The house was dark, and I wondered if Lana was at home.  I opened the garage and found both cars there, so guessed that she was in the back of the house.  I pulled the camera out of my breast pocket, hoping to capture her look when I walked in a day early.  As I opened the door, I heard her voice…she was on the phone, just as I had left her, 13 days ago.

Next

Home