Storming in the Alabama woods

Like the bum shot? I couldn't help it.

I'm back after a big day on the Expressways. I am in Memphis now and have spent hours riding and hours trying to sort my internet connection. It's like being dragged through barbed-wire slowly.

Anyway, batteries are dying and I need to get this fix out of the way. No idea what I'm doing tonight. It's been a big day for wittle boys.

I've just loaded up a shot of some 'Tea-Party' people I met as I was leaving Alabama. Lovely people, but seething with Obama-hatred and absolutely psychotic for Jesus. I was being soothingly talked to by Big Larry with his head on a tilt and a wagging finger in front of his Jesus-loving smile as he told me how the world really ran. 'So', I asked 'Do you think George Bush was a good president?' He paused. But said 'The only thing I think he did wrong was to overspend.' Well there's a moral compass for you. Blinded by the lurv of Jesus.

The shorter old guy in the pic is Jimmy, a Korean veteran who owned this beautiful natural granite 'bridge'. A natural formation pictured as well. He was great. Same politics as Larry and Brenda but easier on the sensibilities. Brenda actually said 'We ain't no Europeans, this is America, this is our country.' She became a tiny bit shrill but reined it in quickly with decorum and a girlish smile. I had a good long talk to them and they listened to my counter veiling views about the evils of a faceless corporations having all the rights but none of the responsibilities of citizens and being the legal proxies for real evil-doers in the world. The listened attentively but said afterwards that they loved hearing my 'Australian accident'. Did me good not to weaken out of good manners though.

I have been using the interstates to travel North to get it over quickly. Westwards travel will be on secondary roads. But to be honest the interstates do me in. The fairing is still a problem despite my protestations. I really do get buffeted by the trucks. But I can usually give them some distance and that helps.

I am heading to Little Rock and will stay in the National Parks west of there. The stay near Houston, Alabama was beautiful and a couple, Danny and Kimberly, invited me over for a glass or two of over-proof rum and coke and a long chat. It was a great evening and there was much head-nodding and a few good laughs. I got a cleare picture of what life is for normal people in the US. And they were very appreciably normal. They were good enough to inform me of an incoming storm they had wireless, so I was able to lash down the tent, secure the Guzzi, and put an extra tarp that Danny had over the top. I put the ear-plugs in at about three in the morning and slept like a very guilty baby. I actually left in the rain after a guiltily enjoyed breakfast with Dan and Kim. Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to pay the $8.15 that I owed on my camp-site. Talk about guilt(exclamation mark).

So Danny if you could let me know as to whether I can get that money to its rightful owner, can you give me the address in the comments spot below? Sorry if it caused some trouble. I felt like a fugitive until I hit that Mississippi border.

I have to run, I want to see the Mississippi. I will cruise through Memphis and try to find something in Arkansas tonight. Try to charge some batteries too. I am enjoying this blog but the frustration of arcane technical problems has me doing the old-man thing with my teeth.

Toodle-pip