Deliverance Shmeliverance

Somewhere in the Ozarks, Arkansas









I hate when these small towns advertise fuel and food on the highway and you exit only to find out you have to travel another ten miles somewhere to find said goodies. Classic bait and switch. So I found myself in this eerie place of a town in the Ozarks. Credit card didn't work at the fuel pump and the poor girl working the cash register, while not bad looking by Ozarks standards, probably didn't have a fourth grade education in her. She couldn't tell me where the hell I was in relation to any place anybody knew. People outside looked hard at you; never a congenial smile.

For such a poor place, everybody seemed to have a sooped up pickup and they were in a hurry peeling out to go somewhere. Guys pulled up on a hot rod pickup, the passenger said "pretty shinny reems" as he smiled from ear to ear showing me how many missing teeth he had. The driver said something I didn't hear and they laughed hard. I laughed harder to appease them (thinking to myself they are either both retarded or have evil intent). All the time I had this gut feeling saying "boy... get thyself out of this hick place!"

Funny. This is same gut feeling I had back on leg 1 of my trip when I stayed overnight in West Virginia. I had asked the Holiday Inn Express girl at the lobby where to eat locally. She told me of this Rutt's Butt place and then I set out and got myself lost in those back woods hills. It was beautiful hills and tightly winding roads curving around a snake river, the sun going down fast. Nothing out there but small shacks with wood burning stoves. Spooky. After about 20 minutes of this I backed outta there, the pickup behind me looking at me like I had two heads on me.

I finally found the place, pulled up slowly looking at the people loitering up front. The car behind musn't have liked that I was about to hang a U-ey. Maybe they didn't like the FU sticker on my helmet. They passed me, the passenger waving the standard middle finger salute. OK. Maybe I'm not that hungry. So I head to the local service station for a sandwich, plan B. As I exit the place there's this pickup just standing there and I can see peripherally that I'm being stared at. I don't let on but just take my time, real, real slow. They finally get tired and take off. I think it was the guy from the back woods coming for a good look.

So I passed the girl in the lobby. I think she was surprised to see me back. I smiled, yeah I'm alive and well honey. I even got dinner.

I slept a little uneasy that night my bike parked between all those picups out there. I chained it to a post, put on the alarm, locked the steering column and threw a cover over it. There was a convention of Haliburton people there. Their pickups littered the parking lot. I think this is where the company comes to recruit their peeps. That's their dark secret.