Highway 61

We headed back from Iowa City today around noon, taking a short-cut down to St. Louis, Mo. that was largely along Highway 61. Highway 61 is often called "The Great River Road," since it roughly parallels practically the entire length of the Mississippi. It runs right through New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and is only a few miles from our temporary home in Jackson, La. It's a little strange seeing those familiar U.S. highway markers way up in Iowa and Missouri, and passing through towns like Hannibal that are featured in Mark Twain books. There is even a memorable road sign for "Louisiana," which in that case refers to a town in Missouri. So anyway, after stopping by The Daughter's house for a while we finally hit the road again at noon and had a very nice and scenic trip down to St. Louis. The Daughter seemed to be feeling OK under the circumstances and had already written a paper and taken an online quiz for one of her classes. It's going to be a bit of a challenge for her to get to classes on crutches, but she has a lot of support from her team and I'm sure she'll be fine. If her recovery goes as expected, she should be able to get back to regular training in about six weeks, so there's a good chance she'll at least get to compete in a few meets before the season ends. The picture here is the doctor's sketch of her knee and what he did, which was quite a lot.

It's actually Fall up here and the trees are just beginning to show their colors, so it was a bit of a treat for us to see that. It's just not something you ever get to see in N.O. We finally called it a day around Memphis, and The Wife, who had registered with the Red Cross last week, used her registration to get us a free room at the Hampton Inn, which has free wireless. Thanks Red Cross! Tomorrow morning we'll make the last leg of the trip back to Jackson La., and will go straight to the office. I expect we'll be there around noon or 1 p.m.

So now what I've been basically sitting on my ass since last Thursday, I guess it will be Tuesday before I am back on the bike. Oh well . . . Saturday my mother is coming back from Orlando for the first time since the hurricane, so I'll be going there too. My brother and his son are driving The Mom over and then we will start ripping out walls and carpet and whatever at the triplex that she owns and rents out to college students. It will be a hard weekend, I'm sure. I don't know if power has been restored to my house yet, although my sister who lives nearby now has power. Perhaps I will be able to bring the bike and make it out for an official training ride on the levee!!