Started out late, I think around 9:15 am and with in a few miles of riding, I forgot to visit the Meriwether Lewis site/memorial back at the campground. Maybe next time I wont be in such a hurry and remember to visit these historic sites. It was a little cool in the morning had a jacket for the first 20 miles, stripped that off and by the time we got to the Alabama-Tennessee boarder I was wearing a short sleeve cycling shirt. I had a tough time keeping up with George and Bill.
George is 67 year old retired high school teacher who started cycling 8 years ago and Bill just turned 60 and has been cycling all his life and I have been cycling on and off in the past 35 years, but never really seriously. These guys have been doing Brevets/Randonneuring in the past few years. The definition of a Brevet are 200, 400, 600 all the way up to 12000 Km events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_(cycling) . The headwinds were picking up and I was slowing down where even drafting was difficult, so Bill and George powered off into high gear, I told them it was OK to leave me in the dust.
Now I'm able to take my time and not worry about keeping up with them. If I break another spoke, i should have no problems fixing it because I found my large hex key insert for the Cassette removal tool. So things are going OK, a little fatigued from the headwinds while crossing over the Tennessee river bridge, so I take a 20 minute break at Colbert Ferry. Now I'm thinking that I wish we could have stayed here for the night.
http://www.nps.gov/natr/colbert-ferry-bicycle-only-campground.htm
Instead we agreed that we all would end up of biking 82 miles to Tishomingo State Park.
http://www.mdwfp.com/parks-destinations/ms-state-parks/tishomingo.aspx .
Tishomingo sounds like more of a dance than a park. Back on the bike for another 23 miles to Tishomingo, 15 miles later, I hear ping from my rear wheel, spoke broke just as I was crossing the Mississippi State Line. I pull over at the rest area and replaced the spoke, which was on the freewheel side, so it took me about a half hour to change. I'm only about 7 miles from the campsite and now it was 6:45 pm and it's getting dark. I turn on my headlight, taillight flasher and finally pull into the park around 7:25 pm it's dark while shinning my lights onto campsites looking for reflective material from George or Bill's bikes, I found the site which was few sites past the bathroom. I set up my tent, cook dinner, then take a warm shower, no hot water was coming out of the pipes, but it sure beats having a cold shower. It will be a cool night, supposed to get down in the low 40's.
The only thing lacking so far on this tour was cold beer at the end of a day's ride, the problem is the NTP really never goes through many cities, so access to beer and other comforts are limited.
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| State Line Crossing (Today is St. Patricks Day so I have my Green) Also this is the first time I have ever crossed into 3 states in one day on a bike. |
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| Spring is around the corner hopefully Natchez, MS will be blooming |
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| Getting on the parkway |
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| Tishomingo in 82 miles |
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