July 13, 2006
We have finally finished the Natchez Trace Parkway, and tomorrow we start the serious roller-coaster hills of Tennessee. Chelsea and I have made good time the last week on our riding days (we took 2 days to catch up on our organizational issues). We have ridden 65-72 days almost every day except today, when we did only 38 miles. But wow, they were some miles! We were extremely tired when we woke up, and it was very hard to get going, and then we hit our steepest hills yet. We had several hills today that were 1-2 miles long, and we had to put it in a low gear and just keep going. We have gotten a lot stronger, and the long slow hills are quite do-able now, but it’s a killer to have steep hills and steep downhills one after the other. That’s what we will be facing the next 4-5 days as we cross the Ozarks. We’ve apparently been in the foothills of the Appalachians the last few days.
In two days we will have been on the road for 6 weeks, and what an experience it has been. We have gone from being completely “plugged in” at all times, to being completely out of reach for several days at a time, sometimes as many as 5-6 days with only sporadic and unpredictable access to cell phones, and even less access to Internet. We did find out the other night that we have no roaming on our Verizon plan, so if we have signal, we can now talk. That is a huge relief. It still doesn’t mean we have signal when we want it, nor does it mean that we can get out on Internet access unless we go to a public library. That means the town has to be big enough to have a public library, and that it has reasonable hours. Many of the libraries we’ve seen have been very small one-room affairs with extremely limited hours, and likely no Internet access.
Being out of touch has been a really big shock to us, and has caused us to really look at our lives. Do we need to be that plugged in? Do we really enjoy it? Is it more of an addiction than something that is really necessary? We are seeing thousands of people in this part of the world who are living perfectly comfortable and reasonable lives, all without being so completely “in touch” all the time.
Life is so much slower in the Deep South. People talk more slowly, drive more slowly, are slower to embrace change. American flags are ubiquitous, as are Confederate flags. We even saw a Confederate flag hanging from a clothesline at a local campground just below Tupelo, frequented by locals from Tupelo. It hadn’t been washed, they were just making a statement!
Even though we have had years of experience in fitting in with local environments, and have lived in places where we were the only Americans, we still stand out like sore thumbs down here in Mississippi. We were in a small town called Iuka the day before yesterday, buying some supplies at Wal-Mart, and I felt like we wearing Halloween costumes, we got so many stares. And that’s without even opening our mouths to show our lack of a southern accent! Alex reported that several people saw him and actually backed away and went down different aisles. We have never felt that kind of thing before, even though we have lived in very small villages in central Europe, and have traveled extensively.
And you should see the looks we get when people see the van with the bicycles on it – it’s a guaranteed head-turner, especially with our magnetic signs that say Cycling Across America.
We have been made SO aware of how much we take basic things for granted, like having hot showers; clean, private bathrooms; clean and dry clothes; and sleeping in normal temperatures – it’s still 85-95 degrees at night as we crawl into our tent, with 80-90 percent humidity.
We live with bug bites, heat rash, and sunscreen residue. Washers and dryers are to be treasured. Air-conditioned bathrooms are unbelievable (we’ve only had it once). Wal-Marts are great – we can get all the varied little items we so much need, and we can even get food to cook on the camp stove – never mind gallon jugs of water at good prices.
After more than two weeks of camping every night – changing campgrounds and locations nearly every night, we are becoming something of self-styled experts on campgrounds. We could likely go into the consulting business for campground owners and operators. So far, we like the NPS (National Park Service) campgrounds for their reliability. They aren’t fancy, but they have the basics with respect to functional campsites and clean usable bathrooms (no showers), and they are free. They are pretty well maintained and are in pretty locations. They have been more bug-free than most of the private camps.
The private camps are quite a mixed bag. They often have pools and laundry rooms, but they tend to be much buggier than others. We had one north of Jackson MS that had so many ants, that we ended up spending much valuable time trying to keep them out of the tent, and Alex still woke up the next morning literally crawling with ants. Before he packed up the next morning, he spent a great deal of time doing one final ant clean up, so we wouldn’t be transporting them with us to the next location. That kind of thing gets old really fast.
The private camps are also permanent home for a number of people. Closer to the Gulf coast, they house the homeless from the hurricanes, and the workers who are relocated there for the hurricane repair work. Having permanent residents really changes the dynamics of the place. In the place above Jackson – the Ross Barnett Reservoir – there are literally dozens of married couples who are only in their late 40’s and 50’s, whose children have just left home, and they sold their houses, bought RV’s and now live in camps like this one. I’d love to know if that’s a nationwide trend, or if that is unique to this area.
Some of the great camps are the state parks. We stayed in one the last few nights along the Natchez Trace Parkway that is just amazing – Tishomingo State Park. I will definitely return, and so will Chelsea and Alex. It was huge, beautiful – with great campsites spaced out for privacy, overlooking a small lake with ducks and turtles. We had to drive about 10 minutes to get there to the pool, but they had one. Wow, did that ever feel good after a 72-mile day – hopping into a cool swimming pool! It was a first! They even had a washer and dryer, electrical hookups, water, and yes, air-conditioned bathrooms! Alex would disappear with a book in his hands and say, “see you in a while…” It was heaven just to get inside air conditioning to cool down for a few minutes.
As you may have guessed, humidity is still the biggest problem. I know I said it before, but nothing dries, and everything gets wet just from sitting. We’ll be in the tent, and awaken to find that everything is damp – our sleeping bags, our sheets, our clothes, our pajamas – and it doesn’t dry because we are never out of the humidity. I must say, that is one thing I won’t miss at all.
People are very friendly here in the South, and in general are much more willing to help out. I needed to send a fax (we don’t have a scanner), and after asking at one place in Jackson, I found out it would cost me almost $20 to send it, and I would have to drive about a half hour to get there. I was able to get it sent quickly and easily right from the Tishomingo campground for only $10. When Stacey was still with us, she and Alex ran out of gas at the campground before coming back to get us. They flagged down one couple who listened to the story and said they would see what they could do, and then left. Meanwhile, thinking that couple would never come back, they flagged down another couple. Those folks took Alex and Stacey back into the campground – several miles, then 10 miles down the road to get a gas can, then to the gas station, then back the 10 miles to the car. When they got back to the car, they discovered that the first couple had gone and bought a new gas can, had used an old one, and had gone to fill both of them with gas, leaving them both at the car.
We are in our first motel tonight in over two weeks, and we are thoroughly enjoying the relief from humidity. We have found a Laundromat, and have clean clothes that will probably dry by tomorrow! We will probably sleep really well tonight (a real bed!), and we want to get up and get going early, so we can beat some of the heat and humidity. We’d like to keep going long enough to make the Loretta Lynn campground – about 50 miles. We have agreed that we would stop whenever we become really tired, as we have discovered that getting overtired really impacts us for days.
I’m not sure what to say about when we will write again, but we will certainly try to do it as often as possible. We have so many great stories that we would love to tell, and we just need the time and energy to write when we get to the campgrounds. Right now, that pales next to the need for food, showers, rest, and getting ready for the next day. But there’s always hope…and we are hoping that as we get through the Ozarks and get stronger and stronger, that we will have more time at the end of each day.
We are continuing to take photos, and we are taking the time to look at as many areas near our route as we can. We are looking at the real estate in every area, and are taking notes. We haven’t had time to do much in the way of interviews yet, but we have names and phone numbers, and will do it as we get the time.
Until then, picture us cycling up those hills!