DAILY BLOG

With our blessed rest day over, we headed out this morning from the Tupelo, MS area to Birmingham, AL. Actually, instead of Tupelo, we drove down south about 20 miles to the town of Amory, because we suspected the roads from Amory to Birmingham would be much less traveled than the busy-as-an-interstate 78 East that goes from Tupelo-Birmingham.

Many rolling hills today

Another state

Not complaining, but the day was once again dominated by the heat. To qualify, we fully expected this when we scheduled a ride across the southeast in July! Triple digit temperatures again—this time with its dreaded cohort in the south—high humidity. I think today we were impacted by the temperature the most since Day #3 in Arizona—although this was still better than those awful days in the California desert.

Rich beating Jared up a hill

After about 20 miles in Mississippi, we crossed the Alabama state line. I was struck by three things on my first day riding in Alabama. First, of all of the states we’ve gone through, Alabama drivers seem to be the most impatient of bicyclists. It was interesting that literally as soon we crossed the state line, we began to have several drivers honk at us in irritation if they were delayed by even a few seconds. The honk was apparently their sign of disapproval of us being on the road. We had maybe 1-2 drivers do this in Oklahoma, but drivers have generally been great along the way. Fortunately, most of the drivers were fine and all of the semis gave us enough room and were generally patient.

Second, on the Alabama state highways we went on, there was litter everywhere—miles and miles and miles of it. Really sad. They need to have those sponsor-a-mile of highway programs for Hwy 18!

Third, there are more churches per mile in Alabama than any other state we’ve gone though. It is dizzying how many small churches there. I hope that these churches are ministering the many in need in this part of the state.

Jordan had some good miles today

Vines taking over the hills in this region of Alabama

The rest day had its intended positive effect on me. In the morning, my legs felt as strong today as they had since Colorado! However, by afternoon, the heat had taken its toll and it was a definitely a challenge to finish up today. The scheduled milage today was around 112 miles. We ended up having to cut short the last 15 miles in order to make it into Birmingham by the evening.

Rich trying to get a few more miles in before the end of day

Here’s one thought I have had since Oklahoma and finally remembered to blog. Small town America, at least in the Great Plains and South, is in a sad state of decay. We’ve ridden through town after town through Oklahoma-Arkansas-Mississippi-Alabama and have seen one abandoned home & store after another. It seems like all of economic development is taking place in the bigger cities, suburbs, and occasional small towns. But many many small towns are hanging on for dear life. I’d really like to read a book on this whole issue.

A couple really funny moments of the day. We came across a church called Little Hope. Why would they have chosen that name? Jordan’s immediate comment: “It’s like they just gave up!”

Second, we came across a store called Swampdaddy. We took a picture of the memorable sign.

Here’s a brief YouTube clip of Justy sharing the story of the Swampdaddy.