31.5 mi / 12.3 mph / 1095 ft. climbing
Home: Red Carpet Inn

The temperature only dropped to 62 last night, 22 degrees warmer than yesterday, and warm enough that we kept the rainfly doors open all night. We were up at 7am, and even though we had a shorter day today, the breeze kicking up reminded me that we might have some annoying winds, so I wanted to get moving.

Yesterday was the first day that we’ve exceeded 1000 feet of climbing since we were on Martha’s Vineyard, six months ago. And the last two days, which totaled 106 miles, is the first time we’ve done consecutive days with 4+ hours of pedaling time since we traversed the rough and remote Molesworth route in New Zealand more than a year ago! All that work, coming off six months of minimal hill climbing, and a month of minimal cycling of any sort, had my left IT band barking at all the work it was suddenly being made to do.

So it was impressive how hard Rett was still able to push. Ok, she had to walk up the 12% hill leaving the campground, but after that, our 12.3mph average was not what I would have expected on the 3rd day of our restart!

We returned to big divided US-98, but on this Sunday, the traffic was just as minimal as yesterday. In the 17 miles we spent on the highway, we were overtaken by 125 vehicles. That’s about 90 an hour, a rate that would be low enough even if there wasn’t a second lane for them to all pass us in.

It was such easy riding (relatively, there were still hills!) that I wasn’t sure that turning onto a back road at the first opportunity was the right choice. The return of Mississippi’s loose dogs argued “no”. At one point we had four Rottweiler-types converging on us from both sides of the road, and soon after a ball of rage and muscle sprinting at us at at least 25mph. Luckily a word from his owner slowed the latter, and with furious shouts of “NO!!”  we were able to deter the Rottweilers enough to escape.

Despite those battles, the smile on Rett’s face told me that the back roads were the right choice. Over the last few days, the riding has felt more like “bike touring” than anything we’ve done since traversing the Catskills in New York. Certainly the hilly, empty roads drive the comparison, but I think there is also a feeling of discovery common between the two (and thus behind that “classic bike touring” feeling).

It’s only in retrospect then that we realized our six months of Atlantic Coast riding failed to generate that feeling. Which isn’t a disparagement; not all riding has to feel the same way to be enjoyable. But it’s just interesting to examine the difference. I suppose most of it is that everyone knows about the coast, and wants to be at the coast, so riding there feels like passing along an established route (for all vehicle types, not just bike touring), while what we’re doing now feels more like trailblazing. Obviously it isn’t; somebody built these roads, but what put us on them is the desire to use them to reach a destination, unlike riding the coast where the route itself was the destination.

My original plan was to head northwest to camp at Natchez State Park tonight, and then do a 49 mile ride northeast on the Natchez Trace to a no-potable-water free campground the next night. Even with today’s “easy” day, that would be a tough sequence, and that’s before the chance of severe storms overnight made it into the forecast.

The problem was that a motel required heading further west into the city of Natchez, which would lengthen the next day’s ride by some 8 miles. The solution we came to (halfway through our ride) was to make the motel stay two nights, which would allow us to see Natchez on our “off day”. Hopefully a win-win?

Day 2

The threat of severe storms last night had been somewhat reduced, initially making me wonder if we were being too wussy, especially since overnight rain is generally the easiest type to deal with. But the weather gods really don’t like me second-guessing myself, so they brought the first puddle-making showers at 3pm (just an hour after we’d checked in to our motel), and it hadn’t fully cleared out until 8am this morning. That would have been a disaster if we’d been camping, with a tough ride to somehow complete today, to say nothing of the booming thunder that repeatedly woke us overnight inside our motel room.

So part one was a triumphant “win”; would Natchez produce the same to complete the win-win? The first mile and a half of the walk in from our east side motel left the jury out, but once we hit the 8×10-block grid of the historic city, it was immediately clear that we owed the storm our thanks. While I could see elements of the historic Southern cities we’ve been through recently (New Orleans and Mobile, but even Savannah and Charleston too), Natchez clearly presented a unique identity. Most notably, it had more brick, connecting it to northern cities upriver.

We wandered the city to the waterfront bluff, and then hit Natchez Brewing for an early dinner. Their Detroit-style pizza probably makes the brewer mad because it’s good enough to be a bigger draw than the beer (and the version I got was a close copy of Mom’s pizza, one treat I didn’t get to eat when we met in Mobile!)

When we emerged for the walk back, the slightly-too-warm day had transformed into an utterly perfect spring evening. The temperature was ideal, and the golden glow of the sun helped present Natchez in its absolute best light. Thank you, storm, for “tricking” us into seeing this beautiful city!