While planning this year's bike ride I learned a couple of things about deciding on a route.  First, it's hard.  And second, spending too much time looking at maps while imagining all the wonderful places in the world you want to explore will result in a progression from headache to confusion to mental breakdown.  Nevertheless, I did manage to keep a grip on my sanity and formed a general outline of what I want to do.

I have traveled all over the United States, but the deep south remains a mystery to me.  In a way, I fear it.  No, I don't believe in voodoo.  Nor do I believe in the old-fashioned stereotypes of southerners.  And I'm pretty sure people don't suffer the fates of the characters in Deliverance or Easy Rider any more.  It's just just that, well, there is the . . . history.  And they're Red States.  And sometimes the accents almost resemble a foreign language.  Still, I think I'm ready to burst outside of my comfort zone.

There is another element to my tour that I am looking forward to:  THE CITIES.  True, there will be a disappointing lack of mountains, deserts, wilderness, and spellbinding scenery in this year's trip.  There will be no long stretches with few people, no sightings of bears or moose, no filtering of water from pristine lakes.  Yet, I'm OK with that.  I've had those experiences in my backpacking days and most likely I will experience them again on a bike some day.  For now, however, I'm excited to visit the cities and towns along the way--especially the great southern cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Memphis, and St. Louis, which, I've heard, have so much to offer historically, culturally, artistically, architecturally, culinarily, and funniciously.  (I did not make up that last word.  It's a slangy adverb meaning the trait of providing fun, as in, "the dumb ass clown mistakenly believed his journal would be funniciously entertaining.")

My trip has been given due consideration . . . except for the route.  I've thought long and hard about weather, gear, clothing, danger, cultural differences, snakes, alligators, etc., but not exactly how I am going to get from the Gulf to each of the cities listed above to the largest freshwater lake in the world.  I honestly don't know what highways I will be taking or where I will be spending my nights.  I will be making those decisions from day to day based on my primary guides--The Mississippi River and my good old-fashioned Rand-McNally maps.  Judging from previous experience, exhaustive research and over-planning takes some of the adventure out of a trip.  Therefore, I have a beginning and an end and that's about it. 

[The map above is a general outline only.  A map of the actual route I choose will be posted at the end.]