Days 35/36 Oct 8/9 - River Crossings, USA's Underbelly & A Rain Delay

First I want to mention that I love crossing rivers. I've crossed lots of them, but particular highlights on this west bound trip have been the James River out of Williamsburg, VA, the Tennessee River which I crossed on the Natchez Parkway in Mississippi and of course the mighty Mississippi which I crossed yesterday when I crossed over into Arkansas. As I have written before, every river crossing brings to mind Neal's words when we motorcycled over the Columbia River several years ago: everything looks better from the seat of a motorcycle.

I've also motorcycled through some places where my reaction has been: what the hell was that? Cairo, IL was one that I already wrote about. Yesterday I had a similar reaction to another town.

There are only a few places to cross the Mississippi (MS), so I picked a crossing/routing that took me directly though the region of MS called the "Delta." On the way there, I happened to

stop to take this picture which I thought would be fun to show the insignificant size of my "Bus" compared to the farm equipment sold throughout the area.

Little did I realize at the time that this machinery would figure into the story of the rest of my trip for the day.

I then took an out-of-the-way backroad to the River crossing at Helena, MS through Jonestown, a destitute looking rural slum that can best be described as third world-like squalor. The town and the many people milling around gave me that "what was that?" moment and I made a mental note to research the town on the internet later.

Just before I crossed over the Mississippi, I traveled through lots of cotton fields and added this picture to my collection.

While I had planned to make it to Hot Springs for the night, some inviting-looking motels just outside Pine Bluff, AR captured my interest when I stopped for a snack. It had been an interesting day, but the heat/humidity and the bumpy road surface along the portion of the Arkansas' scenic "Great River Road" had taken their toll so I parked the "Bus" at 239 miles for the day.

My research on Jonestown reminded me that the Mississippi Delta region, romanticized as the birthplace of our jazz, blues and rock and roll music, continues to have many communities which remain part of an underbelly of the USA with huge problems: unemployment, poverty, illiteracy -- some of which have their history in slavery and mechanization (remember my pic of the John Deere) that eliminated the need for workers in agriculture (remember my pic of the cotton fields). I'll spare you further social commentary -- but do offer that Michael Moore's latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" does add his usual provocativeness to the discussion.

The motel I picked was nice -- and I'm glad it was because I ended up deciding to stay a 2nd night when a major rain storm was pushing through the area when I awoke on Friday, October 9.

I caught up on some laundry, reading, writing and mapping -- and generally enjoyed a day off the road even if my "scenic" view for the day was only the drive-through of the area McDonald's next door which had a line of traffic all day long.