The Trace

What a beautiful place to ride -- the Natchez Trace. It meanders for 444 miles from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. The parkway that now connects these cities is part of the National Park system, and it follows the trail that many boat captains would take in the late 1700s and early 1800s after steering their boats down the Mississippi. They sold the boats for lumber and walked back home along this corridor. They might not have been the first to use this path, since mounds dating back 2000 years are also found along the route.

This past Saturday a fully-supported century from Ridgeland was held on the Trace. The key to riding on this smooth, flat parkway is the support. Many hot months ago we drove out to Tupelo to ride the Trace, unsupported. Little did we know just how unsupported that would be. With a couple of granola bars and two bottles of water, you figure you can make it 30 or 40 miles, find a gas station or something, and refuel. However, gas stations and convenience stores are not to be found along this road. What we did find was a small rest stop about 30 miles into our planned century that provided us water, a good thing to have when it's 95 degrees outside. Turning around at 50 miles, we realized there wasn't much chance of coming upon a store or lone vending machine sitting on the side of the road. Getting desperate, hungry, and a bit hallucinatory, we pulled over at each side road and scenic view pull-off, just in case. JUST IN CASE. Finally, our savior came in the form of a manned hut full of parkway information and a COKE MACHINE! Of course it wouldn't take our dollar bills, but we had enough change to buy ourselves the most fantastic life nourishment ever to enter our mouths. We made it back to Tupelo on those 300 calories of coke and lived to tell the tale. Barely.

This weekend's ride on the Trace included cool temperatures, lots of riders to draft, and SAG stops every 12 miles. It also included some swirling winds, slivers of sunburned skin, and too many chocolate chip cookies.

The picture posted above is from Heatwave Triathlon, an early June, almost-Olympic-distance, non-draft-legal (honestly!) race on this same part of the Trace, that features fantastic, one-of-a-kind awards of local handpainted pottery. Another notable point of interest is the lake at which Heatwave takes place, Ross Barnett Resevoir. Two years ago the friend who I drove down with filled our drive with stories of the lake, in particular the latest story she'd read in the Commercial Appeal. It seems that in 2006 they legalized the hunting of alligators at the Resevoir, since the population had grown too large and it was time to start controlling it. Only later did I find out that the head count was not 300 alligators, as she'd told me, but rather 3000 alligators. The number of those that were over the 12-foot mark had increased enough that it was starting to become a threat to the pets of the residents living on the lake. What about the triathletes in the water with them?! Needless to say, I had two really hard, anxiety-filled swims at that race, if not fast times. And yes, I went back a second time even after knowing the gator population there is twice that of the my entire college campus. Most of my bike ride is filled with scanning the banks of the lake for funny lumps and bumps and eyes protruding from the water's surface. But I haven't yet seen one, so my search isn't over. I'm sure I'll be going back again in June.

The alligator photo is taken from the Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks website. This was a 9-footer they've observed several times at RBR (he's been tagged), and this photo was taken on March 30th of this year. I think he could easily swallow me whole.