Submitted by Joyce Grizzle!

My husband Steve and I, and our sons Dale (14) and Steven (12) had an unusual Spring Break trip – we biked the entire length of the Natchez Trace! We drove to Natchez, MS, started biking from milepost 0 in Natchez and ended a week later in Nashville TN at milepost 442. We were accompanied by our good friend and fellow cycling buddy Alice, who drove our Suburban along the way, biked with us some, brought us food, warm dry clothes when needed, and much encouragement and humor along the way. The following is a recap of each day, with a summary at the end.

Day 1 – A Wet Cold Start, but thankfully in the Suburban

Saturday morning began with cold and rainy weather – perfect for loading up the car! Steve got wet (notice I just said Steve J) carrying bags and loading bikes, but we were excited to be heading out, and so glad we decided to start biking from the southern terminus and work our way north. The drive was long, and we decided against driving via the Trace as we would be seeing it up close and personal the next 8 days on the bikes. The only exception was from Jackson to Natchez, we did drive the Trace route then, so we could take a side detour to visit the Windsor Ruins.

Once we got on the Trace we noticed the marshy swamp-like terrain, with sections of loess soil deposits (formed during the Ice Age!) that created deep sunken gulleys along with sharp hills and cliffs. This terrain, covered in dead kudzu vines, and trees with Spanish Moss hanging from bare branches, had a very surreal, otherworldly look, and as it approached dusk it started getting downright creepy, the perfect setting for the Windsor Ruins. This is what’s left of a huge Antebellum Plantation estate that survived the Civil War, only to be burned to the ground by a partygoer’s cigarette in 1890. All that remains today are 23 haunting columns, with ornamental ironwork atop the columns and iron balustrades. As we walked around the ruins, with dark approaching quickly, you could almost feel the ghost of the house when it was in its glory. Quite ominous.

We arrived in Natchez and quickly found the B&B we were staying in, Linden Place (built in 1800). Only 2 miles from the Trace, it is listed as a historical home and part of the Spring Pilgrimage. Natchez MS has a Spring & Fall Pilgrimage every year, when tours of the great homes are given, period costumes are worn, and reenactments of life during the Plantation days are performed. After checking into the B&B, we left to eat dinner. We ate at the first restaurant we got to, Fat Mama’s, where we had tamales, chili, and nachos. We realized, too late, that this cuisine may have some negative repercussions during the next day’s ride. Oh well.

We retired to our rooms, which were both reported to have ghosts in them. We managed to sleep soundly in spite of them.

Day 2 – the Ride Begins! (total miles - 46)

We were served a hearty breakfast of fruit, eggs, cheese grits, biscuits, and bacon. Included in our lodging was a tour of the home, which was given by the owner, a feisty aristocratic southern matron whose family had owned the house since 1849. She had quite a story to tell of the house, talking about the “Wahr of Nawtharn Aggression” and several references to the “Yankees”. She was quite proud that the front of Linden was used as a model for the “Gone with the Wind” Plantation home Tara. We drove around afterwards and saw several other homes, went to the Mississippi River, an area called “Natchez under the Hill” and generally got the sense that this was a wonderful jewel of a town. But we had miles to ride, so back we went to Linden, to saddle up for the day.

We left Linden on bikes (Steve and son Dale on one Tandem, and me and son Steven on the other) and rode onto the Trace – with a somewhat naïve feeling of confidence and optimism, thinking, yeah, this week will be a piece of cake. Right.

It was warm, somewhat breezy but mostly southerly winds, so easy riding. We only had 46 miles to travel this first day (this included the miles off the trace to leave Linden, do sightseeing, and get to that night’s B&B). Along the way we saw the interesting loess deposits again. And oh yeah, the chili & tamales from the previous night made their presence known during the ride several times. In fact, that became a theme throughout the trip, the “California Barking Spider” as we called it, which we renamed the “Mississippi Braking Spider”. The boys thought it was quite hilarious.

We stopped at Emerald Mound, the 2nd largest Native American Ceremonial Mound in the US, built and used from 1250 A.D. to 1700 A.D. It’s huge, covers 8 acres, and you can walk to the top. We had to bike a ways off the Trace to get to it, and it had a hill down which Steven & I were somewhat nervous about – it being our first hill we would have to ‘climb’ to go back to the Trace. While resting there we ate some leftover cold tamales and the boys were incredulous about how good they tasted! Thus began, for them, the joy of how good food tastes when you are hungry after riding.

Steven & I made it up the hill just fine; in fact, little did I know then of Steven’s animal side that would begin to emerge as he stood up that first time to sprint us up the hill (takes after his father I guess).

We arrived in Port Gibson, MS to Oak Square Plantation, innkeeper Ms. Martha. The main house itself, grand from the outside, is now boarded up and no longer has tours, as it had some damage during Katrina. Our bedrooms were located in a side building, and furnished with grand four poster canopied beds. We were starving, so we headed to the trusty (??) casinos a few miles down the road in Vicksburg MS for a good ole all-you-can-eat buffet. We got special passes to ‘escort’ the boys through the casino to get to the restaurant – they got an eyeful seeing dazed people throwing away their money in the hazy smoke-filled room. Quite a contrast to the purity of being outdoors on the Trace all day! The meal was actually quite good, although we did overindulge. In fact, so much so that we were afraid to eat a mint, having flashbacks of a certain scene from Monty Python. We went back to the B&B and slept soundly – nothing like a few hours of exercise to help you sleep through the night!

Day 3 – Civil War Sites, a Ghost Town, and Fire Ants (total miles- 88)

We were served a hearty breakfast of fruit, eggs, cheese grits, biscuits, and bacon (again). The innkeeper’s daughter told us about several interesting sites in Port Gibson – the renowned Allen collection photographs in the City Hall building just down the street, and Grand Gulf Military Monument Park and Museum. We walked to City Hall and saw the photographs, all taken between 1905-1915. They were done by L.B. Allen, and are remarkable in the way they truly capture the people and life at that time. We drove to Grand Gulf, passing thought a very poor swampy area to get there, where shacks were built up on stilts, some 30-40 feet up in the air. There were many sunken-in Loess pits, one where a house had collapsed into the pit, and dead kudzu vines covering the ground and Spanish moss hanging from the trees – perfect horror movie setting. Very glad it was a bright sunny morning.

Grand Gulf turned out to be really wonderful. It’s a 400-acre landmark, and contains campgrounds, a museum, hiking trails, an observation tower you can climb up and see the Mississippi River, several restored buildings, and Fort Cobun and Fort Wade. The museum was dedicated to William Lum, an historian and preservationist, and interestingly, the late husband of Ms Martha, the innkeeper of Oak Square where we had just spent the night. We drove the extra mile out to Fort Cobun and relived the Civil War battles fought on the banks on the Mississippi River. Truly an interesting step back in time.

Once again, it was time to hit the trail, or Trace. We saddled up and took off, this day a little warmer but breezier. Mostly tail winds, but occasionally a strong cross wind would try to push you across the road. My arms, shoulder and back really felt it that night, fighting to keep the bike up all day.

Our first stop was Rocky Springs, a ghost town where only one building remains where a once thriving community lived. Dear Alice brought us lunch, deli turkey sandwiches, the best we ever ate! We met a fellow bicyclist this day, but only had a short conversation. He was a vagabond-looking character, grimy and gray, with what looked to be all his worldly belongings strapped onto his bike, an old mountain bike. He told us he was biking back to Canada.

Dale and Steven started noticing the fire ants this day, and were quite intrigued, one might even say obsessed, with them the remainder of the trip. At every stop, they scouted out the area looking for the fire ant mounds. This became another trip theme, along with the famous Mississippi Barking Spider. Hey, I guess when there’s no TV or video games, you gotta make your own entertainment.

We arrived in Raymond, MS, our final destination for the day, mid-afternoon. Plenty of time to meet the charming and delightful couple who own the B&B, Oak Hill at the Gibbs-Von Seutter House. Their house was featured on ‘If These Walls Could Talk”, and we were staying in the slave quarters directly behind the house, converted to a 2 suite cottage. We drove into Jackson MS to a local bike shop for some supplies we needed, then ate dinner at a great little Italian restaurant, Little Venice. On the drive back, after Alice & I started talking about our favorite food and restaurants in Nashville, the boys got hungry again so we had to pick up a 2nd dinner for them at Sonic – we were careful not to mention the “F” (food) word again that night.

Day 4 –Maurice, MS Craft Center, and Ross Barnett Reservoir (total miles – 120)

We were served a hearty breakfast of fruit, eggs, cheese grits, biscuits, and bacon (again - are you starting to see a theme here?). We were given a tour of the historic home, and then took off for our days’ biking adventures.

Our first stop was the Clinton Visitor’s Center, for a lunch rest stop, and Alice brought us some more wonderful Turkey sandwiches. The couple in the visitor center told us about the town we were staying in that night, Canton, where several movies were filmed, including My Dog Skip and A Time To Kill. The couple were both actually in the movie My Dog Skip as extras. They also told us about the guy we had met the day before, he had just been in there. So we passed him a little while later and stopped to talk some more. His name was Maurice, and he was from Quebec. He had started biking last summer, from Quebec to Yukon, Alaska, then all the way to the tip of Texas, Brownsville/South Padre Island. He was working his way back to Quebec. He was very nice, had some sort of muscular degenerative disease so he walked funny, but was quite intelligent.

At the northern outskirts of Jackson lies the MS Craft Center. We had a harrowing experience in trying to get to it. They had just changed the signs, redirecting Car traffic to a new exit, which we unknowingly followed by bike. The roads were really busy with cars and trucks, and we got pretty frightened biking there, in fact Steven & I ended up walking our tandem on the grass along the highway for a mile or so. By the time we got to the Craft Center, we’d wasted so much time and were in no mood to go in. We found out that if we had just stayed on the Trace another couple of miles, we would have been a few hundred feet from the back of the center, via a foot path. Oh well, chalk that one up as a lesson learned. So I can’t tell you much about it. But if you go, don’t follow the signs directing you there.

The last part of the ride that day was along the beautiful Ross Barnett Reservoir. It’s a huge man-made lake, and the Trace route takes you along side it for miles. It was getting quite blustery at this time in the afternoon, with strong wind gusts 20+ miles per hour. A few times the wind almost carried us all the way across the road. I was exhausted by the time we reached our end point on the Trace that day, I felt like I’d been wrestling alligators! It would probably be wonderful on a warm, calm summer day. A great picnic spot, and there are camping facilities with camp trailers you can rent.

We decide not to bike into the B&B as it was quite a ways from the Trace, so Alice had gone ahead and parked at a parking spot at the end point for the day, and rode her bike in to meet us and ride back to the car. She did this most days, as a matter of fact, so she got in almost half the miles we did on the trip. It was always exciting to see her coming, the boys would wave & yell. Then they’d want to race her back. Dale and Steven, by this time, were getting really strong. They were wearing us out! Especially up the hills, Steven would stand up and his little legs would start cranking, and we’d shoot ahead of everyone. The only bad side was when he’d stop before we got to the top, suddenly I’d realize I was in too high a gear, and I couldn’t change it, and just have to grunt it out. It only took a few times before that got really old.

The Heart’s Content B&B was owned by a really nice young couple, with the cutest little baby, Max. The house was absolutely gorgeous, a wonderful huge Victorian mansion. We went to eat at a very fancy (and rather expensive) place, Two Rivers, a Steak and Seafood restaurant. But the food was good, and hey, we were worth it!

Day 5 – Rain, Angel Alice, and French Camp (total miles 185)

We were served a hearty breakfast of fruit, eggs, cheese grits, biscuits, and bacon…….. NOT! Actually, the innkeepers had asked us the night before if we wanted the traditional Southern breakfast, and we said “NO!” So happily, we chowed down on Griddle Cakes, a large fruit platter, and bacon. We drove around Canton, checking out My Dog Skip’s house, and the street, before heading back to the Trace to resume riding where we left off from.

This was going to be our longest day yet, 65 miles. The day started off warm, but quickly got cooler. Suddenly, we were caught in a cold downpour, and drove about 10 miserable miles freezing cold in the rain before finally getting to a picnic shelter. Lo and behold, a few minutes later our Angel of Mercy, Alice, drove in with a warm car, dry clothes, and lunch from the French Camp cafe! We changed into dry and warmer clothing, sat in the car with the heater on and ate sandwiches on homemade bread, hot potato soup, broccoli salad and bread pudding for dessert. Bolstered up by food and warmth, and clearing skies, we took off again, only to be rained on 2 more times. At least now we were dressed properly, and could handle it. We stopped and saw Maurice once more, and this would be the last time we saw him, I guess since our mileage went up at this point in the trip, and his stayed at pretty much 40 miles or so a day. I wish now that we had given him our number for when he got into Nashville. I expect he’ll be getting here by Wednesday, so if you happen to see him on the Trace, stop & talk, and let him know we’d like to put him up for the night, give him a hot meal, or something. Otherwise, say a prayer for him , that he makes it safely back to Canada.

We made it into French Camp, which is situated right off the Trace, and rode our bikes right to the door of the cabin. We were in the Carriage House, which has a real old-timey Carriage ‘under glass’ attached to the side. The cabin was so warm and cozy, smelled of fresh cedar, a wonderful refuge for us weary wet travelers. Hot showers never felt so good! We ate dinner with the students in the dining hall, and learned about the academy from a real character, one of the house parents who has been there for 30+ years. The dinner cost a whopping $3 each (made up for the extravagance the night before). It was simple food but sooo soooo good!

The cabin had a washer & dryer in it, so we were able to wash clothes – yeah! The boys and Alice played card games until bedtime.

Day 6 – Trace Racetrack? (total mileage 255)

Yes, we did have eggs, but also the Academy’s delicious homemade bread, muffins, hash browns, sausage, ham, bacon, yogurt, fruit, cereal, just about anything you’d want. We learned more about the Academy from the innkeepers at breakfast, and it’s a heart-warming story, all that they do there. You can learn more about it on their website, please check it out, there’s just too much to try to write about.

This was going to be our longest day yet, and we were revved up for it – hey – we’d made it through the rain & everything the day before! We stopped at Jeff Busby – the only gas station on the Trace, and had a pre-lunch lunch. We met Alice at Witch Dance, where she brought us our official lunch. This time we decided we wanted comfort food, so she brought us some good ole southern fried chicken. It tasted so good going down. Too bad we kept tasting it, over & over again, the rest of the ride. We decided to stick with Turkey sandwiches for lunch the rest of the trip.

Dale & Steven decided to go into race mode this leg of the journey, so we were constantly racing to get ahead of each other. It made the miles fly, quite literally! Once again Alice met up with us, and we rode together. The plan was to ride almost into Tupelo then backtrack to where the car was parked, so we could drive from there to Houston MS where Bridges Hall Manor B&B is located. However, as we got closer to Tupelo, and the time approached 4, 4:30-ish, we noticed we weren’t the only ones racing. Seems like the locals use the Trace as their commuter highway, aka racetrack. Lines of cars were passing us at over 80 mph, some passing when oncoming traffic was coming, causing the oncoming cars to go into the grass or ditch to avoid getting hit. We quite literally feared for our lives, and pulled off to wait until the traffic died down. We did call the Trace Emergency number and reported it, but never saw a ranger on this part of the Trace (although we saw plenty in the other quieter places) – we were told they were at accidents! So, once the traffic died down a bit, we turned around a little short of what we wanted to go, to head back.

The B&B was another lovely Victorian home, well-stocked with all kinds of amenities – snack, drinks, books, magazines, and DVD’s. I took a long, hot, luxurious bath – my muscles were so tense form the death grip I had on the handlebars that last part of the journey with all the cars racing by. It was late by the time we went to eat, so we only had a few choices. We went to Pizza Hut and for the first time, had a quite unremarkable meal. Oh well.

Day 7 – Tishomingo and Colbert Ferry (total mileage 336)

Carol, our innkeeper, was a gourmet cook, so we had a wonderful breakfast featuring a fabulously decadent hashbrown casserole. We drove past Tupelo to the Tupelo Visitor Center, just north of the city (to get away from those crazy commuters!) This visitor center is the main one for the Trace, and it has all kinds of information and exhibits – very informative. We bought badges proclaiming “I Biked the Natchez Trace”, then pedaled out, only to realize Dale had forgotten his helmet! Fortunately, we were able to flag Alice down before she pealed out of there to join the rest of the drivers (just kidding). Actually, the traffic was OK at this part, which was a big relief.

Now we noticed the terrain changing quite drastically as we entered a hillier part of the Trace. Beautiful scenery, the Jamie L Whitten Bridge and Bay Springs Lake area were just gorgeous, and then into the Tishomingo National Forest. We were in the groove by this time, and it was a glorious day – perfect temps, with a tailwind almost the whole day. A great day to get in a lot of miles, which we did. The highlight was meeting Alice at Colbert Ferry, and riding with her across the Tennessee River Bridge and climbing some pretty stout hills.

We drove into Florence, to the Wood Avenue Inn, a B&B in the historic district downtown just across from the University of North Alabama campus, and walked a few blocks into town where there are some really good restaurants. We were aiming for Ricatoni’s, but passed by Rosie’s Mexican Cantina first, and those margaritas were just calling my name! Exceptionally good gourmet-ish Mexican food.

We went to bed dog tired after 2 days with lots of miles. Plus all the days accumulating were starting to take a toll, at least on me. My body ached.

Day 8 – Lost filling/crown, and Tennessee Hills begin (total mileage 391)

Breakfast this time was rather meager, a first in our experience so far. It was good, but small, not biker-size portions. Small piece of quiche, one small biscuit, and a decorative slice of orange. We found out the innkeeper had lost his wife 2 years ago, and she was the cook, so his daughter was helping out, but he was planning on selling the B&B and going to Africa to do Mission work. A very nice man. If anyone is interested, it’s a steal at $305,000. We expected it would be double that. After breakfast, we walked to the U of N Al and visited Leo III and Ulna, the two lions who are the official school mascots. There’s a wonderful sanctuary built just for them, complete with pond and waterfall. They are beautiful animals, enormous – I think Leo weighs over 600 pounds.

Saddling up this time, we weren’t as eager and anticipatory was we’d been the beginning of the trip. We knew that the hills we got acquainted with the day before continued on, and it started getting colder, with the wind shifting to a more northerly direction. Also, I was eating a menthos and pulled what I thought was a piece of hard candy shell off my tooth, that turned out to be part of my filling or crown! We stood around for the longest time looking for it on the road, before we gave up. So it was disconcerting having this big hole in my tooth – it didn’t hurt but I was afraid it would begin.

As we started out, the rise was almost imperceptible, but you noticed going slower. We had less miles to do than the previous 2 days (55 miles), but they were much harder miles. At this point we weren’t too interested in sightseeing and stopping at the interesting historical sites along the Trace, we just wanted to get there. There were lots of moments of beauty and fun, but now it was real hard work too.

We counted down to miles to 391, where Alice had the suburban waiting for us to drive us to Ridgetop B&B. At last we got there. Bob and his kids joined us there, so it was fun for Dale & Steven to finally have some kids to hang around

The drive up the road to get to Ridgetop was something else. I know a few hardy souls have biked up it – we just knew it wasn’t going to be us!!

We went into our little cabin and I took a shower (after Dale) to get the chill out of my bones. I guess I used up all the hot water, because Steve & Steven only had cold water afterwards. That made me really popular!

We drove into Hohenwold and ate at the Mexican buffet, then turned in for the night.

Day 9 – Let’s just Git-R-Done! (total mileage 445)

Kay and Bill Jones, Ridgetop B&B innkeepers, also run the Natchez Trace B&B Reservation Service. I didn’t realize this until I’d made most of the arrangements myself, but once I talked to Kay, she made the last 3 reservations for me. They are a really neat couple and have been helping travelers, and especially bikers, along the Trace a lot over the years. They have a wealth of invaluable information and a great service, which is free.

Kay makes a mighty fine breakfast too – a delicious assortment of homemade breads and muffins, a cheesy-bacony-egg casserole, lots of fruit. And lots of quantity – she knows what hungry bikers need!

I was dreading getting on the bike that last day, I think everyone was, but there was no way we were going to give up at this point. We were all rather grim, it was a cold blustery day with a fierce, at times, headwind, and those hills we all know and love so dearly. Alice started doing Trace cheers for us, and made us laugh &laugh. That got us in better spirits so we could muster up the gumption to get on the saddle again.

We had a doozy of a hill right off the bat, but at least it warmed us up. We were pretty much resigned to the hills at this point, so we just gutted them out. We didn’t care about any of the historical sites now, we knew we were close enough we could always go back (BY CAR!) and visit them if we wanted to. We were doing the countdown for every mile post we came to. Not to say, again, that it was horrible - there were still moments of jaw-dropping beauty, and bliss, just not too many. When we got to familiar territory – Water Valley, Fly exit, then Garrison Creek, it got easier. This we knew.

Bob & his kids, and Alice’s son, drove by cheering us on all along the way, which helped a lot. Alice rode her bike in from the Loveless and met up with us just after we left Garrison Creek, so we got to ride in with her. I have to say, we started to get pumped up by the time we crossed the NT Bridge on Hwy 96, and especially after milepost 440, where it’s almost all downhill from there. Unfortunately, Steve & Dale had a major chain malfunction just before the end, and didn’t get to ride in with us (they came in a few minutes later). They only had one gear at that point, but they did it!

As we approached the end, Bob was there with the Video camera, and Steven & I had the biggest grins on our faces as we turned off the Trace. We pulled into the front of the Loveless, and in my excitement, I dropped the back end of the tandem as I was stopping (the only time on the whole trip!) But Steven wasn’t hurt – just glad to get off that bike one way or the other!

We had a delicious Easter dinner there at the Loveless, telling stories, stuffing ourselves, and laughing. We’d made it.

Summary

This trip was no doubt the best one we’ve ever had as a family. And we’ve had some great trips – Europe, ski trips, Caribbean trips, etc. But this time we really worked as a team, toughed it out through hardship, and accomplished a goal we set out to do. And we saw a lot of beauty along the way

The Trace is such a treasure, right in our backyard. It is a living, breathing piece of history waiting for you to explore and discover. This thin strip of land, that stretches across 444 miles, even though its surrounded by civilization and the hustle and bustle of lives – when you get on it, and really learn about it, it transports you far far back, when the Ice Age and Glaciers formed the loess terrain, when the Early Native Americans lived on the land, when the early settlers came in and forged their way across it, enduring untold hardships, when the plantation owners came in, bringing in slaves from Africa, the adaptation of the slaves into African American culture, when the Civil War was fought, when the Industrial revolution began, and so on and so on, until today, and even the future exists in that strip of land. We experienced firsthand the history, as well as the wildlife, nature, watching and feeling the terrain change day by day. We learned a lot on the way, about life, and about each other.

Was it worth it? Oh yeah! Would I do it again? Ask me in a few months.