Natchez Trace Day 1

The first order of business today was to reassemble the trikes and load the gear we had in the car on to the trikes. As you can see all that stuff did make it on to the trikes. I'm guessing they must have weighed at least 75 pounds before we got on. The sign at the beginning of the Trace said recreational hauling only -- clearly we are engaging in hauling so it must be recreational!

It took about an hour to load the trikes and almost that long to get breakfast at the hotel restaurant so we got a late start. So far, it seems the southern pace especially applies in restaurants.

Once on the Trace we found the going pretty slow. For the first 20 miles we made frequent stops at historic sites.
We stopped to see the ruins of the Elizabeth Female Academy. Founded in 1818, it was the first women's college in Miss.

We also managed to see our 4th cemetery of the trip - a slave cemetery at the Mount Locust stand on the old trace. At least 10 enslaved persons were buried here but only one unmarked stone is present.

Mostly we rode up and down the small hills enjoying the speed of the down hill and crawling up in low gear. It did get a little easier when we put some extra air in the tires about 4 PM.

We decided to stop earlier than planned and ended the day in a B&B in Port Gibson. Tomorrow, we'll have an extra 15 miles to get back on schedules so that will mean an early start.