Atlanta to New Orleans, U.S.A

After 920 km of riding, Day 1 has finally just come to an end. The weather gave me a nice welcoming with tornado birth formations appearing just a few miles from my starting point. I am hoping this wasn't a portent from the gods of bad things to come. Because if was, I'm not listening. You can get a vague idea of what I was seeing from the video below.



I had just cleared the storm when my brand new iPod stopped working. I could not believe it. I was only 15 minutes into the trip and was already writhing in mental anguish at the thought of having to deal with the fact that the next 68 odd days were going to be musicless. I thought of my good friend Santiago and knew that this alone would have caused him to cancel the trip. But then I quickly reflected back on my previous life in the military and realized that for a brief second, the MBA was causing me to get soft. No music, too bad. I knew I was going to have to deal with much worse than no iPod in the months to come. I thought back to my first cross-country motorcycle trip in 1994 when I rode from San Diego to New York to save money on a plane ticket. Back then all I could afford to do for musical entertainment was go into the next gas station and hope that there was something good on the radio that would get stuck in my head. Afterwards I would jump back on my bike and proceed to "sing" into my helmet at the top of my lungs--luckily with no fear of retribution from a would-be tortured audience. Sometimes I would get lucky and there would be something playing on the radio that I actually enjoyed. At other times though, I wouldn't be quite so lucky and would find myself singing Madonna's "Like a Virgin", or even worse, some horrid song from one of the many talentless boy bands around at that time. All these flashbacks came back to me in an instant and I found myself dreading the thought of what song would be playing at the gas station this time around, and considering I was still in the Deep South, where country music was abound, I feared my chances were pretty high of ending up singing a song about some redneck shooting his girlfriend who had run away with another redneck with a bigger truck--or something along those lines.

A few hours later somewhere in Alabama I came across a holy site which would have brought a tear to my eyes had I actually been from The South. That's right ladies and gentlemen, what happens when you mix Alabama, hunting, fishing, and good 'ol backwoods southern religious fervor together? I'll tell you what you get: The one and only Bass Pro Shops Flagship Store! For the non-North Americans reading this, I feel some background information is necessary at this point. Bass Pro Shops is a company which sells everything from fishing rods, handguns, and large-bore rifles, to the ever requisite 4-wheeler to get you around your favorite hunting&fishing area. Their consumer base is generally made up of males age 15-43. Most of them have mullets and close blood relatives with whom they hope to join in unholy matrimony. Rednecks from around the globe have an obligation to make a pilgrimage here at least once in their lifetime. The preferred method of transport, judging from the parking lot, is not on foot as one would imagine a pilgrimage should necessitate, but instead is apparently done exclusively by 4x4, and most of these being outfitted with a minimum 4-inch lift kit, a gun rack, and let's not forget a confederate rebel flag waving high and proud.

Ok... enough, I think we all get the picture I'm trying to paint here. So why was I so excited about this place you ask? Well, right before starting off in Atlanta I had accidentally scratched a lens protector for my helmet cam which I had fabricated out of a pair of rifle scope covers and this Bass Pro Shop would most certainly have the replacement parts I needed.

After carefully scanning the area for anyone who would blow my cover and identify me as a infidel, I was able to quickly infiltrate this holy redneck place of worship without incident. I've attached a short reconnaissance video of my brief visit. Note the stuffed animals hanging high on the walls as far as the eye can see. My guess is that they were there to remind any would be criminal what would happen to you if you were caught disrespecting this fine institution.



Shortly after safely leaving the Bass Pro Shop with my booty I was doubly rewarded to find that my iPod did in fact work! (the cause of failure turned out to be the vibrations caused by having it mounted on the handlebars) Things are looking on the up and up! Next stop... the Texas-Mexico border.