Monday, Labor Day, we set off early from Caldwell, cruising I-80 across the state and into Utah. Near Tremonton, two white cars zipped by us, dodging in and out of traffic. As happens to us often when traveling through this area, the rains came in sheets. Soon, traffic backed up to a walk near Brigham City. Twenty minutes later, we passed the two white cars, both being loaded on wreckers. We turned east at Ogden in spotty rain, climbing over the Wasatch Mountains into Wyoming, putting in for the night at a truck stop in Green River.
Tuesday, we pushed across Wyoming, over the Continental Divide and into smoky, hazy Nebraska, cruising between truck speed and car speed, ending our day in North Platte with a now-routine refuel and bed down in a parking lot. Wednesday, get up and do it again, chasing trucks and being chased by cars through Nebraska and briefly into Iowa, before heading south to Missouri. A nice lady at the Missouri welcome center rest stop said it was OK to stay overnight at rest stops, especially the spacious welcome center parking lots, but we pressed on through the Kansas City beltway and the I-70 rush hour traffic to Boonville for our usual gas up and sleepover.
Thursday, we took the van in to the Boonville Ford dealer for its 35000-mile oil change, then a short drive over the Missouri River to the settlement of McBaine, where we unloaded the bicycle and rode 15 km upriver on the Katy Trail State Park rail trail to Rocheport, where we chatted with two other tandem couples, one from Virginia, and the other from Michigan, before riding through the one and only tunnel on the 240-mile long Katy Trail and tracing our way back to the van. We loaded our bike, covered in limestone dust from the trail, into the van and headed south to Rolla, on I-44, for the night at yet another truck stop.
Friday was a true touring vacation day, as we drove slowly down the scenic byways through the Mark Twain National Forest and the Ozark National Riverways through Missouri. We had lunch at the Black River Overlook in Pocahontas, Arkansas. We stopped at Lake Poinsett State Park in Arkansas to wash down and lube the bicycle, and later at Village Creek State Park for dinner, after a bit of GPS craziness that sent us off the end of the paved highway into a maze of steep gravel roads, from which we eventually turned around and retraced our steps back to a paved route to the park. Sunset found us at yet another truck stop, in Palestine (Pal-e-STEEN).
Saturday, we left early again and headed south to the Mississippi River State Park, for a slow drive on the ridge parkway to West Helena, then across the Mississippi River to Mississippi Hwy 1, which we followed through the fertile and flat river-bottom lands, then finally inland, picking up the Natchez Trace Parkway near Utica. We stopped in mid-afternoon at the Rocky Springs Campground, the only campground on the Parkway, for a relaxing short day and visits with other campers in this quiet and free campground.
Sunday morning, we drove up to the Rocky Springs townsite, which was closed off because of trail bridge decay, but toured the still-active church and cemetery. The town flourished in the early 19th century until the Trace became less of a highway with the advent of steamboat traffic on the rivers. Then, the spring for which the town was named dried up. The yellow fever epidemic of 1887 spelled the end for the once-prosperous town. We continued down the Parkway toward Natchez, stopping at the Sunken Trace, the only part of the original path still preserved, worn down from centuries of foot travel. We also stopped at Mount Locust, the only inn still standing on the Trace, a humble house, which has been refurnished with period fixtures. The Elizabeth Female Academy, the first women’s college in America, from 1811 to 1842, stands in ruins near Washington, MS, the first capital of Mississippi, closing when the capitol moved to Jackson. One brick wall remains of the facility.
Leaving the Trace, we journeyed across Mississippi, down the east edge of Louisiana, and across the Mississippi Gulf Shore. In the late 1970s, I had spent a week in Pascagoula at Ingalls shipyard, working on a computer problem aboard the Navy’s newest Marine assault ship, USS Peleliu, LHA-5. It had been a stressful week, with resentment from the shipyard workers, ship’s crew, and the local townspeople, because I was an outsider, and the computer problems were delaying delivery of the ship to the U.S. Navy. I managed to pinpoint the problem, which was neither the fault of the shipyard or the crew, but a factory problem. A factory team was dispatched, and I was finally able to escape this traumatic point in my career.
From that point on, I strove to avoid returning to Mississippi at all cost. But, here we were. Modern-day Pascagoula was unrecognizable: the shipyard is now busy building off-shore drilling platforms instead of Navy ships, and the two-lane highway is now four lanes through a commercial strip.
Flush with old, unpleasant memories, we quickly drove into Alabama, through the Mobile tunnel, and across the bay, where we put in for the night at yet another truck stop, and the first refueling since Arkansas. The next leg will take us along the coast of the Florida Panhandle and down to Orlando for a few days visit with our niece and her husband.
