Month: April 2023

The anticipated rain hammered the area all night, continuing through the morning. Yet my energy levels were up, and spending the day at the edge of town I found … unappealing.

Weather forecasts for the day were all over the map! I finally determined that while rain fell at my current location and destination, the intervening space was clear, likely for the next 4 hours. I had 60 km to my next destination, a lovely hostel I’d stumbled across when looking for a hotel, and a break in the rain. Time to go!

After a quick ride out of town I routed onto smaller roads. After the night’s rain, they turned to slush and mud. My progress slowed as I dealt with the quagmire that had been my road. Eventually I found myself walking, slower than riding but far less work than fighting the bicycle in the mud.

By the time I emerged from the mud onto asphalt there was no way I’d outrun the rain. Yet, somehow, I did! As I stepping into the hostel, the sky opened up behind me with torrential rain.

Check-in at the hostel was quick (mostly automated). I settled in to one of the nicest hostels I’ve ever stayed at. Late in the evening two travelers from the UK arrived, here in this small town that proclaims itself, “the home of the blues”. Well, that explained why tourists might come to this rural town.

I left Roy’s Campground at 8:00 am today. And abandoned the MRT. The next 200 km have no resources, on small road but enough traffic that too often I’m getting passed at the same time another car goes by in the opposite direction (which Kurt called “scissors”).

I rescued this guy,

and then spent a lot of the day on REALLY small roads.

Had the road had any more precipitation I never would have made it. This sign concerned me, but I made it through the one the other day, right?

Then the road downgraded, but better forward than back!

The missing bridge never materialized (well you know what I mean), and I ended up back on asphalt after many kilometers of wandering and wondering.

Through several intersections, finally confident and back on pavement I cycled onwards. Now that’s a closed bridge!

I spoke with the operator, who said he could clear me a footpath in 30 minutes. I settled in for second (third?) lunch. 40 minutes later I was on my way (would have been sooner, but he lost track of me in the shade and thought I’d left).

While the ride through the countryside was pleasant, road conditions and headwinds kept progress slow. While I only cycled 105 km, I arrived at the hotel at 7:00 pm. However, my metabolism appears to have kicked on, and I felt great. Talked to the guy at the desk about cycle touring for a while, including him asking to see my bicycle!

I left by 8:00 am on gravel track. Instead of following the MRT on the levy, I dropped down to the gravel road. For the next 20 km, I had shade and protection from the winds. In the middle of nowhere. I didn’t see another vehicle for the first couple of hours. Eventually a truck pulled up next to me to ask where I thought I was going? They offered to put my bicycle in the back of their truck to get me back on asphalt. Tempting, but I declined. They also told me the bridge on the route I had chosen was out, but that I should be able to get around the barrier. It took removing some panniers, but I managed to cross, saving me a significant detour.

I had revised my plan from the night before to get to Greenville, an additional 30 km from my original campground destination. But the rest of the day were roads, large and small, with traffic ripping past me– nervewracking.

Moving off the levy didn’t even provide more shade.

Headwinds made progress slow. As an example, into the winds I was moving 12-13 kph. At one point the road twisted, and for a few kilometers I was moving 23!

By early afternoon I realized I was unlikely to get to Greenville before 6:00 pm, leaving little margin for error.

So I re-re-routed back to the Store/RV site that offers camping. While the bathhouse is meager, there are hot showers, unlike the last two.

It’s not much, but I spent the evening sitting on a dock at the lake across the street.

I left a few minutes before Kurt today, with him planning to finish the Trace, while I was headed back towards the Mississippi.

Still low on water, I stocked up on water and supplies at a Dollar General just outside of Vicksburg, which is the default supermarket in rural Mississippi.

I stopped briefly at the National Park in Vicksburg, but find little to interest me in the Civil War, so quickly headed on.

From there it was just riding to the campground, some 90 km from where I started. I arrived to learn their bathhouse is closed and they are not accepting tent campers. I’d passed a primitive state campground 6 km earlier, but decided (after calling ahead) to advance another 20 km to the next campground.

I’ve been welcomed here by everyone. Tim and Robin greeted me with a series of bike touring questions. The site has no showers, but I graciously accepted Tim’s offer to use the shower in their RV. Particularly refreshing, since the site last night also didn’t have showers (or potable water).

Tomorrow should be a short ride of 80 km.

All that said, the scenery and days aren’t that interesting, so I’m likely to decrease my posting frequency.

Steve and April left before I was up. Damn it was good to catch up with them.

Kurt and I left the hotel at the same time, with different plans. Kurt headed to a breakfast place that served gluten-free waffles. I cycled directly to the Natchez Trace.

The Trace is similar to the Blueridge Parkway. Limited access, no commercial traffic, 50 mph. An awesome ride. Shade for most of the day, long shallow hills (unsurprising as we were headed slightly away from the Mississippi).

Kurt and I planned to meet up at the same destination, a campground 100 km away.

Kurt wanted breakfast, and to stop at many of the historic sites (southern culture being of more interest to him than me). I figured he’d catch me. Which he did at the 75 km mark. But he had more sites to visit, and we arrived at the campground together.

People stopped me a couple times today. Once to offer me coffee. Once a truck pulled off well ahead of me. The driver talked to me for a while about cycle touring.

Rocky Spring is a small poorly-maintained national park campground. Without potable water! And nowhere near, well, anything. Even with Kurt’s focus on water, we would both be short tomorrow. Fortunately we availed ourselves of the kindness of strangers in RVs, and should be set for tomorrow.

Tomorrow Kurt heads up the rest of the Trace (440 miles in total). The MRT turns off from the Trace about 20 km from here, to Vicksburg and beyond. I finally figured out why I couldn’t make sense of my MRT book. The east side is filed under Mississippi, while the west side is filed under Arkanas.

I’ll stop in Vicksburg for food and water, and decide east bank or west bank then. I think the east side has a campground about where I want it, but I’m going to look a few days ahead to try to avoid a repeat of the long distances the prior few days. Today was a fairly pleasant 98 km.

Kurt realized today he’d left a pair of bike shorts at our last hotel.

Heavy rain this morning, which stopped by 9:00 am. No more rain until after dark. Figures.

I got to spend the day with my dear friends Steve and April. We did fun and exciting things like grocery shopping. They drove 4 hours to see me, and I appreciate every minute of it.

I also learned we have a mutual friend in Memphis! Given I once cycled across Germany to visit a random couple I’d met at a campground in Switzerland, I hope we can work that out!

I left the RV park before 7:30 am.

The roads had wide shoulders all day, and little traffic. I had a light tailwind, and no hills. And no shade. And no, well, anything else. At 32 km I stopped under the only shade I’d seen. Normally the levys are kept tree-free, so no shade, and no good way off the levy. The next shade was at the 80 km mark! I stopped there on the shoulder and just collapsed (OK not quite collapsed, or I’d have someone stop to see why I was laying on the shoulder). I’d also been wearing my windbreaker as a sun shield, since I’d burned my arms badly the day before. I’d meant to take the jacket off earlier, and overheated. I sat there in the shade until I cooled off.

Nothing else, and the heat, meant no water. I pulled into a church in the middle of nowhere seeking shade. And found Jonathan, a cyclist also running the East/West Southern tier (who first thought I was there to run him off), and a spigot to refill my water in the nick of time. I would otherwise have run out of water before the end of the day. Phew!

My day ended with an 8% climb on the bridge over the Mississippi, and then a ~12% climb into Natchez. After a long exhausting day, it’s best not to end with hills! Fortunately my motel was at the top of the hill.

At the motel I met Kurt again! We’d messaged during the day, and his eastern route had converged with my western one, and we’d decided to split a room again. My day was flat and no shade. His had been shade and hills. I’d never have made the distance with hills; he had e-assist.

Tomorrow I’m taking shelter here in Natchez from the impending storms that lead to my arrival. As a huge bonus, old friends from college are driving out to spend the day with me. One problem with planning a day off due to weather is when the weather changes, but in this case my friends will be here, so I no longer care!

Saturday I head out again, likely with Kurt for the next day and a half before our destinations truly diverge.

So the plan worked. I was exhausted. I almost ran out of water. I came close to heat exhaustion. It was 350 km in 3 days.

But, worked!

That said, long, flat roads with nothing are boring. Traffic has generally been fine, but at times it’s been insane. I go into a tour, every time, knowing the first week will, well, suck. Going too far. Being out-of-shape. But long flat boring nothing interspersed with American high-traffic boring? Hmm.

Last night Kurt checked the weather to find that we should expect rain Friday. Lots of rain. 1-2″ of rain. That’s a problem. More so than usual. Because Thursday night is smack dab in the middle of nowhere. I’d planned to wild camp, but waking to sheeting rain is … suboptimal. Especially when I’m supposed to be in a swamp nature reserve next to a river. With flood warnings. We tossed that back and forth late into the night with no resolution for me.

Kurt’s and my paths diverge tomorrow. In part because he wanted to spend a few hours in Baton Rouge. To get that time, and still cover distance, he’s boosting his speed e-bike style. And then make a large jump Thursday the same way.

We ate together, and I headed out with a variety of options. Even so, I ended up elsewhere. Many heavy traffic roads today, but (mostly) wide shoulders. I had lunch at a lovely city park in Baton Rouge. I made a few failed attempts at finding a supermarket before randomly finding one on the side of the road.

I’d decided to make (another) big jump today to Jim’s Campground, to position myself for an even longer day on Thurs. At the 100 km mark I reached the turnoff for the campground, 12 km off the road. UGG. That would be 12 km more today, but more importantly add 12 km to an already horribly long day tomorrow. No other choices in OSMAnd or Google. While dealing with AirBnB login problems, I checked iOverlander, a tool primarily used to flag wild/free RV and camping sites, and found an RV park 25 km away. In the right direction. That hadn’t been visited since 2019 (pre-Covid). More searching found a phone number and friendly hostess, and I made it with no additional difficulty (beyond that of 124 km, a long way even on my Istanbul trip of 16 weeks).

I had tailwinds a good portion of the day, which helped offset the lack of drafting behind Kurt. I worked at keeping my speed low to not wear myself out, which appears to have worked! 124 km.

But tomorrow I have to make an almost identical distance if I want to get to a hotel to hunker down for a day. Will see what tomorrow brings.

I encounter a pair of cyclists today riding from Texas to Florida. They’d never heard of going N/S. And the host at the RV site asked if I had started in San Diego or Florida. Apparently I’m at a crossroads!

I met Kurt this morning–a cyclist in the adjacent camp site. After chatting a while, we decided to ride together.

He arrived in New Orleans via train from California two days before, and was also headed north. He’s toured a great deal by motorcycle. And a bit less by bicycle.

The levy across the street from the campground was paved and flat. Lovely.

I quickly realized Kurt is better shape than me (as almost everyone is) but drafting behind him I could mostly keep pace with him early in the day. 20 miles in we passed the camping that was my potential target the night before from the airport. It was too far, but on the levy the ride would have been OK.

As the day wore on, so did I. But Kurt slowed so I could keep up. (Well, except the time he accidentally left his e-bike in assist mode). Drafting boosted by my speed and range by a considerable margin. Kurt’s used to riding in groups, and it showed.

Except for the last 10 miles or so, we spent the day on the levy. When it eventually shifted to gravel, we stayed on the levy. Then we ran out of levy. Just in time for a shift change. All day we’d been riding past massive refineries, and the last leg of our ride was in heavy traffic with no shoulder. Even so, the drivers were great, giving us plenty of room. That wore on Kurt, and he zipped ahead e-enhanced.

After a fair amount of deliberation, we’d decided to share a hotel room. In part because I had routed away from the Mississippi towards a large camping store for stove fuel. That put a number of motels nearby (and no camping). We caught back up with each other near the hotel, split a room, and grabbed dinner.

We spent the evening discussing routes. He’s headed northeast, where the MRT cuts back to the northwest. He’d also like to spend some time exploring Baton Rouge. So we will part company tomorrow at some point. He’s been great company.

My first day on the Erie I rode a surprising 90 km. I crossed 100 km today.

There are alligators on the Mississippi?? I think I prefer the Bosnian land mines….

Donnie picked me up right on time, and dropped us (me and the bicycle) off for the flight. Dragging the bicycle about, I eventually found the correct kiosk. Except… Oversized Luggage was not accepting luggage due to some technical problem. The collection of staff I slowly acquired worked through that, weighed my carefully-measured 49 lb box, charged me the expected meager $30, and sent me on my way. Still bicycle-equipped, to drag the box to a newly-restored Oversized Luggage. The attendant apologized profusely. I told her she hadn’t even made it into the Top 10. Then swiftly through Security. Checking in without rebuilding the bicycle box or even a second look at Security. They didn’t carefully measure the box, or check that the tires were deflated. I didn’t even need the tape. Weird.

I haven’t flown in a few years. I rode a bus for the Albany trip, and drove up to the C&O before that. Traipsing through the airport is always a combination of chaotic confusion, and coming home.

Then a 3-hour layover in Atlanta. Just enough time for them to lose my bicycle somewhere.

By the time I heard back about the permit for camping at the free site, I’d made a reservation at the New Orleans KOA campground, only a few miles from the airport.

I’m not used to flights so short I can’t finish the movie.

Landed in New Orleans, and asked where oversize luggage would be. The flight attendant assured me everything came out on the carousel. “Golf clubs, skis …” “Bicycle?” I responded duniously, but was assured that was the case. So I went to the carousel where of course my bicycle did not appear. Some wandering about turned it up.

I dragged the box off to a corner and set about reassembling. A couple people wandered up to ask where I was headed. One stayed. He was in New Orleans from Atlanta solely to pick up a passport for his honeymoon in Jamaica. I told him that while he was relaxing on a beach he could think how much better that was than cycling to Canada.

Now with the shorter ride to the KOA I set off on the dark. What I hadn’t considered was the decreased traffic at 10:30 pm. The night was cool, and once I convinced my GPS I wasn’t in Pennsylvania I has a short ride to the campground. Where the gate was locked and dark.

Fortunately a quick circumnavigation found another entrance, a friendly night guard, and a campsite in short order.

I can’t get to Baton Rouge tomorrow, but there’s not much between here and there. Will see.

Alligators. Why does there have to be alligators?