Natchez Trace Day 5 & 6

Too tired to blog tonight.

We're in a nice RV campground in Tupelo. Tomorrow we might check out the Elvis birthplace museum.
-- updated --

Tupelo was scheduled to be our north-eastern most point in the tour. We planned a relatively short day's ride both going to and coming from Tupelo to allow time for a little Elvis sight-seeing. Things didn't work out that way.

First, we modified our itinerary and made the day's ride to Tupelo longer - changing it from a 32 mile day to a 63 mile day. Riding 63 miles meant that we reached the Tupelo area around 3 PM. If traffic is any indication, the Tupelo economy must be booming! We rode for the next 2 hours in terrifying traffic. It was clear that the good folk of Tupelo use the Trace as a bypass highway and don't really appreciate bicycles blocking their way. Their was one kind woman who drove slowly behind us for a while and we think she was blocking traffic for us.

After considering renting a truck to haul the trikes back to Natchez, we decided instead to get out of town as soon as rush hour was over the next morning and head back to the friendlier territory south.

Day 6

We stopped at the Parkway Visitor Center on our way out of town. They told us the town traffic was worse than the trace traffic -- reinforcing our decision to forgo the Elvis museum. It just wasn't worth risking our lives.

While at the Visitor Center, we met a  man who is on an epic bike tour including Central, South and North America. He's planning to go to southern Argentina and back north to
Alaska. Check his blog at hoppyscycle.blogspot.co.uk. You might find a picture of us there.  Here's our photo from his blog

The most impressive scenery of the day was the miles and miles (6+) of damage from the April 2011 tornado near Mathiston. The devastation was incredible. Huge trees were twisted and broken like toothpicks. Some trees were standing but all their bark was stripped off. There were a few houses that looked to have been clearly in the paths of these huge tornadoes that must have been rebuilt already.

We ended the day with supper at the Trace-way Restaurant and a room at the Mathiston Motel. We very much enjoyed visiting Mathiston. The Trace-way is an archetypical small town cafe with great food and staff. We ate there four times and always there was someone who wanted to talk about the trikes and our trip. The motel is run by an Indian gentleman who told us Mississippi has the highest rate of obesity and diabetes in the US but that he has been in Mississippi for 30 years and is not obese because he is a vegetarian. The Mathiston Motel isn't the finest establishment we've stayed in but it is a big part of why Mathiston is our favorite town for the trip.