Longest day yet

Today was my longest day so far, and I have to say, the bike ran great. I started in Meridian, MS just across fom Alabama and 442 miles later ended up in Hot Springs, AR. I beat my previous record of 350 miles set the day before. The weather’s starting to warm up (a little), which hopefully indicates Spring is almost here. You can see on a map my start and finish with the link below.

Longest Day
Nota bene: I’m doing this post including the link from my BlackBerry so it may not work.

The return of ’small’

I’m sitting at a Wendy’s in Mississippi,
http://5pears.org/mapw.php?n=1&f=83,
where someone finally figured out that having Medium, Large, and Extra-large doesn’t make any sense. What’s the smallest size now? Small (but it turns out it’s the old medium). At least it makes sense with 3 choices. I really see this as evidence of the ‘enlargement’ of the US. Twenty ounces is a lot of soda, I guess the ice makes up for it.

Another 1,000 miles down

I’ve traveled 1,000 miles in the first week and been through GA, SC, NC, TN, AL, and am now in MS.

Here’s a quick recap: Davant Plantation was an excellent first stop to get refreshed and reorganized. The restaurant “California Dreamin’” in Columbia had an appropriate name for how I feel. Asheville had a great co-op organic food store. I can’t believe the Biltmore was a house, it was way bigger than the palaces I visited in Russia last summer. I got to revisit college life with a game of flip-cup (with cider not beer). The Decemberists in both Knoxville and Nashville rocked my socks off. Visiting the Banks provided another welcome respit. The Barber Motorsports Museum blew my mind with its enoumous collection of amazing motorcycles presented like toy cars would be in a display case. Almost running out of gas in rural Alabama in the dark with the temperature dropping below freezing was a good rush (after I had filled the tank).

Now I’m heading across Mississippi turning right in Louisiana and aiming for Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, which was set aside as public land before Yellowstone, and could arguably be the first national park. I hear from Bil that some of the best mountain roads are in that area. I’m looking forward to confirming that.