April 16th, 2015
Day 6.

It was a muggy 72’F (20’C) and 3:37 a.m. local, when I pulled into the driveway of my relatives’ home.
They had waited up all night pending my arrival. I made it safely, albeit at this hour of the day.
It was a good reunion.
We stayed up and chatted for a good hour.
It was the morning of a regular working day for them.
I had been on the road for 20 hours straight.
The ST had transported us 694/1110 safe and thrilling miles/km through some very challenging weather conditions.
This ride taught me a lot of lessons.
I garnered a lot of experience that added to making me a more rounded Long Rider.
I had not seen Anna since 2004.
Too long. She took the morning off from work and cooked up a wonderful breakfast as my laundry went through their machines.
Remembering my favorite cereal from our growing up days in the early years of the 1970’s, she had “Weetabix” on hand to offer as well.
I was appreciative.
So with video cam running, I repacked and loaded the bike up in preparation for the days’ ride ahead.
I was now headed for Jackson, MS where my niece "Natsy" currently lives. I had not seen her since 1995.
So promptly at 1:00 p.m. we said our farewells and I headed out on the next leg of my journey.
I arrived at Natsy’s workplace in Jackson and visited for about a half hour.
I was amazed at how much she had grown in 20 years!
It cast my mind back immediately to ’95 when she and her younger cousins were all together the last time.
Where are the years going?
We all really need to do a better job of getting them together more frequently than we have over this period of time.

I had several hours to make up for the time I over-spent on the journey yesterday, so leaving Jackson the GPS unit routed us towards the Mississippi/Louisiana set line via the Natchez Trace Parkway.
The road quality of the Natchez trace was excellent. The ride it afforded me was very scenic.
I loved the fact that there were absolutely no billboards and all that commercial hullabaloo! There are purposely no billboards along the parkway to preserve its character.

At first, the Natchez Trace Parkway was probably a series of hunters' paths that formed a trail 444 miles (710 km) long, that led from Natchez, MS along the river, northeast over the low hills and into the foothills of the Tennessee Valley. Hunters followed the bison and then would return along the same pathway with their trappings of fur along the same pathway back towards Nashville to trade, as well as back to the Ohio Valley and today, I followed and experienced part it.

So leaving Jackson, MS I was now headed to an agreed upon rendezvous point on the Mississippi River at the MS/LA border to meet someone I felt I knew so well, someone who felt he knew me so well, even though we had never met before.
……………. read on:

Getting To Meet Wendell.
Wendell and I got introduced through Tony in 2012.
He and Tony had linked up through one of the motorcycle forums online.
Well, he and I continued communicating very frequently over the years to follow.
So we set up this meeting as I was going to be passing through Louisiana on my way to Arkansas to meet up with the rest of the riding group of friends.
Wendell rode out 3 hours to meet me at the state line, welcoming me to Louisiana.
From the instant we met, we felt like we had know each other forever.
So following Wendell for the next 3 hours, we “high-tailed it” to Monroe, LA, his home base where he welcomed me into his home and to meet his “better half”, daughter and Missy, their Chihuahua that took so much of a liking to me - something she never did with other visitors to their home. I guess it meant that I was “okay” in her books. LOL!
It was early evening now and we headed out for dinner, passing by and touring/visiting the TV set of Duck Dynasty which is barely 5 miles (8 km) from where he lives.
We did not realize the time going by so quickly. We were appreciating each others’ company.
I still had several miles to go for the day to make it to Benton, AR where I’d be meeting up with the rest of the gang.
Time was now of the essence. I had pretty much burned up all the daylight and much against Wendell’s urging for me to stay, I opted to ride all night again, much against Wendell’s urging.
Leaving Wendell’s home again now at dark, he rode out with me for another hour and a half, depositing me on the Iron Mountain Road, which he knew to be the shortest route to get me directly into Benton, AR.
So after fueling up and with instructions on direction to keep, we said farewell to each other and I headed out into the pitch dark of the night. It was now 10:10 p.m. (local time).
And dark it was!
Not a single street light as the road wound its way into and over the mountain.
I missed the burned out low beam of my bike from the burned out filament of the bulb at this time.
The single low beam light that remained was inadequate for the speed I would have liked to maintain and the high beam only scattered the light more in the now dense fog settling over the mountain road at this altitude!
So slowing down to compensate for safety, I had no choice but to sacrifice my time component.
Each time I switched to high beam for better visibility all I could see were the “Ninja Deer”. Eyes glowing from my lights reflecting through their retinas, each pair of eyes in their groups as they looked up, looked like “Ninja warriors” under cover of darkness with nothing but the whites of their eyes visible.
Took my mind back to the days of watching all those Kung-Fu movies during the 70’s.
I persevered, promising myself to avoid riding this late and in this level of darkness ever again unless absolutely necessary.
With fatigue setting in again I had to stop a few times to “wake myself up”. At my last stop I estimated that I was about 70 miles (112 km) from Benton, AR.
I finally made it into Benton and to the Best Western motel around 1:47 a.m.
With a few hours sleep I awoke slightly rested.