Hello, this is Fikret… You have been reading the amusing stuff Metin kept writing for the last few days. You know my profession is script writing and I had been writing continuously for the last two years. So I am a little bit reluctant to write anything while I am travelling. And now I am writing only because I want to share the load Metin has been carrying since our venture began.

This morning (US calendar, June 10^th, Wednesday) we set off on our journey, driving our rental car. You already know we had this dream of renting an old convertible American car since leaving İstanbul, but unfortunately that didn’t come true. It is not possible to rent those kinds of old cars. As a matter of fact, it is not possible even to find them. Eventually, we ended up renting a giant SUV – or so we thought, until we saw the bigger monsters on the road, which made our car look like a “Mini Cooper.”

The first thing we did was to find a name for our companion that would carry us up to Chicago. After seeing how rapidly it moved on and off the roads, we decided to name it Atılgan, the Turkish name for the Enterprise. Regards to Star Trek!… Atılgan is a local, carrying a Mississippi licence plate.

We were about to hit the road when we realised this was the first time that we would be on an American highway. So we would have to be looking at the map all the time or asking for directions here and there. This is not for bon vivants. So we decided to get a GPS for Atılgan. This way he wouldn’t be alone at nights and we wouldn’t be helpless on the road.

Now that we had a name for our car, it would be rude to not name this GPS. We examined its character: hard headed, tough and authoritarian. It gets angry when you don’t follow its directions, insists that you follow the instructions. So we named her Teresa. (In case you wonder where the name came from, these characteristic qualities made us remember the things that were told about the disciplined nuns teaching at the boarding Catholic schools… And thus, Mother Teresa.)

This Teresa is a weird gal. Device, I mean… First of all, she talks. But she cannot hear you. You enter your destination, and she gives the directions. She talks continuously. “Turn right, turn left, blah blah…” The lady never gets tired of talking. So, the first thing we ask Teresa is how to get to Natchez…

Since the main point of this whole journey is to follow the Blue Route and drive on Highway 61, understandably, that is how we wanted to get to Natchez. But Teresa insisted that we took Interstate 10. Because, to put it right, the Highway 61 is now something like our ‘legendary’ E-5 between İstanbul and Ankara. The main traffic flows on Interstate 10. So like everyone else, Teresa preferred to use that way. As we drove towards Highway 61 with the help of our map, the Teresa panicked. She immediately gave new instructions. All she cared about was to get on Interstate 10 somehow. Thankfully, Atılgan listened to us… After a few more tries, Teresa surrendered and picked Highway 61. So we made it to Natchez.

I got carried away while writing and only talked about Atılgan and Teresa. Yet today, we started our journey on Highway 61 and we arrived at a genuine American town for the first time. (Until now we hanged around in big cities like New York and New Orleans.) There are things to tell. But I have a writer’s block mainly because I had been working like a dog in the last two years. I leave the details for a later time and present you some more photos.