Scooba, Mississippi

I’m conducting an experiment, seeing if I can manage this trip without my small chain ring in honor of my first tours when I rode a Peugeot PX-10 with a 52-42 and a five sprocket freewheel, a mere ten-speed.  That gearing was sufficient to take me coast-to-coast in 1977 over the Appalachians and the Rockies and up to Alaska four years later, both five thousand mile trips.

I presently have 21 speeds, though I’ve so far successfully ignored the seven options the small chain ring would provide despite a far bit of climbing and some steep hills. It’s nice not to have to consider which bar end shifter to use after I make a descent and need to shift into a bigger gear, knowing that I hadn’t dropped into my granny gear.  I can essentially ignore the left shifter, as rarely do I even have need of the big ring.

I traveled much lighter on those early trips, with no front panniers and somewhat puny, primitive, canvas rear panniers, about half the size of my present Ortliebs.  I’m prepared for many more eventualities than I was in those early days.  It brings to mind my travels in India when an intensely curious young man unzipped one of my panniers as I sat in a small cafe talking to the proprietor.  

I was alarmed at the sound of the opening zipper and jerked around to thwart the thief.  The cafe owner told me not to be alarmed, as the young man, along with the swarm of others gathered around me,  just wanted to know what all I could possibly be carrying, as the pannier was large enough to contain all the man’s meager possessions, and there I was with two such panniers and two other smaller ones on the front of the bike.

No matter the season, or where I might be traveling, I carry gear for wintry temperatures, never knowing if a cold rain or a climb over a mountain pass will have me shivering even in the middle of the summer.  I could easily go without gloves and wool hat and extra layers in the warmer months, but I don’t want to be staring down hypothermia if I’m hit by a nasty thunderstorm miles from shelter.  I have encountered snow in the Alps in July during The Tour de France and have been saved by my winter gear.  I have also been very happy for all my reserves in Scandinavia and Iceland in July and on occasions in Africa when the weather turned nasty.

I did leave behind my mini-down jacket that compresses to the size of a water bottle on this trip, though it was a minor debate, especially when Janina asked if I were bringing it, as it was a gift from her several years ago.  I do have an additional item, a solar powered Goalzero lamp that was a recent gift.  I can hang in the tent and read by its strongest of three settings. I just have to be sure I’m well secluded when I use it, as it illuminates the tent into a gentle glow.

I’ve had the pleasure of just one Carnegie in the last 150 miles since Jackson, along with a historic marker at the location of a former Carnegie, one of the twelve Carnegies built for blacks in the segregated South.  Both were in Meridian.  The Carnegie built for whites was across from the grand town hall, and was equally impressive.  It has been an Art Museum since 1970, three years after it gave way to a new library open to all just a block up the 

street.

The one built for blacks was half a mile away in a residential neighborhood across from the city’s first black Baptist Church, which provided the land for it.  A house now resides on the lot, and a plaque honoring the Carnegie.  A second plaque beside the church also pays homage to the library.

Before I visited the new library to take advantage of its WiFi and do some charging I sought out a diner for my first hot cakes of the trip.  I was lucky that someone recommended Mr Rogers, a neighborhood joint where one ordered at the counter.  Pancakes were a dollar a piece, a bargain that will be hard to beat. I could only eat half of a three-stack, saving the rest for later.  I couldn't have been happier with this find, unless the restaurant had had WiFi. 

The day before I bought my first loaf of bread of the trip at a small grocery store.  I had the choice of two cashiers to pay for it, one with a mask and one without.  The one with a mask was just finishing up with a huge sale that filled two shopping carts to a young flaxon-haired woman in tight short shorts and tattoos and a nose ring.  Many of her items were in industrial-sized cans, as if she were purchasing for a camp or a cult or a commune in the backwoods.  When the cashier processed her credit card she told the woman that she had exceeded her limit.  She went over to an ATM in the store to withdraw some cash.  That took long enough that the other line had finished, so I slipped over to the maskless cashier to pay for my bread and quart of chocolate milk and can of baked beans. 

A couple minutes later as I knelt beside my bike pouring some of the chocolate milk over cereal in my Tupperware bowl a woman called out, “Sir.”  I turned and the young woman in the short shorts handed me a ten dollar bill, evidently concerned that I had walked out of the store with a mere three items.  That may have been the most unexpected offering ever.

But it wasn’t the only one of the day.  Later, a hefty thirty-year old black woman handed me four singles as I sat outside a McDonald’s finishing off my bowl of cereal and trying to access its WiFi.  Like another McDonald’s that didn’t have indoor dining, it had cut off its public WiFi and only had WiFi for its employees. I had somehow been able to access the WiFi at the other one, but not at this one.  

I never transferred those four singles to my wallet, so I was able to easily redistribute them the next day to an elderly bag lady in Meridian who directed me to Mr Rogers.  Now I’m curious to see who will get the ten.