Bicycling Florida to Texas
Through
Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas & Oklahoma

2008 - May - June

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We awoke early as usual to avoid the high heat and humidity we have been experiencing since we arrived. Mary Kay is wide awake when the alarm goes off and it takes Jim several minutes before he can function. As usual we pack the bicycle and head out. Since this motel did not have a breakfast, we headed to downtown Aliceville for breakfast. (Mary Kay's cost $0.99 as she had pancakes.) After breakfast we headed out on Highway 14 which turns into Highway 69 in Mississippi. The only problem was that this road is badly in need of repair. For the first 10 miles all we did was go up and down because of the cracks in the road. Every time the front and back wheel dropped into one of the cracks, the bicycle slows down. It seems that it takes twice the energy to keep the bike going. In addition the person steering the bicycle must always look to see where the smoothest road is and try to avoid as many of those bumps as possible. We had this road condition for almost the entire day.

We are now in Mississippi, half way to Columbus we entered the state of Mississippi.

We arrived at the motel we wanted to stay at and found that they did not have any ground floor rooms. We went to another nearby motel and the price was very high ($40.00 more per night.). So we returned to the first motel and asked if they had any place where we could store the bicycle. They offered to put the bicycle in a meeting room. We accepted and took the loaded bicycle to the stairs closest to our room. After looking at the stairs and the halls to the room we decided to see if we could get the bicycle up the stairs. We succeeded and the bicycle is in our room. We then walked across the street for lunch returned to the room to do laundry in the sink. As tomorrow is a rest day everything has time to dry.

We walked across the street through a shopping mall with a Penny's and a Sears store. The mall also had several closed business, and a closed cinema, everywhere we go we see empty store buildings. Not the business boom we see at home. On the other side of the mall we found a steak house restaurant for dinner. When we were shown to our table they gave us a 8" bucket full of unshelled peanuts for us to enjoy. Everyone was eating peanuts waiting for their food and throwing the shucks on the floor. Needless to say we enjoyed the peanuts and our food was good.