Change of plans

Well, we reached almost to the Kentucky border and we pretty much ran out of "Spring". The trees were barely leafing out, and more and more the campgrounds are closed as you go north. A cold front came through, too, and the temperature dropped. So I decided it was more interesting in the deep south than in the farmlands of Indiana and Ohio this time of year, and I decided to see more of Western Tennessee and Mississippi. I headed west and then south, and should cross back into Mississippi tomorrow. It's been very interesting. Lots of history down here, mostly civil war-type stuff, and old houses and buildings, and tobacco farms. Nothing is growing in the fields right now, but it's still GREEN, and getting greener as I head south! I'm still keeping up with my daily journal and when I get to a place with internet where there aren't so many people and distractions, and so much noise and commotion, I'll catch up my blog and try to post pictures. I've taken a lot of cool pictures. Be patient!

LobLolly tree

Informed reader and good friend Kathleen says: "LobLolly Pine? Probably so named due to lobbing it's cones on wayfaring bicyclists!" Thanks, Kathleen, I...um...feel better knowing that! Kathleen gets the souvenir pinecone from that tree, which I will cheerfully lob her direction upon returning ome! By the way, I've loved the comments and emails from everyone, it helps me feel not as far from home!

Day 13

We start off with a picture taken just outside of Centerville, Tennessee at the turn-off to Minnie Pearl's hometown of Grinder's Switch, which I didn't realize until now was a real town! The next picture is just some of the rolling hills of Western Tennessee. We crossed the Duck River half a dozen times, this picture is just one of them. Must be a good fishing river, we seen quite a few working at it. 4th pictures is my bike and tent set up at Loretta Lynn's campground near Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Incidently, Hurricane Creek winds through the area and probably there was a mill near there somewhere, hence the name. Last is some of the "furniture" on a patio next to the bathhouse at the campground. This isn't the lawn swing I sat on (see below), that one was on the covered porch and I didn't take a picture of it.
Thursday April 15, Hope you all got your taxes mailed! Ha ha! Today is my bicycling companion's 69th birthday, and I can only hope to be in as good shape when I'm that old, which would be a miracle since I'm not right now at 49! We packed up camp and headed out 15 miles to the town of Centerville, which is a twin-town with the tiny town of Grinder's Switch, hometown of Minnie Pearl (with the famous hat with the price tag hanging off it!). Nice little set of towns, very homey and quiet. We decided to ride on another 15 miles to where our road crossed under the freeway (I-40) but when we got there the truck stop was closed down. It was another long, dry, hot (87 degrees) ride conserving what water we had left. It as a very hilly road, to boot! But we made it, to the turn-off to Hurricane Mills, home of country singer Loretta Lynn. There was a small country store at the turn so we stopped, and one of Loretta Lynn's daughter's, Cissy, was in there. She looks a bit like a blonde verson of her mother. We went up to the campground on Loretta Lynn's ranch and got a tent site, which was pretty far removed from the bathhouse! It was pretty, though, built on a tree-covered ridge and you could look out over the rows of hills going off into the distance. Little squirrels were running around the campground, lots of oak trees to keep them happy. In fact we had to use our feet to sweep the acorn tops out of the way to make a place to put our tents. Up by the bathhouse there was a huge covered porch with a wooden floor, and there was a lawn swing up there, so I took my book over and happily swung and read until almost dark. Miles ridden: 43.7

Day 12

Finally I'm getting pictures posted. On top is a picture of the downtown square of Columbia, Tennessee. Next is one of many mansions we passed leaving town, this picture was taken while I was riding! The poster in the next picture was on the little store in Shady Grove, for a Civil War re-enactment coming up, and I liked the part about "Battles daily at 2:00"! The only armadillos we seen were road kill, sorry about that. And last, this is where we camped that night. Later in the evening a few other bicyclists arrived too and set up tents.

Wednesday April 14. The bike part arrived and my friend's bike was soon fixed and we were ready to roll. We pedaled west out of Columbia on Hwy. 50, over hill after hill. The scenery is great. It's tree-covered rolling hills, and everything is so GREEN: the grass, shrubs, and trees. There are little salamanders scurrying around in the dry leaves on the roadside banks. You have to look quick to see them before they dart under something. The locals call them "puppy dogs" or "water dogs", and they use them for bait for catfish. A large percentage of the homes are made out of brick, mostly red brick, and there are low fences/walls made out of flat field stones along in front of many of them. We went through a town called "Sawdust", then passed a road called "Fatty Bread Rd". I was still musing over that when we passed "Totty Lane". We pedaled up a huge hill and down into the town of Shady Grove, which consisted of the Duck River running through the bottom of a tiny vally, and a little store with a wooden floor, and it doubled as the post office. A handful of houses among the trees. We got bottles of chocolate milk and drank them, then pedaled back half a mile to the Trace and camped at a wayside near the Shady Grove exit. Miles ridden today: 28.5

Day 11

By the way, I know that I could turn the pictures upright, but it makes them so small. You'll just have to turn your head. And if you click on the pictures you can enlarge them and see more detail.

My bicycling companion has had a malfunction of the bearings on the front bike wheel, so we had to change our route this morning. On our way out of the campground we stopped to look over the historical stuff from Merriweather Lewis. He's the "Lewis" part of the "Lewis & Clark" corps of discovery team that went from St. Louis all the way out through Montana to the Pacific Ocean around 1805, to explore what was out there. In October 1809 he was staying at a wayside Inn here along the Natchez Trace and he died of gunshot wounds at the Inn. Some say he shot himself, some say he was shot. At any rate, this is where he died. See pictures. The old building is a recreation of what he Inn looked like when Lewis stayed there. We seen wild turkeys along the road 3 times this morning. The road was hilly and winding. In the "road" picture, if you look waaaaaay out there you can see the road we just rode before we climbed the hill I was looking back from. When we were a few miles north of there we angled off to the east for a very hilly 27-mile ride to the town of Columbia, Tennessee, which we discovered is the hometown of President James Polk! Lots of lovely old mansions and plantation-style houses with columns. Lots of traffic, too, making it hard to stop and take pictures. This one I did get shows a captain's walk type deal on the roof...something I'd like to have on our roof! Oh well! Lots of apple trees and tulip trees in bloom. We went to a bike shop in the downtown square by the courthouse and notified them that a package containing the needed bearings part would be arriving there Fed-Ex tomorrow. Then we went off our own ways for the afternoon. Most of my afternoon involved shade and rest! I did wander to a McDonalds for a Filet of fish and a hot fudge sundae. Miles today: 42.7; sunny and 86 degrees.

Day 10
Anyone know what kind of tree that is at the top of this post? It has huge pine cones that bombed our tents in the night, at random. Kind of a startling thing! That's Little Bear Creek just before the state line.
It was 50 degrees this morning, and at noon it was 85 degrees. Sunny and not a cloud in the sky. I made oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast, then packed up and was the first one ready! We crossed into Tennessee after 15 miles and it got even hillier. The hills are spread out with long, slow climbs and then long, slow coasts down. Beautiful countryside. We're following spring north, you can see that the leaves haven't been open as long up here. Lots of blossoms and flowers, though. And dandelions! We didn't see many of those down south. The trees are the cool kind with big spreading limbs that make me want to climb them and plan out a tree house to build! We've passed more cows and horses today too. They sure have it made, so much lush grass in their pastures! Wish Montana was like that! We heard coyotes in the night last night for the first time on this trip. They were really cutting loose out there, around 10:00 and again around 4:00. We got to Collinwood about noon and had lunch. That lovely sign in the restroom is self-explanatory. Sometimes you'd like to know the story behind what happened to make someone go to the trouble to make up a sign like that. I mean, just how many times did that happen? And this was in the ladies room! Well, stepping out into the parking lot I could see that things move slow in Collinwood and that the people are thrifty and drive their cars till their clean wore out...guess these two still have some years left in them. See the lamp post behind them to the left? They lined the street all through town. We pedaled on up the Trace. The landscape was starting to include stone walls and bluffs, as you can see along this creek. These stone steps led from the wayside restrooms down to some picnic tables along the creek. It was a lovely spot. The water from the drinking fountain was cold and sweet. We pedaled on in the beautiful warm, sunny weather (high of 85 again) to the Merriweather Lewis Historical site, which included a free campground! Miles pedaled today: 63.9

Day 9

Day 9
The gas station in the second picture was 2 miles from our campsite, and had WIFI, so I was able to send the journal entries I'd typed offline in our camp. Nice little store. The river in the two pictures farther down is the Tennessee River, which we crossed about halfway through Alabama.
It was 44 degrees this morning but warmed up quickly when the sun came up. I cooked breakfast on my little stove this morning, using some of the shredded potatoes and eggs I dehydrated myself back home before I left. They came out wonderful. The potatoes didn't brown much (I fried them in Olive oil) but were perfect. The eggs has a slightly sponge-cake texture but were absolutely delicious! Kind of like an omelet. I believe I had added a little too much egg to the water when I mixed it. I poured the reconstituted eggs into the frying pan and flipped them like a pancake when it was ready. It was a great breakfast! We packed up camp and headed north on up the Trace, stopping at a gas station so my riding companion could get a cup of coffee to go with that granola bar! In about 5 miles or so we crossed into Alabama and followed Bear Creek for a while. It's a lovely stream, amazingly clear and fast-moving for this part of the country, and cut a winding path between ridges. Some of the hills we went over were cut between stone outcroppings. Mostly we were either on ridge tops or along bottoms, but there were a few lengthy climbs. There wasn't much wind today, and it was up around 80 again, not a cloud in the sky. We have been so blessed with beautiful weather, though the cold mornings recently leave something to be desired! Around 1:00 we got to the Tennessee River and planned to camp at a free camping area on it's bank. We decided to pedal 5 miles off the Trace to the town of Cherokee and see what was there. It was an interesting drive in that we passed actual houses and farms and fields, instead of just trees and grass. But along with that came dogs! Two chased us from one house and one chased us from another house a mile down the road! We outran them but they sure can fast! The town of Cherokee is a really nice little town with lots of trees and neat lots and well-kept littlehouses. It winds along the road for a couple miles until you come to a small downtown. Not much there, but they did have a Dollar General store and a couple of gas stations. There was a sad-looking little building that said "Family Dining", and a lit-up sign said "Open", so we went in, and found ourselves back in the 1960s, or at least with the same tables and chairs they probably had then, and maybe about 8 of them, at that! The two gals running the place were so nice. I ordered today's special, which was chicken & stuffing, mashed potatoes (they call them "creamed potatoes" down here),green beans, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, all the pop I wanted to drink, and a piece of pie (I had Chocolate Meringue), all for $8.00. It was some mighty good eating! I was able to walk when we left there, and even pedal my bike, thankful I had an elastic waist on my shorts! I bought a Sunday Paper and we headed back out to the river and the Traceand set up camp. It was 3:00 by then. I leisurely read the paper and watched the cars and motorcycles come and go from the rest rooms. This is kind of a wayside/picnic area, but bicyclists can camp here, free. There were dozens and dozens of motorcycles today, up and down the Trace. Good day for it. This evening I washed up in the restroom (it had hot water!) and washed out some laundry, which I draped over my bicycle. It's wonderfully warm tonight, and I hope it stays that way! We rode 43.4 miles today, kind of a short day. We're about to enter the hills of Tennessee...Lord, help us!