Day Seven
It was cold this morning! It got down to 35 degrees, and the tents were soaked with dew. I had everything away from the sides, so none of my stuff was wet, but it's the second day in a row I could have wrung my tent out and had to pack it up wet! This first picture was taken this morning. Then there's a Redbud tree along the road, and the winding road of Mississippi stretching off through some grassy fields. We were ready to roll by 7:30, and off we went. It was sunny and warmed up quickly, so we kept stopping to take off layers of cold-weather clothes. We rode to Tupelo, 32 miles to where we turned off into town. Lunch at McDonalds, then a stop at a gas station/convenience store for "trail food". No matter how hard you try, it's almost impossible to eat healthy when traveling, especially in Mississippi. We do the best we can and figure the hard days of pedaling takes care of the rest. A lot of the gas stations have baskets of bananas, apples, and oranges, and some have granola bars and power bars, and the V-8 fruit juice I like. Those grassy mounds in the picture above are Indian burial mounds. They make clay buriel pits in the bottom, then using baskets they haul dirt and make those huge mounds over the bodies, of their leaders and special people.
We finished in Tupelo, which by the way, is a very nice town, and headed back up the Trace. We still had more than 40 miles to ride. As we left Tupelo the wind shifted and was behind us for a while. That was nice, since we were now in hilly country and the road was winding this way and that. The trees are starting to look more "north", and there were ridges and ravines, and still lots of wildflowers along the road. The Redbud trees are brighter and more colorful because they haven't been in bloom as long as the ones farther south. The color starts to fade after they've been in bloom a while. It's beautiful rolling along the road, lined with green grasses and trees, wildflowers in yellow, purple, pink, and white, and the whites and purples of the Dogwood and Redbud trees. Add in the blue sky and an occasional puffy cloud curling around the tree tops or scudding along the sky, and it's very pleasant. Every day we've seen at least a couple Turkey Vultures circling in the sky. We've only seen one live deer and one turkey. Some mornings we hear roosters crowing off in somebody's chicken pen. You can't see much in the way of houses or anything as you ride along. The National Park Service owns a swath that varies from 1/4 to 1/2 mile wide, and they've removed everything except "nature". Even historical things are gone. If they were in the park service corrider, then they were removed. Scary the power of the Environmentalists. It almost gets monotonous riding day after day seeing nothing but the trees and grass, and missing all the little towns and the flavor of the south. When we need to go to a store we usually have to ride at least a mile off the Trace. Even going through big towns like Jackson and Tupelo all we could see were trees, though we could hear all the traffic and we went over busy roads. The trace is very isolated. Sometimes I feel like I've lost track of time and distance, like I'm in the twilight zone!
When I get so tired I feel as though I can't pedal even one more stroke, I find the strength somewhere. And I know some of you out there are praying for me, because when I'm at the end of my rope and thinking about finding a dumpster for my bike (ha ha!), somehow I get above that and I'm all right. The hardest thing on me is how achy and tired my wrists and elbows get from being braced on the handlebars all day. I keep stretching and bending them, but they still ache by the end of the day. It's only annoying, not debilitating.
We got to Tishomingo State Park a little after 5:00. It's in Northeast Mississippi, not far from the Alabama state line. We were assigned site #9 in the campground, a lovely site at the shore's edge of Haynes Lake, which according to the park brochure is stocked with Catfish, Bream (sunfish), and Bass. There are ducks and geese wandering around looking for handouts. We're within site of the showerhouse building, which is where I'm headed next. Miles ridden today: 77.6
It was cold this morning! It got down to 35 degrees, and the tents were soaked with dew. I had everything away from the sides, so none of my stuff was wet, but it's the second day in a row I could have wrung my tent out and had to pack it up wet! This first picture was taken this morning. Then there's a Redbud tree along the road, and the winding road of Mississippi stretching off through some grassy fields. We were ready to roll by 7:30, and off we went. It was sunny and warmed up quickly, so we kept stopping to take off layers of cold-weather clothes. We rode to Tupelo, 32 miles to where we turned off into town. Lunch at McDonalds, then a stop at a gas station/convenience store for "trail food". No matter how hard you try, it's almost impossible to eat healthy when traveling, especially in Mississippi. We do the best we can and figure the hard days of pedaling takes care of the rest. A lot of the gas stations have baskets of bananas, apples, and oranges, and some have granola bars and power bars, and the V-8 fruit juice I like. Those grassy mounds in the picture above are Indian burial mounds. They make clay buriel pits in the bottom, then using baskets they haul dirt and make those huge mounds over the bodies, of their leaders and special people.
We finished in Tupelo, which by the way, is a very nice town, and headed back up the Trace. We still had more than 40 miles to ride. As we left Tupelo the wind shifted and was behind us for a while. That was nice, since we were now in hilly country and the road was winding this way and that. The trees are starting to look more "north", and there were ridges and ravines, and still lots of wildflowers along the road. The Redbud trees are brighter and more colorful because they haven't been in bloom as long as the ones farther south. The color starts to fade after they've been in bloom a while. It's beautiful rolling along the road, lined with green grasses and trees, wildflowers in yellow, purple, pink, and white, and the whites and purples of the Dogwood and Redbud trees. Add in the blue sky and an occasional puffy cloud curling around the tree tops or scudding along the sky, and it's very pleasant. Every day we've seen at least a couple Turkey Vultures circling in the sky. We've only seen one live deer and one turkey. Some mornings we hear roosters crowing off in somebody's chicken pen. You can't see much in the way of houses or anything as you ride along. The National Park Service owns a swath that varies from 1/4 to 1/2 mile wide, and they've removed everything except "nature". Even historical things are gone. If they were in the park service corrider, then they were removed. Scary the power of the Environmentalists. It almost gets monotonous riding day after day seeing nothing but the trees and grass, and missing all the little towns and the flavor of the south. When we need to go to a store we usually have to ride at least a mile off the Trace. Even going through big towns like Jackson and Tupelo all we could see were trees, though we could hear all the traffic and we went over busy roads. The trace is very isolated. Sometimes I feel like I've lost track of time and distance, like I'm in the twilight zone!
When I get so tired I feel as though I can't pedal even one more stroke, I find the strength somewhere. And I know some of you out there are praying for me, because when I'm at the end of my rope and thinking about finding a dumpster for my bike (ha ha!), somehow I get above that and I'm all right. The hardest thing on me is how achy and tired my wrists and elbows get from being braced on the handlebars all day. I keep stretching and bending them, but they still ache by the end of the day. It's only annoying, not debilitating.
We got to Tishomingo State Park a little after 5:00. It's in Northeast Mississippi, not far from the Alabama state line. We were assigned site #9 in the campground, a lovely site at the shore's edge of Haynes Lake, which according to the park brochure is stocked with Catfish, Bream (sunfish), and Bass. There are ducks and geese wandering around looking for handouts. We're within site of the showerhouse building, which is where I'm headed next. Miles ridden today: 77.6
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