Natchez Trace

For two weeks now, you’ve been forced to read about all the various complaints a cyclist could have. Dogs, wind, rain, hills, traffic, 18-wheelers, rumble strips. The list seems to go on and on. Today, I had none of that. It was pretty close to as perfect as a 94 mile ride could be. The major reason for that is a road that runs from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi - a total of 466 miles. I did 59 of them today and left only to get to my hotel for the evening. I can’t wait to get back on it tomorrow. The Trace, as it is known locally, is a Parkway maintained by the US Department of the Interior. There is no commercial traffic allowed, hence no 18-wheelers. In fact, there is virtually no motor vehicle traffic on it at all. I estimate that I got passed by roughly 1 vehicle per mile (about every 5 minutes). The road is perfectly paved, there are no potholes or uneven seams in the road. There is no shoulder, but there doesn’t need to be because there are signs instructing cars to pass bikes in the other lane. The mowers were out today so most of the ride smelled like freshly mown grass. There was almost no breeze and the temperature was probably in the high 70’s or low 80’s all day. It wasn’t too hot, though, because of the tree canopy and the partly cloudy sky. There was no roadkill, probably because there’s no traffic to hit anything or possibly because the park service removes it. By design, there are no services on the Trace. You have to exit off and find a town to purchase anything. For once, I had planned ahead and bought a bunch of food and extra water for today’s ride. It is the day riders dream about. I even saw other riders for the first time in over a week. One of them, Keith a recently retired programmer from Franklin, TN,(BTW, a very cool town about 20 miles south of Nashville) was heading the opposite direction but crossed over and stopped to chat. We probably talked for 20-25 minutes and I got some good info on the Trace from him. He is a very experienced bike tourist so we swapped some stories from past trips we’ve taken. About 20 miles later, I caught up to another guy heading the same way. This guy had packs and a tent so I figured he might have an interesting story. Nope. I pulled up alongside him and tried to start a conversation as we rode. After it took two tries to get where he was from (Franklin) and where he was going (Natchez), I just moved on. He struck me as one of those people that later you were just going to regret wasting your breath, so I wished him well and went on my way.

Before I forget, I need to expand a bit in my state rankings from yesterday. Today’s ride just solidified Tennessee’s spot at the top, but I’d like to throw another shout out to the Bluegrass State. One of the things I loved about riding through Kentucky is that they seem to celebrate everything. The small towns in Kentucky all seem to have signs as you enter that tell you about all the state championships that the local school has won. One of the signs showed something from 1960. Another one celebrated the 15 or so state debate titles since the mid 1970’s, and yet another touted the middle school co-ed cheer victory. But my favorite of all was the sign in Murray, KY for the 2013 Kentucky High School Bass Fishing championship (won by Bracken Robinson and Dillon Starks with a two-day total of 34lbs 4oz - I looked it up). I’m sure those guys both are managers at Cabela’s now. Kudos to all the Kentucky state champions and to the towns for honoring them. Side note: our little area of unincorporated Clark County, WA has a sign honoring the 1999 Little League World Series team, that coincidentally lost in the US finals to a team from Bellaire, Texas - where Kelly grew up and her mom still lives.

All the stuff I packed for today’s ride. I only got 14 of the water bottles in

I’m sure this is what everyone pictures when they think of rural Tennessee. This is 25 miles outside Nashville near Leipers Fork.

There weren’t many sites on the Trace, but this is basically what I was looking at all day.

There was this surprise. Turns out ol’ Lewis gave up the ghost and was buried just off the Trace near Hohenwald, TN