Jeremiah Watt

The dew is amazingly heavy as I rool out of my nights retreat, the camp is soaked like I had just finished the car wash routine all over again. Its 6 am, and a light fog is down against the ground. The temp is a cool 41 degrees, and it looks to be a sunny day once the fog lifts off.

I don't dare get out on the road with the fog and all, so I go over and get somne coffee. i visit with a few fellas who are out to harvest Rice that day, and they tell me of a few roads that will be covered up in water, and few that are clear sailing. A couple of cups of coffee later, and the fog has lifted enough toallow me departure fromthe little berg known as Naylor.

This turned out to be the worst dog day that I had so far, and I am not sure if I would have made it at all if it had not been for it being fairly flat country. I had a total of 18 dogs give me a run and some looked like they could really do some harm if they caught up to you. I think that the super sprinters like Robbie McEwen and Ale-Jet Pettachi must use this dog process to train there powerful sprinting legs. But the worst of all the dog incidents on this day would come right in the middle, as I rode an extreme back road headed towards Malden. As I rode I could see quite a large group of dogs on the left side of the road...........and as I got closer I counted 9 dogs total. It looked like "Mongrel Run",dogs of every size and age and not to mentin no clearly visible bloodline..............just dogs.

It all seemed that I would pass without problems, untiloff to my far right I caught sight of one lone white dog that looked like a white Irish Setter, and he was making a bee line for a small road out in front of me some 200 yards. The dog was soaked inwater as he ran through the edges of the deep Rice field, and I was putting on the gas trying to get past all of the cainine critters before he crossed the road to his buddies. We raced neck and neck, but in the end he crossed just a breath in front of me, and I had to hit the brakes jsut ever so slightly to miss a collision.

At this point I have a total of 10 dogs in one pack on my left side, I am on anarrow rough but paved road, and I am right up alongside of the house from which I think all of these dogs originate............and I can clealry see a lady sitting in an old chair out on the front stoop. The last dog, the white dog that crossed in front of me gave a sharp yelp when he scootched past my front tire, as if he had been hit with a hot branding iron. Of course he hadn't.

RICE HARVEST IS UNDER WAY FOR ALL, BUT THIS HARVESTOR IS BROKE DOWN

He took a look at me and it was if he had finally figured out what I was ........."Lunch on a Titanium Skewer", he groweled deep and bared his teeth and gave chase.............and as soon as he done this why thena ll his cohorts done the same..............some with the zeal of one hungry and other s gave chase like it was a game. I in the meantime put legs to the cranks like my life and not too mention legs counted on it............which they did. All the time that this was taking place, as you know it all rolls together into mere seconds as it transpires..........was wondering when the women out on the front porch would play into this scene. I finally did out run all of that pack, but only just in front of the snapping teeth of the white dog from hell.........and I can't say that I ever heard anything from the women who sat and watched.

COTTON FIELDS ABOUND IN THE SHORE REGION OF THE MISSISSIPPI

I rode into Malden, quite tired and very glad to be away from the dogs, but I was not done for the day with riding nor sprinting nor dogs. I stopped at Little JOhnnies Road side BBQ, I bought a cup of coffee and a doughnut. It was while I was here, that a very elderly fellow, neqar 80's, stopped and talked to me about the bike and trip etc. I relate to him the incedent of the dogs, and he says to me......"ya wanna see somne dogs"...............and he pulls his pant leg up to show me a very fresh and very alerge patch of tore up hide on his leg. Walden, thats his name, used to ride a bike to try and stay in better shape, that was up intil about a month ago.............he was drug completely off his bike by a pit bull dog. And this was a dog not so very far from his house, and a neighbour to boot.

SO Walden says to me, that after I got out the Hospital I told a rice hauling friend of mine about it all................and it weren't more than a week later that my friend stopped by and told me to go back to riding, the dog ahd been taken care of. That same dog was now 2" thick, and his dorsal strip had been replaced by a set of dually tracks for its entire length.

While I was at this stop, I met a trucker who informed me that the ferry I had intended to use to cross the Miss, had been clsoed down. SO I spent a good couple of hours sorting all of that out. My wife made few calls, and in the meantime, I rode on towards the town of New Madrid, to which I made good time. From Malden on east and right up to the levees that surround the river itself, it is all cotton growing country. And any place without cotton, has "yellabeens"onit. They say it so fast down here, that it sounds like one word and not two.............and there is no "W" in the word YELLA. In New Madrid, I get many different directions as to how to find the levee road that is marked as WW, and I think that i ride maybe 10 extra miles in finding my eventual way to it. In doing so I pass a Historical Home Site, made famous during the Civil War. it is known as the hUnter Dawson Home. The tours are shut down by the time that i came by, so I had to just take pics from the outside.

I head out on the WW road, and find it is very slow going, with bad road surface and huge potholes. The road degraded severly the further that I rode. Bt about this time, I also know that I need to find camp a litle early so I can let my tent and bag of sleep dry out some. I made very good time all thing s considered, I made 91.8 mile s that day, and was pulled over to camp by 5PM.

I knew that i could have made my final Ferry Crossing that niht by ^, but I also knew I would have a very wet camp in the dark on the Kentucky side of the river. SO, I opted to camp just shy of the crossing by maybe 5 miles, camp in relative seclussion and let thig s dry. It turned out to be the best choice, the sky is clearing, but the wind is warm anough to do some drying. Camp is rolled out, the tent is laid out to dry, the bag is unzipped and laid in a nearby fallen Oak, and my camp mat laid out as well. Any clothes that were wet lay spread on tree limbs etc. It truly looked like a group of Gypsies had moved in on the banks of the Mississippi.

I built a fire, since there was planty of wood available with the fallen tree. The fire felt good to sit by, as I waited fro the pending darkness, and the supper that i had cooked up. think that the Earl Grey Tea, tasted its best on that night, with the cool breaze that came on with the setting sun. Overall, I was not very impressed with the whole bootheel expeirience of Missouri, it smelled bad, and was to flat for me...................don't get me wrong, the folks was nice..........its the country side.

The sun is down now for several hours, and from off to my right I can hear the constant drone of very slow loving river barges as they traverse frieght on through the night. Every once in a while the stillness of the night sky is broken by the sound of a sreech owl from the trees that offer it santuary just over yonder................and when I hear it's call I half expect Huck Finn or maybe his nemisis Indian Joe to step out of the curtain of darkness and into the light of my camp fire. The night passes by without incident, and I Pray that for all of you it does the same.

Good Night and God Bless