Dizpatchez From Natchez
Southern Natchez Trace
Adventure Cycling Association
October 20–30, 2019Calvin Hight Allen
Dizpatchez 1: Taken by the Trace
As my friend Greg Gregory says, “You don’t take a trip; a trip takes you.”
I was counting the days until my next trip south, when my wife surprised me by suggesting that I join 35+ other cyclists in riding the southern half of the Natchez Trace with Adventure Cycling Association waaaay down south in MS.
That was yesterday, Oct. 15, 2019 one day after Indigenous Peoples’ Day and two days before my granddaughter Tanasia’s birthday.
After a couple hours of panic (I’m too old to bike 65 miles in one day! I’m too skinny to camp!), I signed up online.
The Trace has taken me.
Today has been packing day. I can’t decide if packing lists increase or decrease trip anxiety: on the one hand, I’m less likely to forget something; on the other hand, they look daunting as they lie on the counter, waiting to be crossed off.
Maria has been very helpful packing up. She was considerate enough to take out another life insurance policy with treble payment for accidental death, naming herself as beneficiary. Waaaaait a minute.
Thanks to Meg MacLeod for the tip about rolling up clothing; it takes up less space AND is less filling.
Here’s the plan: drive down to Ridgeland, MS on Thursday and Friday, hoping to roll in time to meet the other riders on Saturday and make sure I still know how to set up my tent. Sunday, we head out on the first day of the tour, 49 miles to Rocky Springs.
I was all set to camp every night until I saw on the Adventure Cycling listserv that George from San Diego was looking for a roommate. He reserved an indoor bed every night of the tour, and I’ll be joining him.
I have also sent an email to John Lee (right) in Charlotte,
who is looking for somebody to carpool. I may be riding down with someone and sleeping in a heated room every night!
Dizpatchez 2: Charlotte and the Lee Family
I am now sitting in my own private apartment in an upscale condo high-rise in Myers Park, one of the toniest neighborhoods in Charlotte.
My hosts are a friendly couple from Maryland who almost moved to Asheville, but decided to move here instead to be near one of their two daughters. She and her partner and kids are coming over for supper.
The drive down was very smooth. My Prius Priscilla was excited to go on her maiden long-distance trip, and carried Yolie the Yamaha and I down the road smoothly. I didn’t touch the brakes between getting on I240 East in Asheville and stopping for some ice tea in Lincolnton.
Driving on I-85 from Gastonia, to the Brookshire Freeway downtown to Myers Park was an adventure. It reminded me of Mad Max Fury Road: the highway was littered with bloated carcasses, hunks of meat in all stages of decay, skulls, chicken feathers, bales of cotton and tobacco, enough car parts to start a junkyard, Hardees wrappers, Afro Piks, Bojangles Dirty Rice containers, disposable diapers, a dead heron, a rooster’s comb, burning tires, burning transistor radios, and giant tractor-trailer tire-alligators festooning the shoulders.
The traffic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDqvd5oqJrw
I had forgotten (we lived here from 1980–89) how many of the drivers here imitate Richard Petty in a demolition derby, swooping in and out of the lanes at 80 mph with one arm hanging out the window, a cig-ret dangling from they mouf, and a Budweiser bouncing in a cup-holder clipped to the driver’s window. I grabbed on to Pris’s wheel firmly at 10 and 2 o’clock and listened to Google Girl direct us across town. Yolie the Yamaha e bike bobbed nonchalantly in the rear, providing an extra buffer between us and the tailgaters.
We cruised into Myers Park about 4 pm, turned into the gated high-rise, and were directed to visitors’ parking by a very friendly attendant. I buzzed John and Mary’s condo, and John came down, let me in, and gave me the tour. They are on the third floor, and have a balcony that looks out onto Myers Park, still green and leafy as though Fall is months away. The sounds of the carnage on Charlotte’s highways is gone. It’s quiet as a country lane on this street.
John Lee’s family is great: younger daughter, her hubby, a 19-yr old daughter fresh at TarHeel U, a 17-year old son, and an east Indian boyfriend of the daughter. Supper was chicken with a rich cream sauce with olives and pimentos, rice, bread, salad (with homegrown tomatoes from Asheville). Dessert was brownies and ice cream.
Kids and grands left about eight. While cleaning up, I learned that Mary is the oldest of seven kids, and that her mother was one of 16 kids raised in North Dakota. They lived in a sod house and traveled in an old school bus. One husband, four wives. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2398231/
John has lost 25 pounds on a diet. He’s probably in his 70s, but looks fit and trim; I have a feeling he’ll ride me into the ground.
We agreed that we’ll awake with the sun and have a leisurely departure.
Dizpatchez 3: Charlotte to Bombingham
I woke up in Myers Park at 6 am in a foreign bed, hung over from my dream med, AKA Mirtazapine (if you want to dream crazy stuff in lurid technicolor, give Mirta a call for a good time). I heard stirrings outside my apartment.
John was up. He cooked toast and scrambled eggs, which I wolfed down. Mary got up and made coffee and cut up oranges. I ate everything in sight, including half a jar of Damson Plum jelly.
John and I packed up and Mary escorted us down to Priscilla the Prius, who was waiting patiently where I had parked her. We threw our stuff into Pris and loaded John’s iron steed onto Pris’s rack. A quick hug from Mary, and we were off.
I drove out of Charlotte: orts of offal, billowing diesel trucks, drivers playing chicken with Pris and other cars, merging lanes, lanes under construction, 18-wheelers, cars with Kewpie dolls glued to their hoods, heavy metal rockers on long poles that swung back and forth from big rigs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJnMQG9ev8
I glanced over at John, and he had been transformed into Furioso; he pointed his stub down the interstate and said, “Go southwest, young man.” We surfed the highways out of town and entered the southeast’s largest construction project: bridges, asphalt & concrete paving, overpassses, underpasses, divided highways, undivided highways, medians, Jersey barrels, dotted lines. Pris champed at the bit, racing against the traffic like a girl who was out for her first night on the town.
I lasted about an hour and a half before my back started barking at me. We switched, and John drove us through Hot-lanta. Good Lord, I thought the traffic in Charlotte was bad! Downtown Atlanta is a mass of steel and concrete, with huge interchanges with a dozen levels of highways and train tracks and trolleys and pedestrian walkways and wildlife crossings. Google Girl nearly wet her britches trying to get us through downtown and onto I-20 West toward Bombingham.
I drove us a few more exits to a Subway where we noshed on subs, chips, and ice tea. I lugged my see-through bag of meds into the restaurant, looking every inch the old geezer escaped from the nursing home. Back on the highway, we entered another giant construction zone, where they were ripping up and burning the forests on each side of the highway.
I cranked up the tunes to get us in the mood for speed, and suddenly Google Girl sang out, “Welcome to Alabama.”
A guy passed me in a Ford F150 with an assault rifle sticker on his rear window.
Yep, sweet home Alabama.
A few hours later, we registered at the Irondale Red Roof Inn+.
Supper was a BBQ joint founded in 1891. Yep, you read that right. Below’s a photo of the place in earlier days; the roads running beside the restaurant became the interstates in the 1950s.
That’s Pris’s great-great-great-great grand-car in the lot there
We sat at The Roy G. Sims Booth and flirted with the waitresses. We opted for salads, smoked turkey and pulled chicken, washed down with the closest thing they had to a craft beer: Miller in a bottle. We split a giant slab of coconut cream pie, paid our tab, and drove back to the Red Roof Inn for slumber.
Dizpatchez 4: Bombingham to Ridgeland, MS
I hit the breakfast bar at about 7:30 the next morning: waffles, mystery meat, scrambled eggs, yogurt, juices, tea bags, stale pastries, cereal, weak coffee, 2% milk, and giant squirt bottles of flavored CoffeeMate creamers.
I ate some eggs & mystery meat, washed down with Lipton bag tea. A woman at the next table was from New Orleans. She told me that many locals have abandoned JazzFest and Mardi Gras in favor of the Festival Internationale in Lafayette, Festival International — Festival International
and a small free festival “behind Frenchman’s Tree.” Words to the wise.
I had a waffle and some weak coffee for my second course, and talked to a couple who had driven from MS up to New Brunswick, Canada. They said a NorEaster had driven them back home.
I took a banana and two yogurts for the road, and John and I packed up and Prissed west toward MS.
The Deep South is different from the South. As a native North Carolinian, I’m a southerner. But I’m not used to giant vats of boiled peanuts, gravy at every meal, tea so sweet it will dissolve your spoon, 2nd amendment tattoos, and third-world buildings at every intersection.
We cruised into Ridgeland, MS in early afternoon, found the Hyatt, and off loaded our gear. We chatted up folks in the lobby and admired the service-dog conventioneers that paraded through with their canines. We walked over to eat a late lunch at Basil’s: veggie panini, a sandwich named “the rodeo,” and sweet tea that only a dentist could love. We ate lunch with Gary, a guy from western Massachusetts, who described the early-morning departure of thousands of cyclists at the Bike Ride Across Iowa as one of his most spectacular memories:
“It was still dark when we left, and everybody had headlights and taillights, so it was like streams of light flowing together to make a giant river of flashing lights, all flowing in the same direction.”
About 3:30, I registered in the lobby, met our tour leader Kelly, and had Yolie checked out by Patrick, the Adventure Cycling mechanic.
At 5:30, Kelly and her staff went over rules, schedules, safety tips, and our itinerary. Supper was chicken or pot roast, rice, cooked veggies, salad and ice cream bars.
I read some about the history of the Trace.
I fell asleep early.
Dizpatchez 5: Ridgeland to Rocky Springs Campground
Finally, after three days of driving, it was time to ride!
We left about an hour after dawn, rolling through Ridgeland, around a traffic circle, and onto a multi-use trail, where we saw hikers, joggers, and other cyclists. We rode on the multi-use trail for about seven miles,
and then walked across a field to get on the Natchez Trace.
We rode south on the Trace to the Clinton Visitors Center, where we found artifacts from prehistoric times until the 19th century.
Not long after getting back on our bikes, it began to pour. I stopped to put on my rain jacket, and stepped on a hill of fire ants,
who chewed up my left ankle.
We rode down to the lower Choctaw Boundary and stopped for lunch: pb&j, cookies, gorp. After lunch, I rode with Larry from Houston,
(this is not his best side) who had rented a RAD City ebike. We cruised along chatting, and he told me that he and his wife were from Minnesota, but the kids settled in Houston. Once the grandkids came along, his wife said, “We’re moving to Houston.”
Later, I rode in a pace line with Greg, Pat (fellow e biker), and Gabriella, all from Minnesota. Greg towed us for a long while, and then Yolie took a long pull, and then Gabriella pulled us into our last stop before Rocky Springs Campground.
We stopped at a hysterical (as my friend Dudley Wilson says) marker, and then Yolie towed at 22mph (Gary called it the C train in my honor) into Rocky Springs Campground.
I was so tired that I couldn’t manage to get fresh clothes from my luggage, so I sat in slimy clothes all afternoon.
At supper, Graham (former Marine turned law student turned Park Ranger) talked about the history of the Trace: from animal path, through Native Americans, and boatmen who poled down the Mississippi River with goods and sold the goods and their boats for lumber, and then walked back hundreds of miles on the Trace. They would walk in bands of two to 30, armed for protection from animals, Native Americans, and scalawags.
Ranger Graham told us about Ulysses Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign, which was staged at our campground.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign
We invited Ranger Graham to supper: pork with stuffing, chicken, roasted veggies, salad, and pineapple-upside-down cake.
After supper, Adventure Cycling Staffer Gary crammed 15 folks into a van with 12 bikes on top, and drove 20 minutes into Port Gibson & three bed-and-breakfasts.
George and I crashed at Collina Plantation Inn, a plantation built in the 1790s and converted to a bed-and-breakfast.
I tried to fall asleep in the Henry Hughes room: 4 poster king bed, fireplace, and antique furniture, but my legs and feet throbbed with pain. I got up, took two more acetaminophen, and rubbed them (my feet & legs, not the pills) with CBD salve.
Dizpatchez 6: Rocky Springs, Lost in Trace, Natchez
We ate breakfast about 7 am in our 300+ year old b&b: french toast with a blueberry/banana/syrup reduction, bacon, orange slices, monkey fruit, and espresso. Not bad for a camping trip.
When George and I wheeled our iron steeds out to ride, six small deer were grazing in the front yard. We rode down the gravel road onto town streets, took a few turns and were LOST IN TRACE. We stopped and got directions from several folks, but no one could agree on the right path.
We happened upon two other Adventure Cyclists, just as lost as we were. We talked to a few more natives and finally saw the Trace looming in the morning mist
Our Adventure Cycling companions set out ahead of us, and we chased them all day.
The Trace was deserted. The weather was overcast and threatening; we had heard forecasts that called for tornadoes, hail, lightning, pouring rain, and locusts.
We rode about 10 miles, passing one squashed armadillo, and one paddling along like an armored car.
We stopped for lunch at about 20 miles: sliced meat, bread, grapes, oranges, granola bars, cookies. As soon as we got back on the bikes, it started pouring.
We had heavy rain the last 20 miles, and about five miles out of town, I started shivering. The reflections in the water on the road, which had been just me and my bike, now included Old Testament characters and planets. Two sasquatch, one black one brown, loped along beside us for a while. I don’t know why George couldn’t see them?!
We dropped down into Natchez, and George asked directions, and then we were Lost In Trace, trying to get a GPS signal, studying the soggy paper map, and shivering. We stopped at the Quickie Mart for hot chocolate, and a guy followed us around the store with a mop. I had lost feeling in all 20 digits.
We searched for Canal St, and finally rode it to the Visitors’ Center, where I went in the men’s restroom and hugged the hand dryer for about 30 minutes, until feeling returned to my fingers.
At the Visitors Center, we bought tickets to a movie about the history of Natchez and slept right through it. Fellow Adventure Cyclists started rolling in, shivering with cold, and we hung out at the visitors’ center with the rest of the group for a couple of hours. Some riders were dressed for the cold, while others (like me) were underdressed and trembling.
Our group had been scattered by the rain, and it took several hours for everyone to make it to the Visitors Center.
Late in the afternoon, we amassed an army of cyclists and rode from the Visitors Center onto the metal-girder bridge across the Mighty Mississippi, a pretty scary trip, with five metal expansion-joints wider than the average bike tire. Traffic whizzed by in the outside lane, but we had one lane to ourselves.
Yolie did fine, but one of my skinny-tire buddies flatted, then threw a cleat, and had to walk the rest of the bridge in his sock feet.
George and I warmed up in the motel, showered, and walked over to the Craws & Claws restaurant for a salad and gumbos (not as good as Mayfel’s/Lorettas).
We staggered home and collapsed early to bed.
Dizpatchez 7: Rest Day, Natchez
Next morning, we ate breakfast at the motel: omelet, mystery meat, English muffin with strawberry and grape jelly, coffee, and waffles for dessert.
George and I rode across the bridge to Natchez. The bike lane was filled with debris, including lots of glass.
We studied the history of chattel slavery in more detail at the visitors’ center. We bought a ticket on the Hop On Hop Off open-air double-decker tour bus. Tour guide Greg Miles and driver Ms. Samantha showed us the sights:
Downtown, we ate at the Pig Out Inn BBQ: pulled pork, chicken, salad, potato salad, and a Sprite.
We walked out to the bluffs and admired the river.
We went into the Adams County Courthouse, and George (former lawyer) cross-examined the Probate Clerk about Probate Court. While George had been a probate lawyer, his motto was: “If you’re dead or thinking of dying, come see me.”
We walked downtown and had lattes, chocolate chip cookies and a lemon square for dessert with Dick, Sue, and Larry.
We moseyed to the African-American Museum, where a volunteer told me that her grandpa was the last of 16 kids, and the last to be born into slavery.
We walked back to the bluffs, and down the river to the Visitors’ Center, where we escorted some of our fellow riders across the bridge.
At camp, I tried out three other e bikes, but none of them compares to Yolie.
We had a map meeting, and learned that tomorrow’s ride will be 65 miles for the campers, and about 50 for George and me. (I like traveling with him.)
Dizpatchez 8: Natchez, Port Gibson
Woke up about 6:15 to a cold dampness. I put on a base layer: polyester socks and wool socks on my feet; long-sleeved poly, bike jersey up top.
Talked George into eating at the motel instead of biking down to camp. Breakfast: ham omelet with cheese slice, toasted English Muffin with strawberry and grape jelly, banana, coffee, cranberry juice. Breakfast barista with gold-capped tooth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y_n7vMxoFM brought me mustard for a sandwich: bread, more cheese, more ham.
A tugboat pushed the world’s longest barge up the Mississippi.
I packed up. George left for camp. I watched SportsCenter. I carried my luggage down to the lobby. I put on more layers: knit ball cap, heavy polyester bike jersey, leg warmers (thanks, Robert Kline) and Wigwam wool socks as gloves.
I rode along the Mississippi to camp, where cyclists were massing to cross the bridge. A young officer in a police cruiser escorted us over the bridge, blasting his siren. We rode through town, passing the Quik Mart where I had huddled over hot chocolate two days ago, and turned onto the Trace.
Strung out in a colorful Spandex line, we headed north, following Ulysses Grant’s route north to besiege Vicksburg. Clouds of warm breath floated over the line of riders.
The fields were misty and leaves heavy with dew. Rainbowed dragonflies patrolled the meadows. Pileated woodpeckers howled like monkeys. Buzzards feasted on rotted carcasses of cyclists, slinging strips of Spandex over their heads in a feeding frenzy.
I rode about five miles to an abandoned school for girls, where I found souls locked in brick.
We rode on.
We stopped next at Emerald Mound, the second-largest mound in the nation (after one in Illinois).
Aboriginal people built the mounds as sacred ceremonial space.
We rode up the Trace to lunch at a church: pb&j, gatorade, grapes, cantaloupe, cookies, Gummy Bears.
George napped.
When the rest of the gang turned off, George and I kept straight on the Trace, and got off at a maintenance shed just outside of town.
We rolled into the B&B, showered, napped, and lazed about
Dizpatchez 9: Port Gibson to Vicksburg
It was 42 degrees when we woke up at Collina Plantation B&B. I told myself, I said “Self; there is no way in Hell you’re gonna ride 50 miles today.” I was tired and cold and felt like sleeping all morning.
BUT.
After another fine breakfast: omelets, bacon, long purple fruit, orange slices, and lots and lots of coffee, I felt life stirring deep within. I suited up, packed my bags, and stood shivering on the back lawn.
Don rode off in search of campers.
Dick found a website that listed all the DOT projects; the road from the Trace to Vicksburg was open.
We packed up and bundled up, and Scott and his wife Traci took our photos for their Facebook page.
We rode down the driveway, which dead-ended at the cemetery. We turned right, and pedaled through a rundown public housing project. The dew was heavy on the kudzu, and pit bulls strained at their chains, howling for our blood.
We cut through the Trace Ranger Station and got on the Trace. It was quiet and peaceful, and the mileposts slid by.
An animal in the woods made a quavering whinny that sounded like water dripping into a pond from a height.
At the last minute, I decided to enter the race for Warren County Sheriff.
We stopped at a 150-year-old country store, where a scabrous woman with a mottled face allowed that they were out of “pert near everything.” We made do with Cokes, Fritos and a Sprite.
We wandered around the store, admiring its collection of oddities.
We rode into Vicksburg on heavily traveled roads in the hot sun. We stopped at several giant busts of confederate soldiers, and George had the same comment for all of them: “Another loser.”
We showered and napped at AmeriStar Hotel, then walked down to the RV Park for supper: beef stroganoff, rice, tofu soup, Brussels sprouts,
and a Carolina Moon Belgian Wheat beer.
The sunset was purty.
We staggered back to the hotel and digested until buenas noches, amigos.
Dizpatchez 10: Rest Day, Vicksburg
It was raining, so Tour Director Kelly Hannigan rented additional vans so we could tour the Vicksburg National Military Park.
We started at the Visitors Center, where we learned about Rebs, Yanks, cannons, projectiles, uniforms, camp gear, Enfield Rifles, and the strategies by Union and Confederate armies. https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/vicksburg-campaign
Our guide said that Ulysses Grant, the commander-in-chief of the Yankee armies, was an unlikely hero. He had failed at business, finished in the middle of his class at West Point, and drank to excess. But he won battles, often after ignoring orders from his superiors. When Lincoln named Grant commander-in-chief, Grant’s fellow officers complained to Lincoln, saying, “He drinks too much.”
Lincoln replied, “Find out what kind of whiskey he drinks, so I can send a barrel to the other commanders.”
Ignoring orders to defend his position, Grant moved south, crossed the Mississippi, and won 11 battles before chasing Pemberton and his Confederates into Vicksburg, where they were surrounded.
We watched a movie about the Battle of Vicksburg (which should be renamed the Siege of Vicksburg, because starvation and bombardment from a distance were the decisive strategies).
The Illinois monument is one of the most impressive in the park. Forty-seven steps (symbolizing the 47 days of the Vicksburg Siege) lead to the inner chamber. Illinois was where Lincoln had his political success.
Forty percent of Union forces came from IL.
The names of all 36,325 Illinois soldiers who died in the Vicksburg Campaign are carved on the marble walls inside the monument. Likenesses of Lincoln and Grant are carved on the front of the memorial.
We drove next to the U.S.S. Cairo monument and museum.
https://www.nps.gov/vick/u-s-s-cairo-gunboat.htm
After our tour of the U.S.S. Cairo, the vans dropped us in downtown Vicksburg. After nearly falling asleep in the Old Courtyard Museum, I caught a shuttle back to the hotel for a nap.
At 5:30, I squished from the hotel to the campground for the map meeting and supper: chicken and dumplings, pot roast, salad, and strawberry shortcake.
George and I caught a shuttle back to the hotel, where we watched a few innings of Game Three of the World Series and buenas noches, amigos.
Dizpatchez 11: Vicksburg to Ridgeland
We woke up to steady rain, and knew it was time to slog the final leg of our adventure: 52 miles from Vicksburg to Ridgeland.
It was rainy, cold and windy when we woke up. I put on my long-sleeved Polar Fleece as my base layer, then a heavy polyester cycling jacket, and then my rain jacket. We rode over to the campground (tents stations for: eating breakfast, serving breakfast, making lunch-sandwiches). Breakfast: scrambled eggs, sweet-potato hash-browns, bagels, raisin bread, tea and coffee.
George and I headed out of town in the dark and rain. Wendy and Carol caught up with us and we rode out of town together. We had to stop at every turn so George could read his printed map by his front light. But we did not get lost.
The terrain flattened out and we rolled across some deserted roads through giant cotton and corn fields, filled with water from all the rain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjLE_N1Cuc
Carol rode ahead, and then I got ahead of George and Wendy, so I stopped in the middle of the road and ate some dry raisin-bread washed down with water.
After another 20 soggy miles, I spied Assistant Director Charlotte and the lunch tent: sandwiches, Fritos, Snickers Bars, Moon Pies, M&Ms, and Gatorade. There was an excellent coffee shop that made a fantastic latte, which Adventure Cycling bought for all the riders. The barista/os at the shop were friendly and curious about us and our ride. Steam rose from the coffee cups and from our soggy Spandex.
George and I rode the remaining 12 miles together: all but the last seven on the Trace. The Trace was bad news near Ridgeland — heavy traffic, angry fire ants, and gusts that shoved us around. At last, we saw the Hyatt in the mists ahead. I’ve never been so glad to see a hotel.
We rode to the luggage truck and said our goodbyes to Kelly and her staff.
My carpool buddy John Lee rolled in about 15 minutes later and said goodbye to Phil, his riding buddy for the day.
Epilogue
Since returning to Asheville, I have read “The Half Has Never Been Told,” a book by Edward E. Baptist explaining that America’s economy was built on the backs of enslaved Africans. Enslaved persons — especially in Mississippi and the Deep South — enriched their masters, Yankees, and Europeans who invested in cotton and the financial instruments spun off from slavery.
Even today, all we whites continue to benefit from the spoils of this system in the form of generational wealth, favorable laws, and a myriad of other unseen factors.
Even if you have never had a racist thought in your head, you have benefited from a racist system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM
Give back when you are able.
