Day 23 - Pine Bluff to Clarksdale, MS

One of my favourite films is the Blues Brothers. There is a scene where they say something like we are 24 hours form Chicago, it's dark and we are wearing sunglasses. Today, we had breakfast at 6am just after the sun came up. We were on the road at 6:30 and I worked it out that I had 135 miles between me and the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, MS. So, I decided today I would be on a mission to get there in time to go tot the museum.

Normally my roomie Greg and I are the last to leave in the morning. I'm not sure how we manage it but, by the time we pack our bags everyone has left. Not today. I started off fast(ish) with Jeanine today. We got the hell out of Pine Bluff, crossed the Arkansas river (which is a lot bigger than I thought) and then headed off into eastern Arkansas. Passing one of the many soy bean fields, or maybe it was a corn field and Jeanine got a flat tire. By the time we got it fixed, it seemed like the whole world rode passed us by. This pissed me off so I decided it was time to get into time trial mode. Riding at 27mph for about 1/2 an hour and we'd caught up to everybody again.

After this, we started riding in 10 man paceline which was pretty exciting. The highlight of this was we we got to watch a crop duster and then saw him buzz us. Thanks to young Greg for the video

By the afternoon, our paceline had whittled down to just 5 of us. Young Greg, Jeanine, Lori, myself and Steve (the part time guy). We tacked the only hill of the day which turned out to be the bridge across the Mississippi. Everyone told me that it was narrow and dangerous. Obviously none of these people have ever ridden across the Long view bridge on Seattle to Portland weekend...

The last 30 odd miles into Clarksdale were like the rest of the ride. Flat, hot and humid. Fortunately we'd gone fast enough for me to get to the Blues Museum. After a quick shower, it was out the door to get my fill of the blues. Pretty cool museum if you happen to be in the Delta.

I went for a short bike ride round town afterwards. Like most of our hotels, it's at the edge of town so it felt like a luxury to wander round town. After shooting a few pics, I looked up at the sky and saw that it was turning black. One last quick time trial back towards the hotel, with a quick pit stop to buy beer and I manage to get back home before the rain dumped.

Photos are here.

Tomorrow we are off to Oprah Winfrey's home town. It's also a long day (140 miles) and unfortunately rain is expected too. Oh well.

Life is good. I'm not looking forward to coming back to reality.