Cropduster

Highroller survived a long trip deep into the Dirty South of Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas and only got cropdusted with poisonous chemicals twice. Here is a shot of the local kamikaze swooping UNDER the telephone lines to dust a field of cotton, pretty amazing flying skills as at the end of the field the pilot would basically do a stall/roll into the wind and turn around on a dime. Living in CO and now the hothouse of Steamboat Springs it was pretty interesting to see the differences in real estate values down south. I saw maybe 500 abandoned houses/properties/farms, just trees growing up thru where the livingroom roof used to be as I drove from Little Rock to Birmingham. The monoculture of a lot of the agricultural area didn't make for very scenic farms either, fields of soy or cotton as far as the eyes can see and then a big pyramid shaped cotton gin every 50 miles or so. Did see Jim Henson's birthplace and some nice neighborhoods around Jackson, MS and Birmingham, AL, a bunch of wild turkeys, opossums (opossi?) and more catfish and bbq retaurants then you could shake a stick at. Spotted a total of 3 roof racks and 4 recreational bike riders in over 1800 miles and 6 days of travelling so you can probably guess what the bike culture was like in a lot of the area. Did visit a couple of good bike shops and a great bookstore in Oxford, MS called Square Books if you're ever in the neighborhood... Highlight though was watching a migrating flock of starlings headed north blacken the sky for a good half hour, just millions of birds swooping in huge swirling flocks trying to find a roost for the night. As darkness fell the trees looked like they'd been dipped in sprinkles there were so many birds on them.