Day 15
Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Helena, Arizona
111 miles, 1000 feet climbing

We counted down the miles on the ride to Helena on Day 15, by reading all the billboards for the Lady Luck Casino, located just across the Mississippi River. These were worse than the old South of the Border signs on I-95. So with the goal of losing money in the casino, we flew across this gently rolling part of Arkansas. We took it fairly easy in the morning as we rode along with George, Steve and Muffy. We earned George's company by loaning him a spanner with which he adjusted his saddle from being very uncomfortably nose up to a more children-possible-in-his-future level position. He had apparently ridden Team RAAM with this setup earlier in the summer and was just now coming to realize how painful it was. He was forever grateful after borrowing our tools.

Shortly before lunch, we took a turn that allowed us to go from a tough crosswind to an incredible tailwind. All in all, this ride had a lot of tailwind, and we thoroughly enjoyed every single bit of it. We flew into lunch at a local gin factory - cotton gin that is.

After reading the billboards all day, we had to cross the river and check out the casino. We parked the bike out front and got $5 worth of quarters to feed the slot machines. We left when we ran out of quarters. It didn't take long !