The tour I signed up for was not the tour I ended up with. The itinerary posted on the Adventure Cycling website called for riders to meet in Nashville. On the first day, we'd be driven by van for 9 hours to Natchez, Mississippi. The tour would involve seven days of riding between 48 and 82 miles per day. The tour would finish in Nashville after 456 miles.

Nashville is a 10-hour drive from my house, a 1-day drive on either end of the tour. I found the simplicity of the logistics to be appealing.

Then I received the tour information from the tour leader. I was surprised to learn that this material included a new itinerary. Instead of starting in Nashville, the riders would meet in Jackson, Mississippi and take a 2-hour shuttle ride to Natchez. The rationale for the change was that previous participants apparently didn't much enjoy starting their vacation with a 9-hour van ride. Jackson is 15 hours by car from my home. Of course, the change meant that I would get to spend 2 days driving for 15 hours to get to Jackson. 

Yeah, well. 

To add insult to injury, Adventure Cycling "added" an optional shuttle ride from the finish in Nashville back to Jackson for an addition $75. 

Yeah, well again. 

The new itinerary had different daily mileages too, ranging from 49 miles to 90 miles.  The information packet warned that the van was not a sag vehicle for the road weary. 

Suck it up, buttercup. 

Normally, I start my bike tours in mid-May. This being a month earlier, I needed to up my spring riding game. From mid-February to the end of March I rode over 1,000 miles. My long rides increased gradually from 40 to 78 miles. I chose my routes with an emphasis on hills since the last day of the tour would be hilly.  It was unusually cold and windy in the mid-Atlantic so these rides were quite strenuous. 

Ready as I would ever be, I put The Mule on the back of my Honda Accord and headed south.