Bike Ride on the Trace

9/6/08
I took a ride on the Natchez Trace this morning. All my fellow biking friends in Greensboro were supposed to be riding the Tour to Tanglewood, but I read where the Saturday ride (the fun part of the event) was cancelled due to Hanna. So, I put on my Tour to Tanglewood jersey and drove out to the Trace Overlook Park to do what I used to do in Greensboro....ride a bike in the dark.

I have grown to love riding on the trace early in morning and enjoy the quiet and the wildlife. MS is pretty rural, so you don't have to go far to be in the middle of nowhere. Typically, there are very few cars...maybe five in an hour' s work of riding. This morning, I missed three deer crossing the road about ten feet in front of me. Deer in MS usually die at that range from encounters with people, but I was armed only with a water bottle, and besides, the hunting season doesn't start for another month or two. They surprised me, I surprised them, and we parted company.

The trace is flat, and the road is smooth, so the ride is quite pleasant and fast unless the wind is from the north..not usually the case in the summer. It's a great time to think. Good investments, bad investments, yelling at the kids, not yelling enough at the kids...it all gets analyzed and re-analyzed until a moment of wisdom strikes me or I get distracted by something like..a snake!

Or an alligator, or a turtle, or wild turkeys....I have had encounters with all of these things in the early morning hours on the trace. Usually, they are dead from encounters with Fords and Chevys.

Early in the morning as the sun is coming up through the pine and oak trees, while the mist is clearing, the trace is like a diner for turkey vultures. Every mile has a gathering. I see them ahead...freshest food in town! I pass them; they have no interest in me. (When it's this fresh, you just have to eat.)

There's a place called Yakanookany (I think...never can actually remember the place) where I turn around. It's really, really in the middle of the most remote definition of nowhere possible. It's ten miles north of nowhere. I have never encountered another sign of man there, other than the road under me.

I have my snack, a drink, a quick stretch, then it's back through the woods, across the big field with the wild turkeys, under the two bridges, more woods, the hill (one of only two, and not steep), more woods, more turkeys, cypress swamps, past the reservoir and back to the car. I've ridden it enough to know how many miles I have to go when I cross under the second bridge, how long it will take me from the boat landing on the upper Pearl (if I'm going 17.5), and when I can expect to get pelted by dragonflies from the lake.

I've ridden about 2000 miles on this 30 mile stretch of the trace. I know it very well, as well as I used to know Yanceyville Road, and Highway 150, and Spring Garden, and Summerfield Road. I certainly miss those roads, but I will also miss this 30 mile stretch when I quit the bike or move somewhere else. I know that road well. I would be easy to assassinate.

So, I had a nice ride, and Hanna rained on Greensboro. My gain and a loss for the TTT. I may ride in the morning, or I may sleep late. Either way, the wild turkeys will be there, and there will be plenty of fresh kill for the vultures.