August 3, 2017
to Tishomingo State Park: Long and short miles
“That was a long mile” Rachel says after the first couple of miles. Forever the optimist, Patrick later then says, “That was a short mile”, this continues for most of the day.
Another early start, another beautiful morning. The sun is just rising, it is surprisingly cool and the humidity is not bad. Not a cloud in the sky though so it will get hot. The campground is only a couple of hundred yards off the Trace, so we are clicking off the miles again soon. It is only about 8 miles to Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis. Many commuters are using the trace to circumvent busier arterial roads, and traffic gets quiet heavy for a while. We pass by most of Tupelo and first head to the Visitor Center and Park Headquarters. They are open and we have a nice visit with one of the park volunteers. We all heard about the guy recently who purposely hit at least one cyclist on the Trace and sped off. We ask her about it but she is not allowed to really talk about it. She can confirm though that they arrested the guy, and since it happened in a National Park that he will be tried in federal court. We’ll see what comes of it.
When we enter the Visitors Center, the ranger asks us how we are liking cycling the Trace. After Patrick mentioned we had a complaint about the situation at Rocky Springs CG, and about the eighteen wheelers we saw on the Trace yesterday, and we see one more today, we are given a form to complete. Donna in Kosciusko had called this in about Rocky Springs to the headquarters and the problem had already been fixed.
From the visitor center we leave the Trace and ride about a mile to a long-stretched shopping area. There is a McDonald's: food and WiFi. Rachel hikes across the huge parking lot to go shopping at Walmart, while Patrick takes advantage of the internet to upload the last four days to the journal. We shop for three days of cycling and two evening dinners. Panniers full again, we top off the fuel bottle with a whole 35 cents of gasoline, and head back for the Trace. We still have about 40 miles to go today, and as we were warned, the roads get hillier again. It remains a beautiful ride, at one point we see a huge field with three Indian Mounds, ancient burial places and stop at the picnic area for lunch.
The reason for today’s headline is the mile-markers along the Trace. They sure don’t seem to be spaced evenly, some miles just fly by, while others take forever.
Tishomingo is a nice State Park, just a little off the Trace. All camping on the Trace is free, but this is 14 dollars with Rachel’s senior citizen discount. For that though we get a nice site on the lake and hot showers in an air-conditioned bathhouse. We are camped on a small man-made lake and watch the geese and cranes for the afternoon.
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Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 36,591 km (22,723 miles)
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