The day had finally come: the day I would cross the Mississippi.

I had been thinking about it for weeks, ever since Tom and Nellie in Bardstown told me there was no way to cross the river on a bike in Memphis and offered to drive me across in their pickup truck. Google's walking directions suggested I ride at least 80 miles out of my way to cross another bridge in Helena, Mississippi. But I finally found a glimmer of hope in a Wikipedia article discussing the various bridges in Memphis: the southernmost Memphis-Arkansas bridge did have a pedestrian walkway. While technically part of the Mississippi River Trail, a system of bike-friendly roads and trails that connects Minnesota and New Orleans, the MRT website flagged this section as a "routing problem" since there was no paved access to the walkway. Still, I wanted to give it a shot.

So did Jerry. He had never tried to cross the Mississippi from Memphis either so he was interested to figure out how to do it for future reference. We packed up our bikes and headed downtown, thinking we'd stroll through the arts fair on our way to the bridge.

As it turns out, pushing two loaded touring bikes through a crowded arts fair is an excellent conversation starter. We had all kinds of people coming up to us to ask questions and discuss our trip, including, miraculously, a guy named Bill Waters, a former president of the Memphis cycling team and current board member of the Mississippi River Trail! How fortuitous that just as we're getting ready to cross the Mississippi, we meet someone who can tell us exactly how to do it!

"Hitch a ride," said Bill. "Just go up on Crump Boulevard and stick your thumb out."

I, for one, REALLY wanted to ride across and I'm pretty sure Jerry did too. With a little coaxing, Bill suggested that there was a way it could in theory be done, but it wasn't at all pretty. The pedestrian bridge was covered with trash and broken glass. There was no good way onto the bridge. On the Arkansas side, we'd have to ride or, more likely, walk in the ditch along the interstate for a couple miles. He shook his head again. "It's just not fit for cyclists."

"But superhumans like us can handle it," I responded. Jerry agreed.

When we finally made it through the crowd of shoppers, artists, and wandering banjo minstrels we set out to accomplish our mission. Our first attempt looked like it was going to put us directly into interstate traffic, which looked rather terrifying but we agreed would be a last-ditch backup plan if we got desperate. Bill had said we needed to approach from the south side of the bridge, so we backtracked and found our way through a series of quiet residential streets to a park. There, at the top of a grassy hill, we could see the entrance to the pedestrian bridge with a pile of dead branches in front of it. We headed up the hill.

Once on the bridge it was perfectly fine to ride on. There was no trash, except a lone 5 of hearts from a deck of playing cards which I kept as a souvenir, and no more glass than you'd find on the side of any average city street. And the views of the Mississippi, not to mention the excitement of riding over it on a bike after hearing from so many people that it couldn't be done, were thrilling. We paused to get a few action shots of us riding across, and to take the customary state line photo of me entering my 7th state: Arkansas!

But we weren't done yet. On the Arkansas side, things got a little dicey. We came off the bridge and down another grassy hill onto a perfectly lovely and bikeable road that went precisely the wrong direction from where we needed to go. We found another gravel trail that led to another grassy hill, which in turn led. . . nowhere, except to a view of a railroad trestle. After going back to the first road and following another service road along the interstate that also dead-ended, we were left with no choice but to get on the interstate for a couple of miles, just long enough to get to the first exit.

This was really not bad though. Granted, it's not legal, but there was such a huge shoulder on the side of the road that it seemed perfectly safe, and after all it was only for a couple miles. When we finally arrived triumphantly on US 70 in West Memphis, we celebrated by ordering a couple cheese and guacamole smothered burritos and scoffing at the general tendency of humanity at large to give up way too easily.

Between the arts fair, the bridge, and lunch, our first 10 miles had taken us 4 hours. We knew we'd have to really start cranking out miles if we were to make it to Village Creek State Park, still 50 miles away, before dark. But of course, we didn't do that. We stopped to check out rice fields and beehives along Route 70, and eventually turned onto some "shortcut" roads that turned out not to be paved, which also slowed us down. And then, coming around one curve on one of these dusty old roads, I saw half a dozen giant white blocks, each the size of a small trailer. Could they be. . . did I dare to imagine. . . cotton bales?

I can't quite describe the feeling that made me ditch my bike, run over to them, clap my hands, jump up and down, and eventually climb on top of one. There is something terribly exciting about seeing large quantities of a substance that normally comes in small quantities. I imagine an Olympic swimming pool full of Jell-O or a football field lined with postage stamps would elicit a similar reaction.

By then the sun was low and we pretty much gave up on getting into camp before dark. Fortunately, the twilight lasted just long enough for us to get off the gravel roads and back onto pavement. Jerry's powerful headlight malfunctioned, leaving us with only my wimpy, barely perceptible camping headlamp. I endured much teasing about this, e. g. "Does that headlamp have a low beam? You might blind the oncoming cars."

But on such a smoothly paved and little-traveled road, I really didn't mind gliding along in cool darkness. In such moments of blindness you truly become one with the bike, noticing every sound, every bump in the road, every slight change in grade. I started thinking of a video I saw of a boy who was born blind and learned to use sonar to ride his skateboard down the street, swerving at just the right moments around parked cars and other obstacles. This got me wondering, does Batman use sonar? Or have any bat characteristics at all? Does he even fly for that matter? I don't think he does. So why is he called Batman?

Before I knew it, we'd entered the state park, and eventually found the campground after a few wrong turns, lots of pausing to read signs (helpfully illuminated by my headlamp, might I add), and coaxing a few sodas out of a crusty old spider-web-covered soda machine. Ice cold soda is one of those rare campground treats that tastes even better at the level of exhaustion we'd achieved. I took immense pleasure in finally getting off my bike, popping open the can, and throwing back those first cold sugary gulps of Dr. Pepper.