There was something about that road, Route 306 to Colt, that I found utterly enticing. I most certainly would have followed it had I been by myself, but instead I continued on with Jerry back to Forrest City on Route 70. There, after an incredible barbecue lunch at a little place called Parie's Island and a nonsensical conversation with a homeless and/or inebriated dude as we sipped coffee in a gas station parking lot, our paths diverged. Jerry headed east back to Memphis and I continued on toward Little Rock. Rain was on the horizon.

Everything was flat. The landscape, formed by Mississippi flood plains. The colors, under a gray sky. My mood, after leaving the one riding buddy I've had on the whole trip. And, most certainly, the road. Surprisingly, I found the flatness more taxing than the rolling hills I'd been riding on in Tennessee and just about everywhere else for that matter. With hills, you use a variety of muscles, you get out of the saddle, and you get to coast downhill once in a while. On this flat stretch of road, I found my hips stiffening up from sitting for so long and pedaling in the same repetitive motion. When that happened I would shift into a higher gear, stand up on the pedals, and start climbing some imaginary hills. That helped.

Have you ever sat next to a giant irrigation machine in an oat field, eaten a Gummy Seahorse, and watched Muppet Show clips on YouTube? Now I can add this to my list of completely uneventful yet highly improbable experiences.

My original plan had been to ride to De Valls Bluff and camp out near one of the many lakes that showed up on the map. But by the time I rolled into Brinkley, another sad town with more than it's fair share of empty store fronts, it had started raining. Tino, a guy I met outside a convenience store with a particularly high ratio of gold to white teeth, informed me that it was supposed to rain all night, and all the next day. So, I decided to check myself into the Brinkley Family Inn, a surprisingly decent place for a mere $30.

Then again, my judgment is probably not to be trusted these days, as my quality standards are at an all-time low. I have achieved exciting new levels of tolerance for the disgusting. I have cooked oatmeal with algae-laden pond water. I have shared sleeping quarters and showers with a diverse array of terrestrial arthropods. I have braved the trenches of countless filthy gas station restrooms. So you put clean sheets and cable TV in front of me and I'm pretty darn thrilled.

The next morning I was faced with a few choices, assuming the forecast was correct and it would rain all or most of the day.

• Ride 74 miles to Little Rock in the rain, where I would have a warm, dry place to stay waiting for me.
• Extend my stay in the Brinkley Family Inn another night so I could leave all my stuff there and kill the day in the library.
• Pack up, go to the library, and see what happens with the weather. If it clears up, leave and ride as far as I can. If it doesn't, go back to the motel.

I went with the third option, mainly because I have found I can't put much too stock in weather forecasts, and everybody tends to exaggerate the severity of whatever weather is expected. In this case, the forecast was spot on and it rained steadily all day. Well, I got just what I was looking for: a day with nothing to do so I could catch up on my blog at the library. Or rather, at the Arkansas Workforce Center, seeing as the library's internet access was down that day.

After they closed I went across the street to Gene's Bar-B-Q for either a really late lunch or a really early dinner, where I ordered some fried catfish and chatted with two guys at the next table and the waitress. They were all very interested to hear about my trip, and thereafter anytime anyone entered the restaurant, they'd yell, "Hey Bob. See this young lady right here? She's riding across the country on a bicycle." The topic of conversation shifted to the question of self-protection. "Some guys around here drink pepper spray with dinner," said Gene, the owner. Felicia, the waitress, told me she'd hook me up with a gun. "I'd only shoot myself," I protested.

I don't know how I could have missed the huge posters of a woodpecker on the wall behind me. Gene explained that in 2004, the ivory-billed woodpecker, long believed to be extinct, was spotted in Brinkley and put the town on the map. He described the legions of Cornell students who came to visit and showed me a photo of his restaurant in National Geographic. He also gave me an ivory-billed woodpecker T-shirt, my dinner on the house, and his business card. "I'll call you in a couple days to check up on you."

I then noticed that the menu was adorned with tiny woodpeckers and that one of the breakfast platters is called the Ivory Bill Special. I told Gene I'd be back in the morning for breakfast. "You'll have a pretty day tomorrow," he assured me.