On the Road. The Rider's Journal

Part 12:
Dorset, England. 20 November, 2006.

It was with a minor jolt that I arrived back in Minneapolis last week from where I was to catch the plane home. The warmth and sunshine of the Deep South had flatly refused to travel north with me, leaving these otherwise-lovely Twin Cities exposed to grey skies, bare wintry trees, a cold Mississippi waterfront, and some cutting winds which blew round every corner like a berserk chainsaw.

I was glad to be out of the saddle.

Time now maybe, to reflect on a few of the highlights from a bike ride that took me from the source of this mighty river, down through the American heartlands, and finally to where I literally ran out of road, south of New Orleans. And time indeed, to thank everyone who has been following this site....in which there's been a quite extraordinary amount of interest.

I do not know precisely why that should be. The adventure aspect perhaps? Or is it something to do with a perceived freedom associated with the open road? The people and stories I came across maybe? Was it simply the cycling/health/fitness aspect? Or the simple fact that this has been the longest journey ever made on an electric-assist bike? Whatever, I am most grateful to all you diehards for joining-up to the Ecover Mississippi Marathon in the first place, and for staying the course with me.

I knew it was going to be an oddball kind of ride when I first set foot in Park Rapids, Minnesota, the nearest city to the source of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. Mine Hosts at the Red Bridge Inn were a wonderful couple whose appreciation of anything out of the norm is so easily recognizable via their everyday car - a 1948 Cadillac. Like almost everyone else en-route, they could not do enough for me.

The 'State of Ten Thousand Lakes' is a stunningly beautiful place, particularly during the summer months when sparkling deep waters glisten at you from all directions and eagles swoop down from overhead. There is room to breathe in Minnesota, and the freshest air in the world to go with it. Minnesota in the sunshine feeds your soul.

Also, there is space for the cyclist to roam freely in Minneapolis/St Paul. The twin cities are bike-friendly to a remarkable degree compared with most of the United States. On one sunny Sunday afternoon, I think I counted more bicycles than cars.

The Minnesota roads are good too, with decent surfacing and ample shoulder space. Alas, I cannot say the same for neighbouring Iowa - particularly in the south-east part of the state - where wretched surfaces, zero-shoulders, and the incessant stream of 18-wheeler semi trailers thundering along one-lane highways made this section of the ride nothing short of diabolical and potentially deadly.

Which is not to rebuke Iowa itself. Guttenberg is a super little riverside port, a paradise for recreational users of the river; and so is the not-so-little DuBuque, where the state-of-the-art Mississippi River Museum, an A1 class act, really does rock n'roll; Or Burlington, with its splendid old houses, it's steep and twisting Snake Alley, and its knockout views over the river from high up on Mosquito Park.

All the same, it was quite a relief to enter Missouri - that midway state that is half-north, and half Deep South. Hannibal is memorable because of Mark Twain; St Louis because the only way a cyclist can enter the city from the north is via a long stretch of road they call the 'shooting gallery' where crime, to put it mildly, is rampant; Ste Genevieve because of its obvious French history and its penchant for giving every resident a nickname that sticks; and the cream of the crop, Cape Girardeau, which offers the very best of views along the entire river, and some of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my life.

Arkansas surprised me, by the sheer, overwhelming hospitality shown to a stranger. An example of this was in the little-known river city of Osceola where I called in at a liquor store for a harmless bottle of wine to guzzle in my motel room after that evening's BBC broadcast.

I did not get out of that store for three hours.

The place is only an off-licence, as we would call them. Except that it's not merely an off-licence. It's where the townsfolk come to buy their needs - and then consume them on the premises while they shoot the breeze with the owner and his customers. It's not legal of course, but who the hell cares when the sheriff, the judge, and the mayor are among its regular patrons?

The small town of Helena was also a delight, as was meeting 'Sunshine' Sonny Payne whose daily blues radio show hasn't missed a beat for 56 years. This is where I met up with Robbie Whatling, the much-crashed crop duster pilot and the maintenance-man for the Elvis airplanes across the water at Graceland. And I'll not forget the Desha County judge, who is still having inexplicable trouble with his courthouse clock after a lynched man put a curse on it over 100 years ago. The judge had never met me in his life, yet insisted that I stay at his house. The next morning, with him and his family already gone to work, there was a pot of coffee waiting for me and the friendliest, most trusting of notes to say 'make yourself at home, stay another night or three, enjoy my garage' (and what a garage). Neither shall I forget the Arkansas hospitality of the park rangers at Lake Chicot - where I did stay 'another night' because of heavy rain. They would not accept any payment from me whatsoever.

Greenville, Mississippi, was a real surprise. I had expected a rough, dirty riverport; noise, pollution and all the rest. What I got was a quiet town and a quiet river - until the blues got underway in a local bar. Oh, and I got Kermit the Frog (he was born here); a restaurant where guests walk in and out through its kitchen; and a learned bookseller who specialises in Deep South material, but who would not at all be out of place at the annual Wye Literary Festival.

In Vicksburg - the Civil War capital of America - there was a story I didn't tell at the time. Environmental artist H.C. Porter has her studio and gallery on the main street, but it is through Hurricane Katrina that she's really beginning to make a name for herself. During the aftermath of that unbelievable storm, she decamped to New Orleans to shoot an evocative collection of black & white photographs, which she is now marrying-up to equally evocative music. The result is a forthcoming nationwide slide-show tour - a kind of photographic tragedy put to music - and the indicators are pointing it towards a monster sellout. That will put her face on a few influential front covers. You can learn more about her excellent work on www.hcporter.com

Vicksburg was where I boarded the towboat 'Dennis C. Bartthoff' for the 24-hour voyage to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Even though I was taking advantage of the physical rest, this was a definite highlight of the overall ride.

The captains and crews of these vessels are, in my view, modern day heroes. They work long, dangerous hours and are certainly the river's replacement for the steamboat era. Were it not for them, the freight and transport system across the USA would be in perpetually-clogged turmoil. One towboat of 172 feet in length pushing 20 fully-laden barges (another 1000 feet in length) relieves America's roads of a staggering 950 bumper-to-bumper semi trailers. Environmental matters are something I care about - and even though these boats undeniably burn up the diesel - just consider the alternative without them.

Unlike a truck driver, it takes years to become a towboat master - not perhaps in terms of licensing, but in terms of hard experience. Dwight Shinley, the captain aboard my vessel, says that he's still learning new things about the Mississippi River on every trip he makes.

"It changes constantly" he told me. "It can deceive you one minute, then deceive you again the next." Coming from a man who has been 30 years in the game, I believe him.

The open road can be deceptive too. While pedalling from Baton Rouge to somewhere called La Place, I saw distressing evidence of this....a simple wooden cross nailed to a tree with 'RIP' carved into it. This was a black spot where somebody had lost a life. It was my second encounter with a roadside cross in the space of a morning, and for some reason I felt compelled to take a picture.

The remainder of the ride, as summed-up in my previous entry, found New Orleans to be in pretty reasonable shape on the whole - unlike Venice, where the Mississippi finally runs out of road. That estuary region of wetlands and swamps had been flattened by Katrina, and even now, more than a year on, there are more people living down there in emergency trailers than in ordinary homes. I thought it not without irony that the last and final signpost of the ride simply read: DEAD END.

Back in New Orleans I came across an astonishing sight while cruising along Chartres Street in the French Quarter. I could hardly believe my own eyes.

Another electric bike, for God's sake; the only one (apart from my own) that I've seen along the way. It is the property of someone who calls himself 'Hard Hat Harry'. This one's got an electric engine in both front and rear wheels and looks like a mini-motorbike. Hard Hat Harry loves his machine, saying that it is the best way to get around the city anyway. Amen to that - particularly when afterwards I rode along a flat, peaceful street....only to find an overturned car at the next set of lights.

How can that happen with no other car involved?

"That's what we'd like to know" grunted a cop. "They've taken the driver to hospital."

Well, Hard Hat Harry was right. The electric bike IS the best way to get around a city like New Orleans, or any other city come to that. I won't say that it's the best machine on which to make a 2,000 mile journey, unless, that is, that's what you set out to do - in which case I say, bravo, go for it, it won't disappoint, and it WILL get you to wherever you're going.

Put another way, if I do another marathon ride, it will be astride an electric-assist bike, not a conventional cycle. They really do take the pain out of pedalling.

Just before I sign off, I want to respond to a recent email I got from the eZee bike dealer in Seattle. He told me that readers of this site asked him as many questions about me as they did the machine, and suggested that I respond in this round-up of the tour.

'Who is this guy? Did he really ride through Australia? If so, why? What does he do when he's not pedalling? Is he through with this line of pursuit? If so, what's next? If not, what's next?'

I remain slightly bemused that anyone should be interested in the rider, rather than the machine and its long journey down river. But just to add the human touch, as it were, here are the answers.

Who is this guy? Well, I'm a 61 year old travel writer and oddball traveller who has been 'blissfully de-married' for 18 years, and who still retains a slight restlessness - hence the long-distance rides.

Did he really ride through Australia? Yes, damn right I did, January, February, March, 2003. And if you want to know about that particular adventure, visit www.amazon.co.uk and order a copy of my book, 'Boomerang Road'.

If so, why? Because I wanted to - which to me anyway, is good enough reason to do anything at all.

Is he through with this line of pursuit? Good question, and the answer is I don't know. If it isn't cycling, then it'll be something else capable of combating an extremely low boredom threshold.

If so, what next? If not, what next? Another book, I rather fear. There was simply too much material gathered en-route for me to avoid a return to the keyboard.

And there was one other poignant question from a web site reader. 'What is it like to return home after all that time on the road?'

Working on the principle that blood is thicker than water, I've made a point of overnighting with my elder sister, Annette Godfrey, each time I return to the UK from a marathon ride or some such overseas trek. Her home in Surrey is very familiar and so, of course, is she. That somehow helps with the re-settling process - made all the easier this time by the presence of my other sister, Daphne van Marle. It was the first time that we three had been together under the same roof for quite a while, so I'm including a photograph of us on the very night that I returned from the Mississippi epic, 15 November, 2006.

As for this site, it will stay up for at least another nine months. I shall doubtless add to it from time to time with book progress details, new thoughts, general chat and so on - so do check in every now and then.

Meantime, thanks so much for your interest and your company along the way. It has been, and remains, very much appreciated.

Best wishes as ever

Quentin.
21 November,
2006.