Road Closed — Bridge Out. On a mild, humid Sunday morning in Mississippi I ride down a wide, well-travelled gravel road. The track on the GPS has me headed down a considerable hill for Mississippi. The sign saying the road is closed probably indicates the bridge is out. It would make sense. The week before brought some pretty serious storms to the south as spring always does. I remember watching on the news Arkansas residents filling sandbags trying to save their homes and businesses and being thankful I wasn’t already on the TAT during all of that.

There are more warning signs as I get closer to the bottom of the hill and therefore closer to the river or creek. Bridge Out — Local Traffic Only it warns. There are tracks from vehicles going around the barrier, most likely workers’ tracks, but being on a bike, it’s worth a look to avoid a detour. 

The road ends at a tank trap and not just any tank trap. They’ve built this one to swallow an Abrams and for good reason. The bridge is out, just like the signs said, but the tracks didn’t belong to any workers. It appears there hasn’t been any work done on the bridge for years. It’s a strong possibility there is no intention of repairing this bridge at all. I look around the area for a sneaky way across, but there is none, unless I’m willing to tether the bike to my ankle and swim across. It’s become a local swimming hole complete with rope swing fullfilling teenage summers like you hear about in folk songs. 

Finding a detour route is pretty uncomplicated and doesn’t add much mileage to my day, so it’s not terribly upsetting. Just a little pavement brings me around to the other side of the bridge and back on track.

You really never know what you’ll see on a road trip, but some things can be quite amusing. In the road, in front of these shaved alpacas (which were a spectacle themselves), was a reminder. Something I would never expect or believe if someone else told me they saw it. It was a player’s rewards card from my former company just laying in the road. How strange and sort of spooky. 

With all of the thoughts about having left my job, riding across the country, being away from home, missing my wife having been brought up by something as simple as a players card, I arrive at another Road Closed sign. Mississippi was batting .1000 so far with closed signs so I have no reason not to trust this one, but I still want a look. In the intersection is a small church. Next to one of the cars I see a man watching me. It gets me a little nervous about just riding around the barrier. This is his home and neighborhood and I don’t go through places with a general disregard for the people that live there. At home, I see a lot of that and it really grinds my gears. So when I travel, I try really hard not to be a hypocrite and be considerate of the locals.

The man gives a nod so I decide to ask him if the bridge is passable to a bike. “Good morning! Hey, is that road really closed and if so, can you tell me how to get around it?”

Doug is a super-friendly guy and tells me that the bridge is ‘closed” but likely still passable to a motorcycle. “The State of Mississippi closes bridges it deems unsafe for their rated weights until they are repaired, but I’m pretty sure that one is still standing and a motorcycle can get by it,” he tells me.

We talk a while and he really takes interest in my journey. He mentions having seen lots of motorcycles go down that particular road and wondering if they were just some local riding group or what, but once I explained to him the concept of the TAT, it dawns on him that the groups and bikes he’s seen are all different. I hope to myself that all of those riders who have ridden the TAT realize, like I do, that there are people living along this route and to be courteous and considerate of that. The locals are noticing you.

Doug invites me inside the church for their potluck lunch. I have to turn him down because I want to make some miles today. A decision that as the day goes on and I think about it more, I regret not taking him up on. 

The bridge does indeed turn out to be passable. Barely, but doable on a bike. 4×4 TAT’ers need not apply to this one.

Throughout the day, I find Road Closed Ahead signs, but Mississippi starts to deceive me. I end up only finding one impassable bridge in Mississippi, the first one. Mississippi turns out to be a liar about their bridges. Here are several examples:

“Determination gives you the resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you.” — Denis Waitley

I have no idea what I am thinking. It consumes every second of unused processing power of my mind. The voices of self-doubt scream a message of failure, insecurity, and fear among other things into a willing ear. I have begun to experience strong confirmation bias in the everyday humdrum monotony life has become for me. I don’t know why, but I know I must. It’s a scary undertaking and like most things, that means it is exciting.
What is it, you ask? The TAT. The Trans America Trail….by motorcycle.
My motorcycling buddies know all too well what that is. Some may not. The TAT is an ocean-to-ocean route across the United States using backroads including trails, dirt roads, farm paths, goat tracks, and all manner of two lane blacktop short of highways. It’s tough. Done at a reasonable pace, it takes three to four weeks. This leads me to the source of the majority of my anxiety.
In my line of work, there is no provision for a month off short of FMLA. I cannot see reasoning with my boss needing more than a month off to settle the inner battle I am having facing middle age. It’s a classic crisis and these sorts of things tend to not be interesting business conversations. So….I’ll be leaving my job. The classic I-quit-my-job-to-ride-my-motorcycle story. It’s certainly not a unique story. Plenty of hapless souls have done it and survived, their lives only set back insignificantly.
I’m scared. What happens on the other end of the country? What happens if my beautiful and understanding wife decides my little crisis is simply a selfish stunt and stops understanding? Can I live with myself if I let her down? Can she live with me if I don’t give in to the unrelenting desire to “do this?”
I have been pretty difficult to live with of late. I’m always exhausted. Even when I wake, I am weak, in pain, tired, caffeine addicted, and likely intolerable. I’m essentially sedentary…something I have really never been. I’m tired. Boy, am I tired. I work the graveyard shift. I have considered changing shifts, but I want the break. So I’m going to take it and do something I soon won’t be able to do again…at least not anytime soon. Who knows? The TAT may not be around once I retire. And, speaking more to my “crisis,” I may not be around either. We are not promised tomorrow, much less twenty more years.
It scares me to death. The insecurity….not the death.
I have already begun preparations. It’s looking like a solo trip and I think I like it that way. It adds to both the anxiety and the excitement. I’m accustomed to solo travel. I’m comfortable inside my own head. I’m experienced at being away from home for extended periods. I spent my formative adult years behind the wheels of big trucks. I’ve seen the entire lower 48 and been in four provinces of Canada. I’ve been everywhere, man. But, it was on someone else’s schedule and time.
If it turns out this notion and its execution ruins my life, I want to at least have used the experience to create something. It has been a long time since I felt creative and it is a feeling I miss.
I invite you to join me during the preparations and sooner than I’ll likely be prepared for, the journey itself. If nothing else you, the reader, can live vicariously through me and enjoy the folly of a middle-aged man on the ride of his life.